Banks “Rat Rod” Shop Truck

The 2000’s saw a lot of activity coming out of Banks’ Race Shop. While the Sidewinders (Dakota, GMC Type-R, S10 drag pickup, and the Top Diesel Dragster) stole the media spotlight thanks to their ultra-powerful and smokeless diesel powerplants, there was one vehicle created for the Banks stable that was a little more based on ...

This is another “sleeper” in the Banks Power stable. This 1991 Chevy SS (took out a 454) shop truck has a Banks twin-turbo 366ci small block that runs on 91 octane; it makes 675HP at the rear wheels and over 900 lbft of torque. All that torque twisted the stock frame like a pretzel, so the ...

A friend just asked me about my Blown Diesel Shop Truck. It’s a swap based on a Chevy 454 SS, here’s his post. “How about more info on that engine swap!!! I ready to see some performance numbers from that whipple diesel. The next swap: Maybe a big block twin turbo in that shop truck. I mean ...

The Banks Rat Rod gets a Duramax, the Sidewinder Dakota gets a Cummins, and a who-knows-what gets an 866T. In a special edition of Diesel Power magazine called “Diesel Swaps,” the writers and photographers covered “25 trucks, cars, and hot rods made better with diesel!” ON THE COVER: We visited Gale Banks Engineering in Azusa, California, and ...

Here’s a guy who’s done it all and done it well, and he has the records to prove it. You’ll find his name in the record books for building the fastest pickups on earth. This article features the Shop Truck, Gale’s 502SS, Sidewinder GMC Sierra, Sidewinder S-10, and the Sidewinder Dakota. One of the benefits of ...

Imagine driving a 1,100 hp, Twin-Turbo sport truck This was no feverish dream, but one hell of an adrenaline-pumping ride for two incredible days. It all took place last spring after an invite from Gale Banks Engineering to join Hot Rod magazine’s Power Tour 2005. This event has been held once a year since 1995, crisscrossing the ...

How the Banks Race Shop modified its twin-turbo “Rat Rod” pickup for the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour The Banks Race Shop crew is hard at work getting five high-performance trucks ready to drive on Hot Rod’s Power Tour. One of them is Banks’ “Rat Rod.” It has recently gone under the knife to better ...

4:44 a.m. Okay, the trip stared off badly when the shuttle van that was supposed to pick me up at 4:00 a.m. hadn’t arrived by 4:30. When I called, they told me, “oh, our driver just now told us he was experiencing vehicle trouble…” Great. What about my ride to the airport? The shuttle company called a ...

Gale Banks Engineering’s Twin-Turbo Small-Block Chevrolet V8: 1,115 HP @ 100 OCTANE/815 HP @ 91 OCTANE Some say American Iron has its place…in the gun sights of an import. We’ve talked about displacement and how turbocharging can make a small engine “bigger.” Bigger is bigger so when a large-displacement engine like a V8 or V10 get ...

Sport Truck’s Joe Pettitt takes some adrenaline-pumping 0-60 blasts in Banks Twin-Turbo test truck The reasoning for bringing the beast to life is to promote what Gale Banks Engineering is calling its “Back to the Future” Twin-Turbo systems. In short, the company has had these kits available before, but not with the advanced level of today’s ...

Back to the Future: Fast-Forward Firebird Now for the kicker. Gale Banks recently pulled one of his original twin-turbo Firebirds out of mothballs, and it’s about to receive a Banks Revival twin-turbo small-block Chevrolet engine, and all the modern goodies to go along with it. Now, this isn’t just any ol’ ’84 Firebird—this one shows 15,000 ...