Trucks! Builds

Parts Used In This Episode

[none]
The B&M Hole Shot torque converter has a stall speed of 3200 rpm, right in the new powerband of the 350 crate engine. Before mounting it, fill it about 1 qt of transmission fluid.
Banks Power
Gale Banks Engineering PowerPack
Banks Power
Gale Banks Engineering Ram Air System
Chevrolet Performance
The wider and deeper 350 is going to be a tight fit in the stock engine bay. It will require headers, and for them to clear, a smaller, higher torque starter is required. Plus, it will resist the extra heat the headers will produce. Kevin bolts it in.
Dupli-Color
Whether your tires are old or new, Hot Tires gives you a way to add color, revive or personalize your muscle car, truck or sport compact car tires. You can touch-up faded white walls, tattoo your high performance tires to match your car or create a "stock" car look with yellow lettering. You can even stencil your sidewalls or color in your tires' grooves. It goes on smooth, dries fast and resists fading. The Hot Tires paint pen is easy to use, so go ahead and get creative with your tires today.
Matco Tools
The rear seal of the trans output shaft can be a major source of fluid leakage. They are inexpensive, so replace it while you have the chance now.

Video Transcript

Today. How about a safe

sane 100 horses for your diesel that won't break the bank at the pump.

He ends our guest Wrench today on project working man.

All that more today on trucks.

Whoa,

that's good.

Ladies and gentlemen, playing the role of Paul Vincent is Ian Johnson from Xtreme 4x4.

And quite literally, we are almost out of trucks. So Paul and Jessi are out on the road, they're hunting for the next trucks project. So Ian here is gonna help us out. That means that we have to do all the work. No, no, no, they're out there working. I know they are. They told me they would work hard and look really hard to find a good trucks project.

I mean, that's a granny gear for sure.

You probably climb a wall.

I will bet you one dozen donuts that we are finished this truck before they walk through that door today. All right, you're on,

I'll

get

like I was trying to say we're going back to basics. Now. You've seen us build these high horsepower mega projects. But we also know that most people drive a regular truck like this 05 GMC

Duramax. So what we're gonna do is take this Bone Stock truck, we're gonna create more horsepower, more lower

and torque and we're gonna get better fuel economy to boot

you ready.

I know I'm ready. And today we're going to take you step by step through the installation of a series of matched components all from gale banks engineering called the power pack. Now, this power pack is going to give us everything that Kevin talked about more horsepower, more torque and of course better fuel economy. Now, whenever you start messing around the diesel, it always involves some type of computer upgrader software upgrade. Well, this system is no different. We're going to install the banks auto

mine six. Now this is a diesel tuner. This system works with the engine sensors as well as an EGT temperature probe that we're going to install on the manifold to give us six safe levels of added power. We're going to control it by uploading some software onto a palm pilot, making it the

power PD A

and this system is going to allow us to monitor things like EGT boost, quarter mile times, 0 60 times. And best of all, when we pull that out of the truck, it still works like a regular pal,

that's pretty cool stuff. Now, a cold air intake system is essential to a high performance upgrade on a late model vehicle. And this bank's

Ramer system rocks

according to banks, the ram air part of the package adds 42% more airflow.

This is really gonna breathe nicely. This flat spot with the way this filter mounts acts as a splash card. When we're hardcore off roading,

the banks takes the system one step further with functional ram air that this mounts onto the bumper and takes advantage of the air envelope that surrounds a vehicle at speed to push our colder denser air charge right on up into that

Duramax.

A cat back exhaust is going to help any engine breathe better. And when you're going to ram as much fuel and air into an engine as we are on this diesel, it's a must. So we're going to install the bank's mo

exhaust true four inch pipe from the converter right back to this fully polished banks monster muffler, fully welded and flow through design. Then behind the muffler, we're gonna split that flow into two tail pipes. Now, there's really no benefit here. Aside from the fact that when you have two tail pipes like this, hanging underneath the bed of your truck, you know, it's gonna look great.

The first component from our power pack to be installed is our techni

cooler. This ships with all the clamps and hardware, new couplers and these larger than stock boost tubes.

The cool thing about a diesel engine is that you can add fuel and add fuel and make tons of power. But if you don't add air in with that you end up with a bunch of black smoke puking out those pretty exhaust tips that Ian just showed you.

And this techni

cooler is a direct bolt in replacement for GM

Duramax Intercooler requires no cutting, no modification whatsoever. Now, as you know, an inter cooler is a heat exchanger and this one will cool that hot air coming off your turbo by up to 250 degrees

and obviously cooler

air plus more fuel equals a lot more power. No black smoke. That's right. Hey, we got some tear down to do. Now. Actually you have some tear down to do. I got some work to do down the hall. This is a straightforward install that can be easily done over a weekend. First ago, the stock air intake, then the grill baffle, the grill shell,

both head lamp assemblies

and then the radiator shroud.

