Banks Named Exclusive OE Distributor for Duramax Engine

[More Power]

For Immediate Release:

Banks Named Exclusive OE Distributor for Duramax EngineAZUSA, CA-Gale Banks Engineering today announced it has been named by General Motors (GM) Powertrain to be the world's exclusive OE distributor for the 6.6L Duramax turbo-diesel engine. The arrangement gives Banks exclusivity of the popular diesel engine for marine, off-highway and specialty uses. Banks will offer the engines in stock form all the way up to special-built racing applications. Banks was chosen for its long-standing and successful history in engineering performance systems for GM Powertrain products. This arrangement marks another in a series of partnerships between Banks and GM spanning four decades. A few of the partnerships with GM include: in 1971, Banks was named OEM supplier of Big Block Chevrolet engines to the world marine market; in 1980, Gale Banks began teaching graduate level engine design at the General Motors Institute; and, Banks is still the first and only aftermarket company to develop a dealer-specified turbo system option for GM's 6.2L diesel engine beginning in 1988.

Over the past five decades, Gale Banks has set numerous land speed records and achieved many performance engineering milestones leveraging GM Powertrain systems. Past records include: world's fastest passenger car and world's fastest pickup - the Banks project Syclone later marketed by GMC as the Syclone pickup. Also, Banks recently completed the world's first road race twin-turbo Duramax diesel pickup - the Banks Sidewinder D-Max Type-R. Established in 1958, Gale Banks Engineering of Azusa, California, is the premier designer-manufacturer of power, braking and high performance products for diesel and gasoline-powered trucks, SUVs and motorhomes. For more information or to order a Duramax engine, call Banks at (888) 638-7129, or visit www.BanksPower.com.

[ronniejoe]

"Teaching graduate level...at General Motors Institute."

My wife was there in 1980. I was there from 1983 to 1988. There were no graduate level classes offered there then and I never saw Gale Banks there or heard of him being there. If he had been there, several of the guys that I hung around with would have known it. We were all building hot rod cars and would have found him. His twin turbo corvettes were all the rage (along with Lingenfelter's [sp?]) at that time.

GMI offered an atuomotive specialty, or emphasis, mechanical engineering degree at that time. They also offered a machine design emphasis. In 1984, I declared the automotive emphasis as my chosen direction. The classes in that specialty were taught by ex GM engineers with no real teaching credentials or abilities. In short...they were worthless. (Again, I saw no classes available that were taught by anyone named Gale Banks.) After one semester, I switched out of the automotive specialty into machine design. Much better technical rigor and more useful information for desinging autos or anything else (I ended up designing aircraft gas turbine engines for fifteen years).

If the quoted statement is true, his tenure there was extremely short lived and not widely known. Furthermore, at the time that I was there, GMI was experimenting with some graduate level management courses in conjunction with the U of M Flint, but nothing else. Also, the period from 1980 through 1984 was a transitional period where GM cut the school loose and it became an independent institution known then as GMI Engineering & Management Institute. It is now known as Kettering University. I was in the last class to have tuition support from GM.

I would like more definition of what is meant by that assertion. May have to query Mr. Banks myself to find out...

On edit: I don't question Mr. Banks abilities. I just don't think his statement about teaching graduate level engine design classes at the General Motors Institute is factual (or at least it seems to imply more than really happened), since I was there.