1988 Ford F-250 Sidewinder Equipped

Back in 1988 when Dale Thomas and his wife Esther bought their naturally aspirated 7.3L diesel they thought they had the ultimate in towing capability, but it didn’t take long for them to find out that they didn’t. Well, at least not yet that is. “At the time that the wife and I put that on we were field representatives for Good Sam’s camping grounds,” said Dale, “and one of my friends arranged for a discount with Banks because we were working with the camping community.”

“We had been hearing a lot of good things about the Banks Sidewinder Turbo System, so we went down to the Banks campus in Azusa to have it installed on our truck. At the time we had only 6,000 miles on the thing, and now the truck is just shy of 300,000 and we still love it. And we have never had a problem with the truck in all that time, just had to buy a couple of air filters over the years and that’s it.”

“The first year we went through Nebraska, then the state of Michigan. Through any of the mountains and all the trips that Banks Sidewinder just revolutionized our lives.”

Saying that a product revolutionized a life is a pretty big statement, so we asked Dale to clarify. “When we first bought the truck we took it to visit friends in Arizona and when we come up highway 395 heading toward Reno… you’re talking about a miserable ride! The truck was so slow and billowed a ton of smoke, and this was when it was new! We thought to ourselves that we had just spent a lot of money on a new truck, and this is what we got for it? People honked at us and were mad because we were smoking them out. After the Sidewinder system was put on it cleared up all the smoke and scooted up any hill.”

“My wife and I have had many wonderful trips using that truck, and never once have been sidelined because of it. After all the miles it’s still as reliable as the day we bought it new.”