Next mark can remove the hood latch, followed by the cooler for the Allison transmission.

Then unbolt the condenser and remove the so, er, Cooper

with the air box brackets out. It's time to take out the stock boost twos.

We wanna make sure nothing gets into the ports of the turbo

to get the driver's side boost tube out. You'll need to take out the inner fender,

loosen the tube and snake it out over the wheel. We'll replace these with larger tubes later.

All right, man, I'm back. But I see with that coming out all the disassembly is done. Yeah, thanks for the help. Well, I'm back. I had, I'm finished, got my coffee. I'm back here to work now. Well, now we gotta take a break. But when we come back, we'll actually get to start putting parts on our

Duramax

after the break.

It's our power pack install

and later we'll load our Duramax and check it out.

Hey, welcome back to trucks where today I'm joined by Mr Ian Johnson from Xtreme 4x4. Uh Jessi and Paul are out looking for a new project truck and I've got a dozen donuts riding on the fact that we're working harder in here than they are out there.

Pioneer.

Uh No

wagon, e

double, no black wagon ear. Absolutely not. Come

on

now, trust me, they're out there working, they're gonna find

us.

So I'll believe you

today, we're working on an 05 GMC

Duramax that we're going to call project working man. It's designed from the factory as a compromise of styling performance and economy is designed to appeal to as many people as possible. I think what Kevin is trying to say here, the $10 way is when this thing rolled off the lot. It was

and it was underpowered. So we're fixing that, we're stuffing it full of the banks power pack that's gonna give this truck obviously more power, but best of all it's gonna tow better for the working man.

Well, I did all the hard work by tearing this thing down. We're gonna start with this intercooler eat and grab that other stuff. I got the cart because it's heavy.

The factory

Duramax makes 300 horsepower, 520 ft pounds of torque in its highest power setting. The power pack adds 100 extra horses and 230 pounds of torque. Plenty of grunt for towing heavy trailers. RVS are hauling big loads.

After reinstalling the front end pieces, the exhaust manifold needs to come out so we can install a thermo coupler that will let the system monitor exhaust gas temperatures.

We need to put a probe into this manifold to measure the EGTS when the exhaust enters the turbo and we're gonna do that by screwing this adapter into the actual manifold itself but obviously no hole. So I'm gonna drill 12 and a quarter inches back from the flange

with the manifold marked two and a quarter inches back from the flange

will center punch and then drill with a 7/16 bit while making sure we keep the drill perpendicular to the manifold, then tap the hole with a quarter inch NPT pipe tap.

And since the manifolds off the truck, we can easily clean out the metal shards

don't forget to use the supplied

ans

when the probe senses exhaust temperatures above 1350 degrees. The tuner de

fuels the system keeping the turbo from overheating.

Now, the factory does not measure egt at all. They just load the computer with a base calibration and the truck runs from there.

But when you start adding a lot of power to a diesel, it's important that you measure this egt exhaust gas temperature will allow your aftermarket device to actually add more power safely. And that's probably the most important thing

it goes this way,

right? Because at the end of the day, work trucks like this put food on the table so they need to be as powerful as possible without sacrificing reliability

before we install our new boost tubes. It's a real good idea to clean the tube ends and the fittings with lacquer thinner or acetone, especially this one we're reusing, this is gonna make sure we get a nice tight seal and it's gonna prevent slippage under full load.

The bank's boost tubes are half an inch bigger in diameter than stock so they could pull a lot more volume.

The key to this system is the techni

cooler. Not only will it deliver 35% more air, the temperature of that air is cooled 25% as it crosses the core.

Well, Ian's cleaning up, we're gonna take a break when we come back. We're gonna put our new air box and our cat back exhaust in place.

Next

part three of project working man is coming up.

Welcome back to trucks and project working man where today I'm Turner Wrenches with Ian Johnson from Xtreme 4x4. While Paul and Jessi are out scouring the countryside looking for a new trucks. Project scouring.

We don't really have to get a truck. You know,

we could, uh,

get a boat.

I can almost taste the donuts. Little side bet we got going

anyway, back to our project. So far we've installed a new intercooler, bigger moose tubes and an EGT sensor in the right bank exhaust manifold. And now Ian's getting ready to install this brand new air boxes. Now, Kevin's already told you all the good things about this ra M air. But there's one thing I wanted to show you normally the box draws its air through this bottom inlet. But if you're going for a lot of water off road like we do at extreme, you pull this little door on the side and it gives the air an alternate place to get in that way. Your engine's not gonna suck a bunch of water and hydraulic.

The key is drawing air in and this huge intake and filter do that. Well,

the saying an engine is just an air pump is true

on a conventional engine, air is drawn in by the intake stroke. But on this turbo engine, the air is forced in at about 25 pounds of boost.

