LokJaw started as a one-dollar 1966 Chevy C20, but the real point is the engine sitting in it. We’re using this truck to develop our prototype R866SC supercharged Duramax program around an L5P factory engine. The combination uses a billet 3.8-liter front-drive, front-entry Whipple supercharger, our custom twin-ram intake, and Ram-Air fed through the headlights. What matters is that this is not just a styling exercise. It’s a serious engine-development platform built to explore supercharging on a Duramax and support a future crate or turnkey engine program. The stock engine, including factory head bolts and main cap bolts, has lived at 1,000 horsepower, which tells us a lot about what the base L5P will tolerate before changing parts that don’t need changing. Around that engine, the truck carries the hardware needed to make the package work: custom intake manifold with integrated charge-air cooling, custom accessory drive, Allison driveline work, heavy brake and chassis upgrades, and full data instrumentation. LokJaw is the proof-of-concept—showing how we package, feed, cool, and monitor a supercharged diesel when the goal is real development, not just display.
The video centers on the public unveiling of Project LockJaw at the AMSOIL booth, where Banks Power presented a radically reworked truck that began as what the team called a one-dollar truck. Gale Banks and the crew described the project as intentionally extreme, the result of a year of work capped by an especially brutal final push. In the last two days before the reveal, the team worked roughly 50 hours straight and slept only briefly in vehicles at the venue. Multiple all-nighters were required to get the truck assembled and presentable for the show.
That final effort was not portrayed as a simple cosmetic scramble. It reflected the scale of the build and the number of custom systems that had to come together at once. Team members described a shop full of people rotating between welding, plumbing, wiring, and whatever else was needed to finish the truck in time. By the time it reached the booth, the vehicle represented not just a Banks project but a coordinated effort across a large group of specialist suppliers, fabricators, and long-time industry partners.
At the core of the truck is an L5P Duramax that Banks used as part of a broader engine-development effort. Gale explained that the company already supplies about 5,000 engines per year to the defense industry, but none into the aftermarket, and that imbalance helped motivate a serious crate-engine or turnkey-engine program based on the Duramax platform. Project LockJaw serves as an experimental vehicle for that program, particularly for exploring supercharging on a diesel.
The engine itself starts as a factory unit directly from GM. Banks installs selected internal components in the Duramax plant in Moraine, Ohio, with the goal of integrating items such as the camshaft, valve springs, and pushrods into that process. Work that cannot be completed there is finished in California. Despite the truck's ambitious power target, Gale emphasized that the engine remains fundamentally stock in critical areas. It still uses factory head bolts and main cap bolts, and according to Banks, nothing has failed at 1,000 horsepower. His conclusion was straightforward: if those parts are not breaking, there is no reason to replace them unnecessarily.
The most important engineering departure from a conventional diesel performance build is the use of a supercharger rather than the more typical turbocharger-only arrangement. Gale said the truck is specifically an experiment in supercharging diesels, and that effort led Banks to work with Whipple, a company with which the Banks family has had a long relationship. The result is a full billet 3.8-liter front-drive, front-entry supercharger built by Whipple.
This unit is described as the prototype for what will eventually appear on the Banks R866SC crate engine. Around it, Banks developed a fully custom twin-ram intake system, also machined from large billet sections. The intake and drive arrangement were presented as major engineering pieces rather than decorative hardware, intended to support the airflow demands of a seriously supercharged diesel. The video closes just as the team begins addressing the obvious question of why they chose a supercharger instead of relying solely on turbocharging, setting up that explanation for a later installment.
Beyond the blower itself, the induction system includes extensive custom fabrication. KibbeTech, which also contributed suspension knuckles, produced a two-piece billet intake manifold with an integrated charge-air cooler. That manifold is one of the truck's signature components, combining structural complexity with thermal management in a compact package. The front engine accessory drive was also built as a fully custom system to Banks' design, with BBI handling the billet FEAD hardware and related components.
From the Whipple blower forward, the engine uses Banks' twin-ram intake layout feeding through a pair of large Banks filters. The truck also incorporates Ram-Air through the front of the vehicle. To make that possible, the team changed the front fascia to an earlier four-headlight arrangement, then removed the inner headlights and used those openings as air inlets. Gale noted that this idea echoed a modification he had made to his 1953 Studebaker at Bonneville in 1964. The result is a front-end package that is both visually unusual and functionally tied to the engine's airflow requirements.
