Banks ACE Shop Floor Layout Changes
Special Room Is Built For New Diesel Injector Test Bench. Ultra high pressure electronically-controlled fuel injection using a “common rail” fuel system is the prime reason that
November 13, 2009
Designs and Designers
With large numbers of new Banks Power products coming on line annually and a like number of very short-run specialized components needed for the BankSpeed racing program,
October 23, 2009
The Gearhead Bash
(From the Archives – 07.26.02)
For many years, since establishing their Shady Grove Farm in Bradbury, California, Gale and family have held a large Christmas party for relatives, friends, co-workers, and associates. Since many of these people tended to be gearheads of one type or another, they’d arrive in a broad variety of interesting vehicles.
May 12, 2009
Rampage Jackson’s ’08 Ford
Mixed martial arts hero, Rampage Jackson, took his ‘08 Ford Super Duty to Banks Engineering and had it fully worked over from head to tail. QUINTON “RAMPAGE”
May 31, 2008
Accelerated Breathing or Product Evolution
You know the feeling when you have a cold and your nose is all plugged and it’s a doggone burden to even breathe? Well, I imagine that is kinda how your vehicle must feel day after day with the stock intake and exhaust system that it was born with. It doesn’t stop there, because if it’s turbocharged, it just might have a terribly restrictive intercooler to boot. With all of the backup in airflow, it’s a wonder your vehicle even moves, and with you behind the wheel demanding more performance to move around that Sunday driver in front of you, the situation is only exasperated
May 29, 2008
Fuel-injected childhood dreams
It’s Friday, but not an ordinary Friday by any means. It’s actually a day that I have waited for most of my life. I’ve never kept it a secret that I’m somewhat of a nerd and a child at heart. Today, both of those traits are in for a treat as I use up a half day of vacation and split work early to catch a showing of Speed Racer! Yep, the show that gave me the automotive bug when I was just four years old is finally a movie!
May 9, 2008
What’s my motivation? or Trucking in Tampa
For the plane ride back, I’ve got to remember to at least try for a window seat. It was bad enough being the middle child in my family, but it was torture being in the middle on a plane ride across the country. Heck, I even ran out of mints! At least sitting by the window on the plane trip back I can spend the hours looking for the gremlin that crawls on the wing and jacks around with the engine. I’m going to get that little jerk some day! Some day!
Anyways…
May 6, 2008
The Re-Education of a “Gearhead”
Last Friday (really my “first day on the job”, even though I had only come in to fill out some employment papers), I was invited to sit in on meeting with Gale Banks and a number of members of the engineering staff.
My (just-bestowed an hour earlier) title is the lofty “Corporate Publicist” and so, I was pleased to be asked to be a part of the action so soon after signing on with the company.
September 20, 2007
I’m ready for my close-up or Alpha Male sighting
Hollywood is at it again: they’re filming a movie in my neighborhood, but down the street from me. So close, yet so far away. The movie and television companies always seem to do this to me… they tease me knowing full well that I was meant to be immortalized on screen. I personally think that they’re afraid of my vast talent. I mean, why else would I always get picked from the audience at one of those shows at Universal Studios? I do a mean falling off a building, and I was even a “Red Shirt” fighting a Klingon in a Star Trek stage show once. I have the VHS tape to prove it.
August 23, 2007
Customer Q&A #2 (with Peter Treydte, Banks’ Director of Technical Communication)
QUESTION #2:
My situation is that I don’t have a problem with my power output once the engine downshifts and the RPM’s go up, but I want more power low down (1750 RPM) so that the engine does not have to down shift as often (and use more fuel). (One thing that I have noticed is that it downshifts when the turbo boost reaches 20 psi., is there any way to raise that figure?) This is why I am looking for figures in that range, apples and apples you know, which I understand you are unable to provide. I guess the factory figures that show lower power curves must be done on an engine dyno, instead of a chassis dyno. Speaking of the figures with a manual transmission, at least that would provide a reference point. Right now I am in the “dark”, so to speak…
August 23, 2006