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Greg Alberella sitting inside his Work Wrenchz truck acting as Fake "Gale Banks"
Banks Insider Banks Racing iDash 

Fake “Gale Banks” helps RAM 5.9L go faster

2005 RAM 5.9 puts down great numbers at UCC thanks to iDash and fake “Gale Banks.”

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Like many racers, Greg Alberalla has gauges in his truck for monitoring various vital temps, pressures, and speeds. Unfortunately, monitoring the gauges during a race and reviewing the data after a race is a challenge. In his latest vlog, the RAM fanatic admitted he doesn’t even look at the gauges while speeding down the track. The only way to know what the gauges are displaying during the race is to record them with a GoPro and watch the playback. Silly, right?

Greg decided to ditch this antiquated data acquisition system (a GoPro) just before Ultimate Callout Challenge. He replaced his bevy of analog gauges with two iDash DataMonsters mounted in the center console of his 2005 RAM. The two iDashes were fed the following information from various speed, pressure, and temp sensors, all available via bankspower.com. 

  • Turbo speed 
  • Drive pressure 
  • Exhaust gas temperature 
  • Pre-intercooler temperature 
  • Post-intercooler temperature 
  • Boost pressure 
  • Fuel rail pressure (high-pressure) 
  • Transmission temperature 
  • Ambient air temperature, pressure, humidity (Airmouse)

Keep in mind that Greg’s ’05 is what we call “pre-CAN.” Pre-2008 vehicles have OBD (onboard diagnostics) ports, however, they speak different languages. In 2008 all U.S. vehicles were mandated to communicate via CAN (Controller Area Network). This was so any smog shop could plug in and gain access to vital emissions information. If Greg were to plug the iDash into his 2019 RAM for example, a myriad of temp and pressure data would display on the iDash with no additional sensors. But since Greg’s ’05 doesn’t broadcast that information, he had to install auxiliary sensors which plug into two Banks 4-channel Analog Modules.

But just before Greg explains as Fake “Gale Banks” his sensor placement, a young lab coat-wearing Gale Banks, played by Michael, Greg’s assistant, explains just how they used the data collected on the iDash. After each quarter-mile run, Michael would slide the micro SD card out of the iDash and into his laptop. He then uploaded the files todatalogviewer.com, a free website. There he was able to graph each run against the previous to see what improvements their boost and nitrous adjustments were making. Guesswork was completely eliminated. Remember kids, data is king. 

Want to know more? Watch the video above.