Late-model diesel ECMs are getting harder to crack, and some require invasive ECU work just to reflash. Our answer is the Banks Derringer Tuner: an inline tuner that leaves the factory ECM intact and adds power by intercepting fuel pressure and manifold pressure signals. The key is not just signal manipulation—it’s OBD-II communication. We use live vehicle data like EGT, AFR, RPM, EGR activity, and transmission slip to refine how power is added so the engine gets more fuel and boost without blindly pushing into limp modes, excess heat, or smoke. On the L5P, that approach delivered about 60 hp and 100 lb-ft on its own, and about 80 hp with our intake system. Paired with iDash, the system also gives you real monitoring, expandable sensor support, and MicroSD data logging so you can see what the truck is actually doing.
00:00 when it comes to tuning late-model cars
00:01 as becoming increasingly difficult to
00:04 replace the factory ECU with an
00:06 aftermarket standalone ECU that's easily
00:09 tunable buy aftermarket tuners this is
00:11 because modern cars rely on intricate
00:14 communications between a variety of
00:16 electronic control modules in order to
00:18 make everything work properly I'm
00:20 talking here about aspects such as the
00:21 automatic transmission even your gauge
00:24 cluster and your air conditioning so for
00:26 late-model cars the more popular
00:28 technique has been reflex
00:31 I see you essentially this is a
00:33 technique where we can download the
00:34 factory data out of the ECU manipulate
00:37 it in the same way that the OE
00:38 calibration engineers do so and then
00:41 flesh it back into the ECU of course as
00:43 time has gone on
00:44 even this is becoming increasingly
00:46 complex and we're here with Chris from
00:48 Banks Power to talk about an alternative
00:50 solution for tuning factory ECU so Chris
00:54 first of all just talking about the
00:56 problem I just highlighted there it is
00:58 getting increasingly difficult to
00:59 reflash these factory issues can you
01:01 tell us what are the problems they're
01:03 facing these aftermarket reflashing
01:05 companies why is it getting harder for
01:07 them so the OEM manufacturers are
01:09 actually basically encrypting these
01:11 issues to the point that no one can
01:13 crack them so I think historically
01:14 people are getting kind of inside
01:15 information to be able to figure out how
01:17 to unencrypt them but it's just getting
01:19 harder and harder for everyone to do it
01:20 so we're finding many modern vehicles
01:22 are kind of hitting a block wall there
01:24 and the l5 pay which is the latest
01:28 generation of GM's
01:30 6.6 liter v8 diesel turbo engines that's
01:33 a case in point here when that was
01:35 originally released it wasn't something
01:38 that could be tuned if you tell us why
01:39 what was the problem there was that the
01:41 encryption yeah that's mostly the
01:43 encryption so eventually someone found
01:44 out I guess that you can crack open the
01:46 ECU and go through a pretty extensive
01:48 process to replace some of the
01:50 components you actually get past that
01:51 but it's definitely not user friendly to
01:54 make that happen so we've gone through
01:56 that with our own development vehicle
01:58 and it's not user friendly you're right
01:59 particularly from outside of the world
02:01 we have to send the EC all the way to
02:03 the US there's also an incredibly
02:04 expensive process with that factory
02:06 processor is actually removed from the
02:08 board and then replaced with one that's
02:09 that's the in programmable so let's talk
02:11 about your
02:12 what is it that Banks Power have
02:14 developed and how does this work so we
02:16 have a product called the derringer
02:17 which is an inline Tina inline shooter
02:19 is really nothing new it's been around
02:20 for at least 20 or 30 years now but what
02:23 we've done is we've modernized it by
02:24 taking the open e2 data off the ECU and
02:26 using that to basically refined the
02:28 calibration and make it more safe than
02:30 anyone else ok so let's talk about the
02:32 terminology you've used there festival
02:34 inline tuner so this isn't a reflash
02:38 you're not actually modifying the
02:39 factory ECU at all it is just live
02:41 completely intact and this is an add-on
02:43 module and we're where do you add this