But banks power pack proves that you can add 100 horses to your diesel just by addressing fuel delivery and ensuring your truck gets a cooler, denser charge of air. This means safe power and best of all, no black smoke. You'll want to add a new O ring to the intake air sensor

slip in the filter indicator

and plug in the harness.

Now it's time to add the final piece to our cold air induction system. Now, what this duct is going to allow us to do is to have functional ram air to enhance our already cold and dense air charge and really wake the breathing of this up.

It connects to the bottom of the air box and attaches using four plastic fasteners that push into the space ship.

You all done down there, man.

Yeah.

All right. Let's get this thing on the lift. Sounds good.

Ramming more air in is only part of the issue. The stock three inch exhaust is way too restrictive and restricted exhaust will raise your exhaust gas temperatures. A free flowing exhaust reduces engine pumping losses and improves fuel economy.

So this four inch exhaust with the monster straight through muffler will have no problem passing some gas.

I know, I know what you're thinking, but wait a minute, this stuff always looks easy on TV. But believe us, this exhaust system of install was easy as pie

that

ok, we're gonna take a break. Ian's gonna finish this up and then we'll get under the hood, connect up a couple of things we'll get on the road.

Yes, we will.

Next. It's the conclusion of project working man

right after this,

I'll drive. Well, I'm already.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and project working men. We got a couple more things to do here under the hood before we can take our

dima

out on the road starting with

mounting our tutor module on the side of the fuse panel.

The auto mine six tuner regulates fuel delivery three ways. It opens the injectors sooner. It increases fuel pressure at the injector and it holds the injectors open longer. It uses an intercept harness that plugs into the truck's main harness, using factory style connectors.

You'll need to connect and insulate the two lead wires that tie the EGT sensor into the system using the supplied heater cubing.

Then you're ready to connect the PD A,

the other end of the wiring harness goes through a firewall gromit into the cabin.

All right, inside the cab, the electronics are pretty simple. We'll hook into the A LDL connector from the truck, pull the harness through from the auto mind

and then run the last cable

over the PD A.

It is

the PD A will let you control that. Fueling. Level one is stock. Level two gives the best fuel economy with moderate power increase and levels three through six, add progressively more power.

We'll show you what else it can do out on the road.

All right,

let's go. I'll drive. Well, I'm already here, but you can get the door.

I'll get the door and I'll take you to my favorite doughnut shop because I don't see Jessi or Paul yet

whatever. Let's test it to, it's something realistic.

Oh, here we go.

The P DS shift on the fly. Power level control also reports throttle position boost, pressure, engine coolant and trans oil temperature torque converter lock up and more. It also recalibrate for oversized tires and scans and clears those diagnostic codes.

We're towing 1/5 wheel with a full size F 150 an extra 6000 pounds like a work truck would do.

But in stop and go situations and low speed back road driving, it feels like there's nothing back there. It's designed for towing, merging with a load is usually a dicey proposition,

but the extra 230 pounds of torque takes out all the strength.

I mean, the cool thing is there's like no black smoke.

None

spewing smoke may be ok at the track but banks was after more sensible performance for the street. So you won't see this system belching black smoke. It's emissions compliant,

dual exhaust tips and that ram air scoop are subtle signs this rig is packing

but when you get behind the wheel, there's nothing subtle about the power pack.

Now. That's, that feels pretty ST

Yeah, that

pulls hard.

That's pulling from 70 to 80. Yeah.

Well,

look who showed up.

Yeah. Yeah,

you guys owe me some donuts. I had to feed him. They were good too. You missed it, but you were gone all day. Where's the truck? Oh, I got some good news and some bad news. Do you guys like to go fishing? Not right now. No kidding me. We got a boat.

Well, if you got a boat that's fine. But right now you got some work to do. Get out of. Yeah,

do something. I'm hungry. Let's go fishing. All right.

Hey, guys, check it out. Taylor's got this full metal jacket, eight millimeter street series ignition wire set.

Not only do these look great with braided fuel lines.

The full metal jacket set can withstand temperatures beyond most other wires.

The set comes with polished aluminum jackets that fit over the silicone boots with spring locking plug terminals. Taylor's got these full metal jacket wire set starting at about 100 and $30 for a four cylinder

and then of course they go up from there.

It's kind of like being a kid with chalk on the sidewalk,

but this is pain for your tires. These are d

colors. Hot tire tire paints, not only can you touch up your white walls but they come in different colors so you can get all sorts of creative on old or new tires.

Now, the paint goes on really smooth.

It dries fast and resist water and fading and each pen is about seven Bs to go out and be a kid all over again.

Good doughnuts.

Doughnuts.

Paul really likes his doughnuts. You guys already ate half the box there's a pink one there for you. A half eaten pink one.

I didn't like it. But anyway,

guys, thanks for helping us today, man. You're welcome. You're gonna take this whole box. You,

you're in it

now. That gives us a good reason to go get some more doughnuts. You're absolutely right. Let's take this truck. This Derma

rocks.

Let's check it out.
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