Banks Cummins Part 2

Today, Ian and Jessi begin a two part bill that'll turn this stock diesel pickup into a Baha

contender. Plus the score. Desert Series isn't all about trophy trucks. We'll check out the TRG

Xtreme 4x4 starts. Now.

Welcome to Xtreme 4x4. Now, when you tell someone you own a truck, you normally have to qualify it. Is it a two wheel drive or a four wheel drive? Are you a mall cruiser or a hard core trail guy? But either way you usually end up as part of a group

and those groups are pretty solid. If you're in a power, you tend to be a big displacement gas engine kind of guy.

And if you a towing a torque, you typically end up being a diesel guy.

Now, what if I tell you that we could get 500 horse and 1000 ft pounds of torque out of a diesel and then turn that thing into a West Coast style Baha truck that's so reliable. You could actually drive it to the race, compete in the race and then drive the truck home. It was actually done.

This is the Banks Sidewinder development truck which raced in the Baja

1000 drove to the race competed and then drove home no trailer, no nothing.

And in its first year, it finished third in the stock full class. And we're going to build that same truck today here at extreme.

We're going to start with this 2005 Dodge Commons turbo

diesel.

Then we are going to add the bank's big horse power system,

a variable geometry turbo,

some electronic goodies

and a new torque converter.

Everything we installed today is available from Banks.

Banks is also planning to start building turnkey trucks like this prototype with this package on them to make them the ultimate in diesel, dual purpose truck

called the Sidewinder all Terrain.

That's a pretty killer truck. And we're gonna turn this truck into that truck. Yes. But in red and the first thing I have to do is pull this transmission out. So can you help me wrestle this transfer case down? Sorry, I'm still on night duty,

Doctor Johnson.

We thought this would happen. So I made sure somebody was around to help out with the heavy work.

Hey, Ian, how's it going? It's going. All right. There's your gloves. No free rides here at extreme. Everyone's a worker. All right, let's do this.

Ok. Well, then go up

right there.

Perfect.

Perfect. Thanks Gail.

Thanks for doing my job for me. Oh, no problem.

Now, what is it that led you into diesel performance in the first place?

Well, I've been turbo charging for 46 years. But back in 82

I got this

land speed record project with Pontiac

and they gave me a couple of GMC Dooley pickups with diesels in them.

There wasn't enough power, they needed airflow, so I turbocharged them

and that's what leads us into this package here. Yeah, this is primarily an air flow package. It's intended to,

to reduce restriction on the intake side with this ram air set up.

Then we

amp up the turbo charger

and get more boost out of it to give us more air flow. Once we've got that,

we run it through low restriction ducting in this inlet piece.

And

this huge inner cooler which reduces the air temperature, gives you more oxygen into the engine.

On the exhaust side, we run a four inch dual exhaust

and that takes it out to the world

when we're done. We've got about a 30 to 40% horsepower advantage

at the same exhaust gas temperature

is with the tuna alone

that gives us 500 horsepower and 1000 pound feet of torque in this truck.

With all the power we're going to get in that kit. We're gonna go ahead and replace this torque converter. You can see dodge welds these little feet on the converter housing to mount it to the fly wheel. And with all that power in the engine, you can actually bend those feet over and distress this plate causing premature clutch failure. Or even converter failure. Now, banks has that figured out

by building a completely billet housing and machining the mounting holes into the plate. Now, inside that housing, you're going to find a multiple disc clutch set up, which is ideal for this situation because when you're building a lot of power in an engine, the clutch can actually slip at a certain horsepower. All we got to do is slip it in.

This is a great upgrade for any Dodge truck that sees serious duty

with the transmission reinstalled. We'll remove the factory exhaust before starting under the foot.

I'm going to pull the exhaust manifold and the factory turbo

that cool sidewinder train pickup truck we saw earlier is going to come in Ford, Chevy and Dodge variations.

The Ford and Chevy come from the factory with a variable geometry turbo. The Dodge doesn't. So we're going to pull this factory turbo off and replace it with a VG turbo that's made by Gail Banks. Now, you may ask yourself what is a VG turbo and who better to explain it to you than the guy who built the one going on this truck.

So gay, would you start off by telling us exactly how a turbo works?

Well, the exhaust gas leaving the engine

enters this exhaust manifold, takes it takes all the exhaust to a common point

and there you mount the turbine part of the turbocharger

exhaust gas enters the turbine,

turns a turbine wheel

and, and leaves and goes out to the world through the outlet

on a common shaft is a compressor

and the compressor wheel draws air in through the air cleaner, pressurizes it

and sends it off to the engine.