02:45 into the system
02:46 yeah that's correct so this is a
02:47 plug-and-play module where we intercept
02:50 a couple different signals on a diesel
02:51 engine like the l5p it's going to be the
02:53 fuel pressure and the manifold pressure
02:55 sensor so when it does it takes the
02:57 input data into the from the sensor into
02:59 the control module the Derringer it
03:01 looks at those sensors or values along
03:03 with the ECU data and determines how
03:05 much extra feel or L&X your manifold
03:08 pressure we can add to it and it amends
03:10 the signals to basically check the
03:11 engine to give us extra boost or
03:13 actually fuel pressure so in very very
03:16 basic terms if we just dumb this down
03:18 one of the ways we can get a lot more
03:19 power out of a diesel engine is by
03:22 adding additional fuel so it's two steel
03:24 with that for a start so in order to do
03:26 that you're intercepting the fuel rail
03:28 pressure signal so can you tell us what
03:30 the diringer does in order to get more
03:32 fuel into the engine okay so the
03:34 derringer the l5p has two signals it's
03:37 arising in the following signal so we
03:39 intercept both of those and look at it
03:40 so let's say it's commanding 2000 bar of
03:43 a fuel pressure and we know that's 4.0
03:45 volts so we want to basically add 300
03:47 bar to that
03:49 so we'll basically say that now I'll put
03:52 the signal as 1700 bar so maybe that's
03:54 three point eight volts and the ECU
03:56 looks at that and say hey I'm not making
03:58 a fuel pressure still I'll turn up the
04:00 fuel pump and basically try to raise the
04:02 pressure back up to that so now we have
04:04 the dish the original 2000 bar plus the
04:06 new 300 bar so we essentially raise the
04:08 fuel pressure by 300 bar so basically
04:11 you're just lying to the factory ECU
04:12 check tracking the signal telling it it
04:15 doesn't have as much fuel pressure as
04:17 wanting to achieve so it all then raised
04:20 their fuel pressure and can you just
04:22 tell us how their additional fuel
04:23 pressure results in more
04:25 fuel being delivered into the engine so
04:27 basically since the injectors are the
04:29 quantity of fuel injected is a function
04:31 of the pressure as long as the on time
04:32 so the the in line tuners don't change
04:35 the on time I just changed the pressure
04:36 but with a higher pressure you have more
04:38 quantity of fuel better atomization as
04:41 well so some other benefits there which
04:43 gives you more more power so basically
04:46 you're holding the injectable the
04:47 fetcher EC is holding the injector on
04:49 for the same pulse width but because
04:51 there's more fuel pressure or
04:52 differential pressure across the
04:53 injector more fuel is being delivered
04:54 into the cylinder for that period of
04:56 time now the problem is if we just add
04:59 fuel we are going to make more power but
05:01 we end up with a richer air fuel ratio
05:02 we're not creating a lot more heat we
05:04 also end up with potential for creating
05:07 smoke in the exhaust system not great
05:09 when we are talking about emissions
05:10 equipped vehicles so the other aspect of
05:13 that there that you mentioned is the
05:14 manifold pressure signal so you're
05:16 intercepting there and shading that
05:18 signal as well what's the effect of
05:19 doing that so by adding the extra fuel
05:21 like you said you're gonna get rich
05:23 conditions gonna have extra set higher
05:24 eg T's you're basically gonna be limited
05:27 in another power that you can have
05:28 before you run into these limits
05:30 limitations so by adding intercept in
05:33 the manifold pressure and checking it to
05:34 add extra air or a boost pressure you
05:37 bring the air fuel ratio back to its
05:38 original level that's the goal at least
05:40 and that gives you better control of the
05:42 eg T's less chance of having excess set
05:45 and basically a safer more sustainable
05:48 power level all right it'll make sense
05:51 and these technologies as you've
05:53 mentioned that they're not new you
05:55 haven't really created anything new here
05:57 in terms of something to cheat those
05:59 signals they've been around for a while
06:01 but conventionally what I have seen with
06:03 these piggyback modules that do exactly
06:05 that is they just cheat the fuel
06:06 pressure and the map signal everywhere
