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THE LENO TANK CAR COMES "HOME" TO BANKS FOR A CHECK-UP
In the fall of 2008 this magnificent machine came "home" to the Banks tech shop for a short, regularly-scheduled maintenance visit. Of course we are using the terms "regular" and "maintenance" with some relativity here.
As even the most casual observer would easily note, this bolide is an absolutely unique one-off that did not come with anything even approximating an owner's manual in the glove box (actually, it doesn't even have a glove box!). Be that as it may, it was just great to have this exciting vehicle back in the Banks Tech Bay, all 20+ gleaming feet of it, if only for a few days!
If you've been reading about this big silver bullet right all along, by this point you might have come up with the idea that taking a twelve cylinder, air-cooled, carbureted World War II-era engine, originally designed to haul a 30-ton military tank over hill and dale at a ripping 15 or 20 miles per hour, and making it into the centerpiece power unit of one of the most photographed, most outrageous, most spectacular sports cars ever to roll on the face of the planet was a bit of a long haul.
And you'd be very correct.
In a different way, but in all candor this project was as difficult a challenge as any that have been in the R&D shops at Banks, including the machines that have set world speed records, and broken many others.
Adapting twenty-first century Formula One V-12 fuel injection technology to an engine that was designed in the 1940's with toughness as the number one criterion was no easy task.
Posted by Doug Stokes on December 29, 200834 ENGINES
I just went out in the shop and counted for myself.
Thirty-four.
There are thirty-four engines presently taking up just about every spare square foot of the race car shop floor here at Banks. The crew has been pulling them out of storage for a couple of days now in preparation for a new museum exhibit that opens in Pomona on December 3rd.
I guess that I should have said, "Our exhibit," because the show at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum is actually entitled: "Banks Power, The First 50 Years."
Now you know the reason for all the engines. Going back at least forty of Gale Banks' 50 in the business, they are the living lexicon of Banks Power.
From the latest 1200+ horsepower twin-turbo diesel dragster engines to an early marine engine which was so good that it got itself legislated out of competition, they're all here, each representing the Banks heritage and that well documented corporate credo to do it better every time.
Posted by Doug Stokes on November 26, 2008Engineering & mechanics students visit Banks from Mexico...
Some 15 very eager students from the Centro Educativo Grupo Cedva in Mexico City recently toured the Banks facility in Azusa, California. They were given an up-close and personal look at many of the manufacturing processes: from design and prototyping, through production, right on to the boxing and shipping of the final product.
The young folks were in Los Angeles to participate in the annual “Formula SAE” event sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. While they were in southern California they took a little time out to show a curious crowd of Banks employees their entry in the formula car competition at the Speedway. Their cool little student-built single-seater featured a modified 600cc Honda motorcycle engine, all-independent suspension, motorcycle disc brakes, wide Hoosier slicks, on open cockpit, and sleek composite bodywork.
Posted by Doug Stokes on July 07, 2008Banks Sidewinder Diesel Dragster Arrives
Mark down this date: Tuesday, June 17, 2008.
At precisely 8 a.m. the new Banks Sidewinder Duramax-powered diesel dragster stopped being a great idea, a few photos, some artist conceptions, a big stack of PO's, a bunch of invoices, about a hundred faxes and an equal number of phone calls back and forth to Greenfield, Ind., and actually became a tangible object, a real, honest-to-goodness racing car, all 31.5 feet of it. The 276 inches of that ultra-loooooong wheelbase, swathed in a sleek, all-carbon-fiber body, now sits smack dab in the middle of the Banks Power race shop in Azusa, Calif.
The real thing coming out of its seemingly block-long crate and getting its first taste of the warm California sun made it seem almost as though, with a set of tires and a few decals, the digger would be ready to race.
Posted by Doug Stokes on June 19, 2008A Meeting of Engineering Minds
More than 50 members of the Society of Automotive Engineers gathered in the tech bay of Banks Power's North Engineering building on Tuesday evening to listen to company president and founder Gale Banks speak about the many great aspects of high-performance diesel power. The attendees, gathered from all around southern California, represented a wide cross section of industry and academia. Automotive engineers from Honeywell, Subaru, General Motors, Nokia, Mazda, Denso, HR Textron, US Hybrid Corp., and more mingled well into the night with representatives from local universities Cal Poly Pomona and the University of Southern California.
Posted by Doug Stokes on June 12, 2008The Indy 500’s first and only turbo diesel
Q: When did the first turbocharged car appear at the Indy 500?
A: It was in 1952, and the car was not only turbocharged but it was a Cummins diesel - a first for both!
The inline 6-cylinder engine displaced 401 cubic inches and made 400 horsepower at 4,000 rpm on 20 inches of boost. The smart-looking yellow and red car sat on the pole for the 1952 Indianapolis 500 Mile Sweepstakes Race with California kid Freddie Agabashian in the driver's compartment turning a track record 139.10-mph lap.
The diesel engine's great mileage meant that the race car could theoretically go the full 200 laps of the race without stopping for fuel. Unfortunately, tire wear with the overly heavy car was dismal. (The machine came in at nearly 2,500 pounds dry and weighed a whopping 3,100 ready to race!) In fact, in qualifying trim, future racing hall of famer Agabashian had very nearly worn out a set of tires just running his four laps for the pole!
Posted by Doug Stokes on May 29, 2008The Re-Education of a "Gearhead"
Last Friday (really my "first day on the job", even though I had only come in to fill out some employment papers), I was invited to sit in on meeting with Gale Banks and a number of members of the engineering staff.
My (just-bestowed an hour earlier) title is the lofty "Corporate Publicist" and so, I was pleased to be asked to be a part of the action so soon after signing on with the company.
As near as I could make out, the subject of the meeting was a new engine design, diesel to be sure, but after that the talk got a very technical very quickly. The parts looked familiar, lifters, valve train components and the like, but the numbers got blurry and the words became sort of muffled pretty fast from my side of the table.
Not unlike someone who has studied another language in school, but only now was in a place where that was all anyone spoke; I thought that I recognized certain key phrases and numbers, but the tribal council that Gale Banks had assembled around the table in his office seemed to be speaking in some arcane dialect of English that I was entirely unfamiliar with.
Oh, I could sort of make out a bit of what was going on, but there was still this complex series of handoffs and headings between design engineers and outside specialty suppliers that I couldn't have followed with a GPS.
It was, in truth, a dizzying dance of numbers and notations which went whizzing over my head like so many swallows returning to wherever they go when they're NOT hanging out at Capistrano.
My takeaway (which I dutifully wrote down) was that the new CNC-machined Banks cylinder heads not only increase power, but add very nicely to the overall efficiency of the motor as well. I thought that was pretty good for a guy who was "technically" stuck in first gear.
As the days go by I suspect that many of the words that are used around here which now make me wince in ignorance, will start to be making a bit more sense. This is sure highly technical fun that we're having here.
So to working directly with one of the true heroes of hot rodding is something that will take a bit of time to get comfortable with. While I'm sure that this Gale Banks guy actually does put his pants on "one leg at a time", I'll wager that he does it faster, or better, (or something), than your average company President. His pride shows, his attitude is always "at altitude" and his appetite for the fray is infectious.
Posted by Doug Stokes on September 19, 2007
