Gale Banks Marine Twin Turbo Time Capsule

When Ryan Bodhi of New South Wales purchased a used Bob Thurgar flat bottom ski boat, the former owner showed him a listing for something that he had his eyes on himself, and thought would go great on the engine that Ryan intended to make for his new craft. The listing was for an old Gale Banks Marine Twin Turbo. These kits were extremely popular in the marine industry between the ’70s and ’80s, known for their reliability and robust power potential.

Intrigued, Ryan gave the number a call and inquired about the kit. The original owner built an engine for his boat, but that engine (and this kit) never saw the light of day since the engine dropped a valve while running on a test stand. As the story goes, the rare twin-turbo system had a total runtime of only 30 minutes before it was removed from the engine, packed up and stored away. The asking price was $7,000 (Australian), but since not too many people were familiar with the almost 40-year old hardware, it hadn’t sold, and there were few calls on it. Ryan decided to take a chance and bartered with the owner, getting him to lower his asking price to $3,000. What Ryan received was a virtual time capsule of marine history as the kit was in like-new condition. He plans to install it on his current small block Chevy or on a specifically built engine to take advantage of the kit’s full potential.

As soon as he decides what direction he’s going to go with the engine and the craft hits the water you’ll see the results here.