We here at Stage 3 have done business with the folks over at Banks Power for a long while now, and last week, Bill and Dylan got the opportunity to take a tour of Banks' Headquarters out in Azusa, California, east of Los Angeles. We got the full tour of their extremely impressive manufacturing and testing facilities, saw some of their upcoming F150 EcoBoost products, and even got to meet the man that started it all and who still puts in 10-hour days at 70 years old – Gale Banks himself. Dylan and Bill got the royal treatment, and we want to thank everyone over at Banks Power for letting us come in and poke around.
Banks' headquarters impresses right out the gate, and as soon as you walk through the door, you're surrounded by crate engines of all makes, models, and manufacturers showcasing the best of what Banks Power has to offer. Rich Norman, our Dealer Development Representative, and Chris Bruny, Banks' Director of Business and Legal Affairs, were out in a minute to show us around.
One of the more interesting motors on display was a Ford 6.8L V10 Class A Motor Home engine. After some convincing from Banks, we here at Stage 3 have listed all their Ford 6.8L V10 Motor Home performance parts in earnest. A Triton's a Triton no matter what it's in, right?
The most impressive of the upgrades on that V10 was the pair of Banks Torque Tube® header assemblies. These bad boys make exhaust outflow much more efficient and add on extra power and improved fuel economy in a 50-State Legal Package.
The cutout section of the Torque Tubes® was showing off their Banks "Power Pickle." While I'm not a fan of the name, the Power Pickle is a specially-designed velocity spike that equalizes and smooths out airflow into the collector to improve efficiency and overall performance of the Torque Tubes®.
The Banks reps that led Bill and Dylan around showed off their Speed Brake™ controller system that basically works as a cruise control for going downhill, which is extremely handy when towing or hauling. The Speed Brake™ installs inline with your truck's PCM and helps keep you from needing constant brake and throttle inputs to maintain speed heading downhill.
Next, the guys at Banks showed us their production floor. Luckily, it was later in the day and the production staff had all finished up for the day so we didn't get in anybody's way. Banks manufactures a huge percentage of their components in-house, even some of the more complicated components in their arsenal like turbine housings and up pipes.
Banks even has a few surplus World War II machines on their floor that have been running strong for nearly 70 years.
One of the more numerous products on the floor was the Banks Torque Tubes® long tube headers, and they're pretty impressive to look at. Their most noticeable feature is their extremely thick flanges. The flanges on their Class A Motorhome headers are 1/2" thick, versus the industry standard 3/8". The flanges are so thick, that gaskets aren't necessarily required for some applications, and Banks doesn't use them for their own in-house testing.
How much tubing do you think Banks goes through manufacturing their exhaust kits?
The answer is a whole lot. All of this tubing is brought in for cutting and mandrel-bending in-house for all of Banks' Monster® cat-back systems.
Finished product is stocked or shipped out right out Banks' warehouse, and they have a ton of it ready to go for all sorts of different makes and models.
Just sitting around was a set of F150 5.4L shorty headers. We grabbed a quick picture before putting them back.
On top of their finished, stock items, Banks also had pallets and bins full of component pieces that only required final assembly before being kitted, boxed, and shipped out.
Once we got off the production floor, we got into the fun stuff. The Banks staff led us through to their testing and performance areas that were lined with built racing transmissions and engines of all types ready for extremely powerful vehicles.
We even got to take a peek at Banks Sidewinder Top Diesel Dragster, that was stripped down to its chassis. When ready to roll, it throws down 1500 horsepower out of its heavily-modified Duramax.
It was roughly at this time that we were intercepted by the man himself, Gale Banks, and he wanted to show off their prototype F150 EcoBoost performance intercooler. This is a rough testing prototype, and when its ready for production, will look like Banks' lineup of Techni-Cooler™ Diesel Intercooler systems. We'll definitely be one of the first companies to grab one of these bad boys once they're released.
We continued onward, led by Gale, who took us by this massive air-cooled V12, as well as some other serious hardware that we weren't able to photograph.
Two of the most interesting things in Banks testing area were a custom, twin-turbo EFI hot rod owned by Gaylord's Truck Bed Lids, and a HMMWV up-armored Humvee.
Most of the Humvee test-work was done on Banks' privately owned Humvee. Now, your average military-spec up-armored Humvee has a zero to 60 time of an agonizing slow 43 seconds. This is generally a bad thing when trying to hustle out of an ambush's kill-zone. With Banks modifications and tuning, that zero to 60 time was cut down to 26 seconds, to help our men and ladies in uniform get the heck out of dodge when things go sideways.
One of things that Banks performance parts are known for is their emissions legality, and to help streamline CARB approval, Banks has their own in-house emissions testing equipment.
While their hardware development and testing is certainly impressive, they're equally invested in their software and use extensive and advanced bench testing to make sure all of their tuners and monitors are up to snuff.
Here's not something you see every day. Here's a motor home on Banks' Dyno.
Banks does as much real-world testing of their products as possible, and this 60mph hour fan helps them do that on the dyno by simulating airflow through the radiator, intercooler, and intake at highway speeds.
Gale departed around that time, and we looped back around to the sales and demonstration areas. Banks' reps gave us a quick run-through of the Banks iQ® monitoring system on a large touchscreen that simulated its software.
Some of the products that Banks is most proud of are their water-methanol systems. Unlike water-meth kits from competing brands, the Banks Single-Shot™ and Double-Shot™ systems increase their spray volume in line with your vehicle's RPM, keeping power gains predictable without wasting any of the water-meth mixture.
Once they were done showing off the water-meth systems, our tour was complete. Here's a big thanks to Chris Bruny and Rich Norman for showing us around, and a huge thanks to Gale Banks for taking time out of his day to show us around. It was an honor to meet one of the legends of the industry!
UPDATED 8-29-2014:
Now with video!