So

that's essentially how the turbocharger works. Now, I understand that there's something different about this particular model,

right. Yeah, this is a

bank's Garrett hybrid turbo. This is a prototype. This whole thing is a prototype,

essentially

the Garrett section in the middle

controls a set of veins that change the velocity going into the turbine wheel

of the exhaust gas,

much like squeezing down a garden hose. You don't have any more water flow, but the velocity goes up coming out.

So the same thing happens in here at low speeds where a big 500 horse capable turbo like this would be sluggish

this one by changing the velocity,

it just comes out of the hole like you can't believe.

So that's essentially

what the variable geometry section is all about. How do you control its drive? Because there's, that's what's good about this, right?

Yeah. Well, well, this is controlled by a microprocessor

which is in this turbo controller, what we call the shape shifter turbo control

and it picks up signals from our speed loader engine management system

that tell it the speed of the engine,

the position of the throttle.

Uh and

also the boost

based on that information, we make a determination of how to move these veins inside

to vary the velocity and consequently the amount of boost versus engine speed.

So if you go, go down on the pedal real fast, it closes up real fast

and speeds it up.

So there is no turbo leg.

There's virtually no turbo

leg. You have never felt a cummins come out of the hole like it will with this.

It's a dream come true.

Sure is

up next half truck, half buggy and fully capable of 100 and 30 in the desert. We'll meet Wayne Lugo and his trie

when Xtreme 4x4 continues.

Welcome back to extreme when it comes to Desert racing. Score International is one of the world's premier off road series and with classes ranging from pro trucks to VWs sport utes and even full size stock like our sidewinder. Any enthusiast can get in on the action

while the main event at the score.

Laughlin Desert challenge for million dollar trophy trucks.

They're not the only ones kicking up some desert dust.

Anyone that wants to come out and build a vehicle, we have a class for it. You know, I don't know any other form of motor sports that you could do this and this is racing. I mean, this is all the fun a guy could have in a lifetime. This is an E ride with no restrictions. The class one unlimited are score. Racing's fantasy come true class where Wayne Lugo can rip it up.

Yeah, that's fine.

It's the thrill of chasing down people. It's the thrill of the driving. It's the thrill, the speed

and it's just a thrill of survival.

We frosted his house.

We're talking about 130 miles an hour over dirt. It takes some real

coons

to get out there and do what these guys do.

Wayne's doing it from the cockpit of a banks power truck. We took a truck, all the technology of a truck, but we skinned it like a buggy. You take a truck and a buggy. You slam the two words together,

a trucking.

Everything here is a one off piece of equipment. Motors in the front. It's a 447 cubic inch

Ford V8, 800 horsepower, 700 ft pounds of torque, red lines at about 7400 RPM. It's pretty impressive when you can sit in this seat

and be able to put the hammer down

for that kind of speed.

It always wants to get out of control. I mean, the horsepower is your friend because you can drive through problems. But horsepower is your worst enemy because it puts you right into every problem too.

And it is, that's the whole rush right there. Just slamming the gear just

and just, just, just standing on it

to win. He's got to stand on it for 244 mile races. When the green flag drops.

You've got to focus on one thing. It's gassing braking and shifting and how fast can I get into that turn? Where's my breaking point? Where do I gas

and how fast can I accelerate

with all that power

wings. Truckie needs the suspension to handle it. I'll

tell you what does it mean

if you go back the old school when they didn't have the shock technology, they didn't have the travel, you had to drive through the bumps

and when you're driving through the bump, it's slower. The fastest way is over the top of the bump,

we'll travel. That's what the sport is all about.

This right here that gives you, that's 20 inches to travel all the way drooped out. So when we're going over the bump,

we're coming off the jumps, that suspension is falling and the whole, the whole point is how fast can it fall to touch the ground? Because the more time the wheel has contact with the ground, the faster we can drive it.

And so when it's down on the ground level, you notice the R

control arms are flat to slightly up and this is when it's fully drooped out. Same thing for the rear end, it runs about 32 inches of rear travel

for us. It was a very safe number. The U joints are never in a position with a pinch or bind

and it gives the truck lots of time when you're skipping over the whoops, the rear end just falls, axles, big 44 spine axles, 10 inch ring and pin

gears. All the biggest stuff that they can make. It's all special built. You don't go in your normal parts shop and buy them.

I mean, even from brakes, all CNC brakes, four piston brakes, 17 inch rotors. I mean, everything on here is big. If you're going to build a vehicle like this, it's gonna be a quarter million bucks. I tell you the cheapest part was to build it to maintain it. Well, that's a whole another story.

After all that preparation,

it comes down to race

day.

He'll do good and he'll have fun. That's the most important thing. He'll have fun.

