Banks Techni-Cooler: Unlock Power in Your 5.9L Cummins

00:01 today Ian and Jessie begin a two-part
00:04 bill that’ll turn this stock diesel
00:06 pickup into a baja contender clucks the
00:09 sport desert series isn’t
00:11 all about trophy trucks we’ll check out
00:13 the druggies
00:14 Street 4×4 starts now
00:29 welcome to Xtreme 4×4 now when you tell
00:32 someone you own a truck you normally
00:34 have to qualify it is it a two-wheel
00:35 drive or a four-wheel drive
00:37 are you a mall cruiser or a hardcore
00:39 trail guy but either way you usually end
00:42 up as part of a group those groups are
00:44 pretty solid if you’re in a power you
00:46 tend to be a big displacement gas engine
00:48 kind of guy and if you’re in a towing a
00:50 torque you typically end up being a
00:51 diesel guy now what if I tell you that
00:53 we could get 500 horse and a thousand
00:56 foot-pounds of torque out of a diesel
00:57 and then turn that thing into a West
00:59 Coast style Baja truck that’s so
01:01 reliable you could actually drive it to
01:03 the race compete in the race and then
01:06 drive the truck home it was actually
01:08 done this is the bank Sidewinder
01:10 development truck which raced in the
01:12 Baja 1000 drove to the race competed and
01:16 then drove home no trailer no nothing
01:19 and in its first year it finished third
01:21 in the stock full class we’re gonna
01:23 build that same truck today here at
01:25 Xtreme we’re gonna start with this 2005
01:29 05 Dodge Cummins Turbo Diesel dodge Cummins turbo diesel then we are going to add the banks big Hoss power system a variable geometry turbo some electronic goodies and a new torque converter everything we installed today is available from banks tail banks is also planning to start building turnkey
01:51 trucks like this prototype with this package on them to make them the
01:55 Banks Sidewinder All-Terrain ultimate in diesel dual purpose truck called the Sidewinder all-terrain that’s a pretty killer truck and we’re gonna turn this truck into that truck yes but in red the first thing I have to do is pull this transmission out so can you help me wrestle this transfer case
02:10 down sorry I’m still on night duty your gloves in we thought this would happen so I made sure somebody was around to help out with the heavy work hey Ian how’s it going going all right there’s your gloves no free rides here at extreme everyone’s a worker all right let’s do this perfect thanks Gil
02:45 thanks for doing my job for me oh no problem now what is it that led you into diesel performance in the first place well I’ve been turbocharging for 46 years but back in 82 I got this land speed record project with Pontiac and they gave me a couple of GMC dually pickup with diesels
03:02 in them there wasn’t enough power they needed air flow so I turbocharged them and that’s what leads us into this package here yeah this is primarily an airflow package it’s intended to to reduce restriction on the intake side with this ram air set up then we amp up
03:19 the turbocharger and get more boost out of it to give us more airflow once we’ve got that we run it through low restriction ducting in this Inlet piece and this huge intercooler which reduces the air temperature gives you more oxygen into the engine on the exhaust
03:36 side we run a four-inch dual exhaust and that takes it out to the world when we’re done we’ve got about a 30 to 40 percent horsepower advantage at the same exhaust gas temperature isn’t with a tuner alone that gives us 500 horsepower and a thousand pound-feet of torque in this
03:55 truck with all the power we’re gonna get in that kit we’re gonna go ahead and replace this torque converter you can see Dodge welds these little feet on the converter housing to mount it to the flywheel and with all that power in the engine you can actually bend those feet
04:09 over and distress this plate causing premature clutch failure or even converter failure now banks has that figured out by building a completely billet housing and machining the mounting holes into the plate now inside that housing you’re gonna find a multiple disc clutch setup which is
04:26 ideal for this situation because when you’re building a lot of power in an engine the clutch can actually slip at a certain horsepower all we got to do is slip it in this is a great upgrade for any Dodge truck that seems serious duty with the transmission reinstalled we’ll remove
04:46 the factory exhaust before starting under the foot I’m gonna pull the exhaust manifold and the factory turbo that cool Sidewinder all-terrain pickup truck we saw earlier is going to come in Ford Chevy and dodge variations the Ford and Chevy come from the factory with a
05:05 variable geometry turbo that dodge doesn’t so we’re gonna pull this factory turbo off and replace it with a VG turbo that’s made by Gale banks now you may ask yourself what is a VG turbo and who better to explain it to you than the guy who built the one going on this truck so
05:24 Gale would you start off by telling us exactly how a turbo works well the exhaust gas leaving the engine enters this exhaust manifold take it takes all the exhaust to a common point and there you mount the turbine part of the turbocharger exhaust gas enters the turbine turns a turbine wheel and and
05:45 leaves and goes out to the world through the outlet on a common shaft is a compressor and the compressor wheel