06:08 and this is where the the bank's power
06:11 diringer does go a little bit further
06:13 with that obd2 signals so can you talk
06:15 to us about how you're using that signal
06:17 and how you're manipulating the manifold
06:20 pressure and fuel pressure signals as a
06:21 result of that okay so our derringer
06:23 connects to the I - 1.8 which is the
06:25 over T 2 gauge so that's basically the
06:27 controlling it is that's getting all the
06:29 information and sending it to the
06:30 derringer and we're using things such as
06:32 egt
06:33 to see trans slip EGR act
06:37 rpm and AFR as well to kind of basically
06:41 find see the calibration so when we
06:43 calibrate the device we look at exactly
06:45 when the EC kind of catches that there's
06:47 something going on and then something's
06:48 not quite normal so we can fine tune the
06:51 calibration to adjust the amount of fuel
06:53 or the most amount of air in those
06:54 particular spots to make sure that we
06:56 give the absolute best performance
06:57 possible without having any issues like
06:59 check engine lights yes so there that
07:01 interface with the obd2 port allows you
07:04 a lot more control over exactly when and
07:08 where you're delivering that fuel as
07:09 well as the safety elements there of a
07:11 monitoring aspect such as the egt and
07:13 you just touched on the factory ECU
07:15 knowing that something's not right I
07:17 wanted to just dig into there a bit more
07:19 detail because of course as we've seen
07:21 the ECU's become more and more
07:22 sophisticated they you can't go sort of
07:26 crazy with your pressure or manifold
07:27 pressure because the ECU will perk up
07:29 something's not right so what sort of
07:32 development do you do to figure out
07:34 exactly how far you can push these
07:35 things and where the limits lie so we
07:38 just do a very thorough calibration job
07:39 on the on the product itself so we
07:42 slowly creep up on it we add more and
07:44 more fuel more and more air and we kind
07:46 of find the optimal level and then once
07:48 we if we do the trip run into some kind
07:50 of limitations such as a check engine
07:52 light because a fuel real pressure
07:53 signal will look at exactly where that
07:55 occurred using free stream data or the
07:57 data log that we take when we're
07:58 calibrating and then from there try to
08:00 figure out what we can do to avoid that
08:02 from happening so things like changed in
08:04 the calibration that one spot or
08:06 wrapping in or changing the rate of
08:08 which were amending the signals stuff
08:11 like that and can you give me some
08:14 indication let's say for example the l5
08:16 pay obviously when we're personally
08:18 interested in what sort of gains over a
08:20 stop calibration are you seeing with the
08:22 diringer installed so we're seeing about
08:23 60 horsepower a hundred pound feet of
08:26 torque right around there and also if
08:28 you add our air intake system we we
08:32 found waste you can either change the
08:33 EGR activity add additional 20
08:35 horsepower so if you have both of those
08:36 two products combined about 80
08:38 horsepower this is a decent increase in
08:40 the other aspect there assume that
08:42 that's going to be a safe calibration
08:44 regardless whether you're driving around
08:46 in an unladen truck or you're towing and
08:48 have load up a long hill yeah that's
08:50 correct and we also have ActiveSafety
08:52 features so we're lonely too in line to
08:54 net product to use bypass release so
08:56 let's say some signal is out of the norm
08:58 or you kind of lose power to something
09:00 our product will have relays that
09:02 automatically snap the signal back to
09:04 stock and completely bypass everything
09:06 so that's another feature that helps
09:08 keep the vehicle safe and running
09:09 smoothly now as well as the derringer
09:11 you do have a range of gauges for
09:14 displaying a variety of different
09:15 information I'm just interested in
09:17 diving into those obviously the more
09:19 data that we can gather the more
09:21 thorough we we can sort of analyze how
09:23 the engines performing particularly when
09:25 you're developing calibrations like you
09:26 are then this gives you a lot more
09:28 information to know the quality of your
09:30 tune but I'm just interested in sort of