So, whatever happens

in both races, mother nature proved tougher than Wayne Lugo's trie.

I

got

a,

I got

a flat, I

caught a lot of guys passed a lot of guys, but as fast as I could pass them,

I was stuck with flat tires so that they turned around and pass me. Uh, finally at the end of the day, I got two flat simultaneously. We only carry one spare tire.

So I had to drive in on a flat tire. But, uh, we had a, we had a great weekend. We were really happy for trucks to perform more to our expectations today

and, um, we'll just regroup the guys and get ready to do it again.

I

suppose you could say that Gail Banks is all about racing, whether it's land speed records. Or desert racing.

And then he takes all the information he gets off that racetrack and puts it into those power systems that he puts on the street

check back after the break because we're gonna be installing the turbo.

Got an idea for the show. Drop us a line at Xtreme 4x4 tv.com.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4. That Dodge that you saw running through a California basin is the same Dodge that went to the ball hall

1000 took third in its class and drove home. Well, today we're building our own version of that sidewinder all terrain. This is no mall cruiser. This is a high performance machine

that is just as happy off the road as it is on the road.

Now, we've already replaced the torque converter, pulled the exhaust, the factory manifold and the turbo. Now we're going to start installing the big Hoss kit. The first thing to go in is a new intercooler. We're going to twist this ac condenser out of the way. So the system stays closed.

Do you see the difference between the stock piece and the new one from banks?

You can tell just by looking at these

that the new one is going to flow a lot more air than the stock one. And if you look at the core,

you can tell that it's going to cool that air even more

and that's the secret to the bank's kit. Flow a lot of air, cool it to keep it dense and match it to the fuel that's going to give you an acceptable exhaust gas temperature and a whole lot of power

after the new intercooler, I'll remove the factory air inlet,

install the new gaskets on both sides of the heater housing

position. The bank's high ran into place on the intake,

install a new stud

and slip in the new boost tube

with the new manifold bolted up to the block. We're ready to slip in that VG turbo. Now, tolerances in here are pretty tight

because that new turbo body is a lot larger than the stock unit. Jesse's going to show you the difference.

You can see that the exhaust in that portion of the stock turbo is a lot smaller than the new turbo we got from banks that's going to cause clearance issues with the block. But the guys at banks thought ahead put a lot of engineering into this package. If you put these two allen bolts as per their instructions

underneath the exhaust manifold, in place of the hex bolts you put on the top side, you'll gain three millimeters of clearance for that turbo to fit.

That's how tight these things fit in.

After the turbo was bolted to the new exhaust manifold,

installed the oil feed line

and then put in the boost tube.

All right. Now, the last thing to be installed under the hood is this bank shape shifter turbo controller. This little guy will be working hand in hand with our six gun tuner that will be installing later to control the air flow from the turbo.

Now, this is programmed at banks to adjust the veins inside the variable geometry turbo to give us optimum boost through our entire RP M cycle.

First mount the controller to the fuse box lid,

hook up the ground wire

and the power wire is fed from the fuse box.

This set of wires will go through an existing hole in the firewall to connect with our six gun tuner.

The remaining wires go straight to the turbo.

We wrap up the engine compartment, install with the air box.

For more information on anything you've seen today. Check us out online, Xtreme 4x4, tv.com. Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4. Money in the banks is coming along ever so smoothly. All we have to do is a couple more things, but right now it's time for us to get this huge exhaust on.

We will pre ft all the exhaust components,

reuse the factory C

converter

and once the tail pipes are at a good height.

Yeah,

we will tighten everything down.

The heart of this massive four inch exhaust. Is this monster muffler. I mean, we just put on a gigantic turbo so we need to open up the exhaust to let this baby breathe.

Now we can lower down, get inside and put on that six gun tuner

with the truck out from in the hoist. We can get into the cab and start doing the electrical. Now we're going to be installing a bank six gun tuner and the six gun tutor registers input from the engine sensors,

the manifold absolute pressure sensor,

the fuel rail pressure sensor, the camshaft and crankshaft position sensor

and the torque converter clutch

solenoid.

This will take all the information from those sensors and produce new fuel and timing maps for the diesel engine. It will also communicate with the shapeshifter Turbo controller that Jessi installed earlier to control that VG turbo.

The shapeshifter turbo requires some modifications to the six gun tuner.

Install the tap into the six gun wiring harness,

then secure the box under the dash

and plug in all the connectors

that about wraps up the power portion of our sidewinder project. You may have noticed I didn't install the six position selector switch that six gun.

That's because we have a super cool way to adjust the power output from this gun.

And then we get to be dealing with wheels and entire suspension and then we get to take it out and play, but all that's next week. So we'll see you then.