05:53 draws air in through the air cleaner pressurizes it and sends it off to the engine so that’s essentially how the turbocharger works now I understand that there’s something different about this particular model right yeah this is a banks garrett hybrid turbo this is a prototype this whole thing is a
06:14 prototype essentially the garrett section in the middle controls a set of vanes that change the velocity going into the turbine wheel of the exhaust gas much like squeezing down a garden hose you don’t have any more water flow but the velocity goes up coming out so
06:34 the same thing happens in here at low speeds were a big 500 horse capable turbo like this would be sluggish this one by changing the velocity it just comes out of the hole like you can’t believe so that’s essentially what the variable geometry section is all about how do you control its drive
06:53 because there’s that’s what’s good about this right yeah well well this is controlled by a microprocessor which is in this turbo controller what we call the shapeshifter turbo control and it picks up signals from our speed loader engine management system that tell it
07:10 the speed of the engine the position of the throttle and also the boost based on that information we make a determination of how to move these veins inside to
07:23 vary the velocity and consequently the amount of boost versus engine speed so if you go down on the pedal real fast it closes up real fast and speeds it up so there is no turbo lag there’s virtually no turbo lag you have never felt a Cummins come out of the hole like it
07:41 will with this dream come true sure is up next half truck half buggy and fully
07:49 capable of a hundred and thirty in the deserts will meet Wayne Lugo and his Truckee when Xtreme 4×4 continues welcome back to Xtreme when it comes to desert racing score International is one of the world’s premier offer it’s series and with classes ranging from pro trucks
08:15 to VW’s sport Utes and even full-sized stock like our Sidewinder any enthusiasts can get in on the action while the main event at the score Laughlin Desert Challenge for million dollar trophy trucks they’re not the
08:33 only ones kicking up some desert dust anyone that wants to come out and build a vehicle we have a class for it you know I don’t know any other form of Motorsports that you could do this and this is racing I mean this is all the fun a guy could have in a lifetime this
08:49 is an ee ride with no restrictions that class one unlimited our score Racing’s fantasy come true class where Wayne Lugo can rip it up what’s the thrill of chasing down people it’s the thrill of the driving is a thrill the speed and it’s just a little survival we’re talking about 130 miles an hour over dirt it takes some real
09:19 cojones to get up here and do what these guys do doing it from the cockpit of a banks power truck we took a truck all the technology of a truck but we skinned it like a buggy you take a truck and a buggy you slam the two words together and you get a truggy everything here is a one-off piece of
09:36 equipment motors in the front of 447 cubic inch Ford v8 800 horsepower 7-hour foot-pounds of torque red lines at about 70 400 rpm it’s pretty impressive when you can sit in this seat and and be able to put the hammer down for that for that kind of speed it always wants to get out of
09:55 control I mean the horsepower is your friend because you can drive through problem or horsepower is your we’re sticking to me because it puts you right into every problem you that’s the hole right there just slamming the gear just cool and just just just standing on it
10:10 to win he’s got to stand on it for 244 mile races when the green flag dropped you’ve got to focus on one thing it’s gas and braking and shifting and you have how fast can I get in that turn weirder where’s my breaking point where do I get and how fast my accelerate all
10:28 that power wanes chuggy needs the suspension to handle it if you go back the old school when they didn’t have a shock technology they didn’t have it so you had to drive through the bumps and we were driving through the bump it’s slower the fastest way is over the top
10:50 we’ll travel that’s what the sport is all about this right here that gives that 20 inch to travel all the way drip down so when we’re going over the bumps we’re coming off the jumps that suspensions fallen and the whole the whole point is how fast can it fall to touch the ground because the more time the wheel has contact with the ground
11:07 the faster we can drive it and so when it’s down on the ground level you’ll notice the arm control arms are flat to slightly up and this is when it’s fully drooped out same thing for the rear end it runs about 32 inches of rear travel for us it was a very safe number the
11:21 u-joints are never in a position where the pinch or bind and it gives the truck lots of time when you’re skipping over the whoops the rear end just Falls the axles big 44 spline axles 10 inch ring and pinion gears all the biggest stuff that they can make it’s all special
11:35 built you don’t go in your normal parts shop and buy them and even from brakes they’re all CNC brakes four piston brakes 17 inch rotors I mean everything on here is big you’re gonna build a vehicle like this it’s gonna be a quarter million bucks I tell you the cheapest part was to build it to
11:51 maintain it well that’s a whole nother story after all that preparation comes down to race day whatever happens both races mother nature proved tougher than Mughals truggy caught a lot of guys passed a lot of guys as best as I could pass them I was stuck with flat tires so