09:33 finding out a little bit more about how
09:34 you get the data into these gauges so
09:37 can you tell us how they work okay so
09:38 the gauge itself plugs into the obd2
09:40 port and it'll read everything that the
09:42 ECU has to offer so we have a program
09:44 for pretty much every single mode one
09:46 parameter that's available as well as
09:48 quite a handful of Bioko specific
09:50 proprietary parameters so this means
09:52 basically even if you don't want to add
09:54 any additional sensors you plug that
09:56 straight into the obd2 port and you've
09:57 got all of the basic parameters and
10:00 potentially some more advanced depending
10:01 on which particular vehicle you're
10:03 dealing with yeah and some of the modern
10:04 diesels were seeing over 80 parameters
10:06 just from plugging into the ECU by
10:07 itself so it's pretty extensive I don't
10:09 and then if you want to go a little bit
10:11 further maybe you want to add something
10:12 unique maybe you want to analyze that
10:14 turbo performance in a little bit more
10:15 detail maybe add some pressure and
10:18 temperature pre and post turbocharged or
10:20 turbo speeed how could we go about doing
10:21 that so yeah the system is expandable
10:23 for up to four iDash gauges to monitor
10:25 everything and then from there you can
10:26 also add sensor modules so we have a
10:29 five channel analog module which has
10:30 four analog pressure temperature or zero
10:32 five volt signals along with one
10:34 frequency input so you can do stuff like
10:36 rpm or turbo speed you can have up to
10:38 the six of those on one system as well
10:41 as we have a four channel thermocouple
10:42 module which gives you four e GTS or any
10:44 thermocouple input that could be read
10:46 into the I - one point eight and you
10:48 simply configure it on the gauge itself
10:49 to say this is channel is a pressure
10:51 sensor it's in the manifold channel B's
10:54 the temperature sensors in the manifold
10:55 and we also calculate special parameters
10:59 for analysis
11:00 things like manifold air density
11:01 which we hold a patent on displaying and
11:03 monitoring that system so I'm sure if
11:06 some of you guys are familiar with
11:07 manifold density but the I - will
11:08 automatically display that to you in
11:10 real time so you can date a login
11:12 monitor and kind of evaluate the
11:13 performance sometimes you don't have to
11:14 go and calculate that for yourself yeah
11:17 in terms of data logging is this purely
11:20 through the gauge or is the the ability
11:22 to data log and then analyze in a bit
11:24 more detail on a laptop software so the
11:27 gauge itself has a micro SD card on the
11:29 front so all you do is to pop in the
11:31 card you can configure the data log for
11:32 up to a hundred different parameters up
11:34 to 20 samples per second and then you
11:37 just hold the button down it starts the
11:38 data log in the records we also have a
11:39 flag marker so if you have like a knock
11:41 event or some kind of incident you can
11:43 put a marker in that data log once you
11:45 finish you click the SD card out it's a
11:48 dot CSV file so it's Universal file
11:50 format pop into your computer you can
11:52 use Excel it's the most basic thing but
11:54 there's a handful of different data
11:56 analysis programs that you can use to
11:57 dive into the data and really see what's
11:58 going on with your engine now those
12:00 scenes some modules that you're talking
12:02 about just a moment ago as well
12:04 these communicate via can so basically
12:06 you can think of them as an analogue to
12:09 can converter yeah that's correct so we
12:11 have our own can bus network that we
12:13 call banks bus so it's a closed-loop
12:15 system but yeah it's all can bus so you
12:17 only have to run one wire through the
12:18 firewall it really simplifies everything
12:20 all the modules stack together to really
12:22 make it compact and ease the wire up for
12:24 the individual it's very expandable yeah
12:26 I think that's probably important to
12:28 mention because if you are going to be
12:29 adding a lot of sensors the wiring can
12:31 be a real headache so dealing with just
12:33 a 2 wire bus makes that nice and easy
12:35 luke has been great to get some insight
12:37 onto on that product Chris thanks for
12:39 your time there thank you very much
12:48 you