The truck sits on a fully custom Roadster Shop chassis, reflecting that this is far more than an engine swap into an old body. The braking system uses Wilwood components throughout, with very large rotors and calipers. Those brakes were so large that the project required equally large wheels simply to clear them.
The wheels themselves became an engineering project. Jonathan Pease of Spark Industries created custom full-billet wheels designed not only for appearance and strength but also for brake cooling. Gale explained that the wheel design moves air from the inside of the rotor toward the low-pressure zone outside the wheel. Air enters near the center of the rotor on the inboard side, travels outward through the rotor, and exits toward the wheel's inner perimeter. To improve extraction, the team added fins on the outer perimeter of the wheel to help pull air through. Gale described that feature as something not previously done in this style of wheel. The truck also uses custom suspension elements, including eight-lug-compatible knuckles from KibbeTech and a full Ridetech air-ride system.
The bodywork includes extensive custom metal fabrication by Empire Fabrication, whose work transformed the engine bay into what the team described as functional art. The hood opening and the bed opening were based on renderings by Jeff Transou, though the team joked that they had underestimated how much labor those ideas would require in practice. Both the front and rear hinge systems were custom-designed, adding to the complexity of the body modifications.
At the rear, the truck features a fully custom bed arrangement that opens to expose the chassis and major driveline systems underneath. With the bed raised, viewers can see the Roadster Shop frame, the rear braking hardware, the fuel system, and other major components. The layout turns the rear of the truck into a display of the engineering package rather than a conventional cargo bed. It also highlights how much of the vehicle was built from scratch or heavily reworked to support the powertrain and show the craftsmanship involved.
Several specialized systems support the engine and chassis package. Nitrous Supply contributed carbon-overwrap bottles, adding another layer to the truck's performance hardware. The headers and complete exhaust system were built by Dragos Toma, running all the way to the rear of the vehicle. Aeromotive supplied the fuel system, while Braille provided a 3,100 cold-cranking-amp lithium-ion battery.
The driveline includes a custom carbon-fiber QA1 driveshaft and a highly unusual Allison transmission modification. Because the team wanted to run a slip yoke on an Allison, they needed a fully custom tailshaft arrangement, something they described as effectively nonexistent in normal form. Clint at ATS Transmissions handled that project. Together, these details show that the truck's engineering extends well beyond the headline supercharger and into the less visible systems required to make the package function as a complete vehicle.
Inside the truck, TMI contributed to the interior, while MoTeC modules were installed to run the A66SC engine package. Gale also highlighted the instrumentation, describing it as heavily data-focused. The truck is equipped to monitor extensive operating information while driving and then play that information back through the instrument system. That emphasis on data collection reinforces that Project LockJaw is not just a showpiece; it is also a development platform intended to generate useful engineering information.
This data-centric approach fits the broader purpose of the build. Once the truck returns from the show, the engine is scheduled to come back out and go on the pump for further development. Banks made clear that the public reveal was only one stage in the process. The company intends to continue documenting the engine program and use the truck as part of an ongoing technical video series.
A recurring theme throughout the reveal is that Project LockJaw represents a concentrated effort by the hardcore speed-equipment industry, with contributions from dozens of companies, many of them still family-owned. Gale emphasized that this network of long-standing relationships made the truck possible. Partners including Whipple, Roadster Shop, QA1, Wilwood, Ridetech, Aeromotive, Braille, ATS Transmissions, TMI, MoTeC, Nitrous Supply, Spark Industries, Empire Fabrication, KibbeTech, BBI, and others all played visible roles in the final product.
The emotional center of the presentation came from the team's exhaustion and pride. Eric Banks was singled out for his fabrication work, and Gale referred to him as one of the best fabricators he had ever met. Team members described the reveal as both physically draining and deeply satisfying, especially after the final 50-hour push. Even in unveiled form, however, the truck is not finished in an engineering sense. The next phase is engine dyno development, and the video makes clear that more technical explanation is coming, including a deeper discussion of the decision to supercharge a diesel rather than follow the usual turbo-diesel path.