12:17 the nature and passed me by the end of the day I got two flats simultaneously we only carry one spare tire you’re stranded driving our tires right here we had a great weekend really really have the truck borne our expectations today and we’ll just regroup the guys get
12:33 ready do it again suppose you could say that Gale banks is all about racing whether it’s land speed records or desert racing huh and then he takes all the information he gets off that racetrack and puts it into those power systems and he puts on the street check
12:45 back after the break because we’re gonna be installing a turbo got an idea for the show drop us a line at Xtreme 4×4 tv.com [Music]
13:07 welcome back to Xtreme 4×4 I thought that you saw running through a California basin is the same dodge that went to the Baja 1000 took third in its class and drove home well today we’re building our own version of that Sidewinder all-terrain this is no mall cruiser this is a high-performance
13:28 machine that is just as happy off the road as it is on the road now we’ve already replaced the torque converter pulled the exhaust the factory manifold in the turbo now I’m going to start installing the big Hoss kit the first thing to go in is a new intercooler we’re gonna twist this a/c
13:44 condenser out of the way so the system stays closed way do you see the difference between the stock piece and the new one for banks you can tell this by looking at these that the new one is going to flow a lot more air than the stock one and if you look at the core
14:00 you can tell that it’s gonna cool that air even more and that’s the secret to the bank’s kit flow a lot of air cooler to keep it dense and match it to the fuel that’s going to give you an acceptable exhaust gas temperature and a whole lot of power after the new intercooler I’ll remove
14:23 the factory air inlet install the new gaskets on both sides of the heater housing position the bank’s high ram into place on the intake install the new studs and slip in the new boots tube with the new manifold bolted up to the block we’re ready to slip in that VG turbo now tolerance is in here are
14:45 pretty tight because that new turbo body is a lot larger than the stock unit Jesse’s going to show you the difference you can see that the exhaust Inlet portion of the stock turbo is a lot smaller than the new turbo we got from banks that’s gonna cause clearance issues with the block
15:00 but the guys that banks thought ahead but a lot of engineering into this package if you put these two Allen bolts as per their instructions underneath the exhaust manifold in place of the hex bolts you put on the top side you’ll gain three millimeters of clearance for
15:16 that turbo to fit that’s how tight these things fit in after the turbo is bolted to the new exhaust manifold install the oil feed line and then put in the boost to all right now the last thing to be installed under the hood is this Bank shapeshifter turbo controller this
15:45 little guy will be working hand-in-hand with our six-gun tuner that we’ll be installing later to control the air flow from the turbo now this is programmed at banks to adjust the veins inside the variable geometry turbo to give us optimum boost to our entire rpm cycle
16:02 first mount the controller to the fuse box lid hook up the ground wire and the power wire is fed from the fuse box this set of wires will go through an existing hole in the firewall to connect with our six gun tuner the remaining wires go straight to the turbo will wrap
16:23 up the engine compartment installed with the airbox for more information on anything you’ve seen today mine Xtreme 4×4 tv.com welcome back to Xtreme 4×4 money in the banks is coming along ever so smoothly all we have to do is a couple more things but right now it’s time for us to get this huge
16:49 exhaust on you will pre fit all the exhaust components reuse the factory catalytic converter and once the tailpipes are at a good height the heart of this massive four inch exhaust is this monster muffler I mean we just put on a gigantic turbo so we need to open
17:23 up the exhaust to let this baby breathe now we can lower down get inside and put on that six-gun tuner [Music] the truck code from in the hoist we can get into the cabins or do the electrical now we’re gonna be installing a bank six-gun tuner and the six-gun tutor
17:53 registers input from the engine sensors the manifold absolute pressure sensor the fuel rail pressure sensor the camshaft and crankshaft position sensor and the torque converter clutch solenoid this will take all the information from those sensors and produce new fuel and
18:10 timing maps for the diesel engine it’ll also communicate with the shape shifter turbo controller that Jessi installed earlier to control that VG turbo the shape shifter turbo requires some modifications to the six-gun tuner install the t-top into the six-gun wiring harness then secure the box under
18:27 the dash and plug in all the connectors that about wraps up the power portion of our Sidewinder project you may have noticed I didn’t install the 6 position selector switch that six-gun that’s because we have a super cool way to adjust the power output from this guy
18:44 and then we’re gonna be dealing with wheels entire suspension and then we get to take it out and play but all that’s next week so we’ll see you that