after the add ons

after putting the mods on took my 32 ft. trailer through wisconsin for last 2 wks. can't say the egt's are much less but am sure the engine runs cooler and has more power particularly with the edge on tow. cruiseing down ne. I-80 virtually flat land with rolling hills at 75 mph. fan didn't kick on untill outside temp reached 82 degrees. after that fan ran at least every other hill and as they got steeper every hill. all mods were done right before trip except edge. pretty happy but could use lower egt's. gave engine nice low sound when pulling up hill but is noticeably louder but will live with it for the results it gave. did get warmer with bigger hills but nothing like mountains. fan ran but kept engine from getting out of control.

 

i will give banks this i think there cold air intake (except the super scoop it needed some stupid worked out of it but its good now) is the best intake you can get for a duramax in terms of fitment,power,and filtration but that said its the only banks part i will pay money for.

 

banks superscoop

been without internet the last 3 or 4 days. my super scoop went on screwy too . expected better from banks for the price. i thought maybe was because mine is a gmc, instead of chevy.. i was wondering if anyone has cut a hole in the fender well and made an attachment to it from the air box. thought it might get all its air from outside that way. if so looks like banks would have done that.

 

i'm can't picture what you saying. as for me the main problem i had was the fact they perfectly contoured the scoop around the stock size tire so once you change the height of the truck and or the tire size your screwed i ended up having to cut the whole back of the scoop off and make a cap to make it work. you pay that much for plastic i want the warm feeling you get when something bolts in like it should.

 

the banks airbox is not completely sealed off so it only sucks air in from the scoop. it also sucks air in from the side that sits beside the fender, presumedly from the motor heat. that was my observation. now for my complaint: the scoop had to be pushed forward so to bolt up to the bumper lip. seems like the bumper bracket was in the way. also had to trim off bumper lip with knife or it wouldn"t face the scoop the right way so it would mount up flush to the scoop. tire size wasnt a factor with mine.

 

i see what your saying now i think banks was going to offer a plate to seal of that side opening but decided not to i just made one that slides in if you take the top of the air box you will see a slot right above the hole i made a plated that slides in the slot and bent the top at 90deg. so it wedges between the lid and box and seals it off. but i take it out for the winter. but i do remember having issues and having to push it forward i never had to trim but i had to long-ate the hole to make it bolt up..

 

dint remember if i called banks or internet dealer but i asked them about the box and he said it would be like sucking air through a straw."dont know exactly what he meant except maybe it wouldnt be enought air so let me know how that seems to go after a bit. cant do anything on mine now since im pulling my trailer through mich. and ohio untill thanksgiving. without looking i believe my bumper lip was horazontal so had to trim it to make it vertical or maybe i have that backwords. never know how many trucks they try to make this fit on.

 

i don't think they leave the side open because its restrictive i think they leave it open because i read somewhere they had a few cases were guys were hunting and did a river crossing and ended up sucking water up and killing the motor this way if you fill the scoop water,mud,snow it won't make a seal and keep it from pulling it right into the filter or worse the motor thats why i think banks leaves it to the customer to make that decision

 

My dads truck has the bank intake and there is a steel plate that goes on the side of the box to block underhood air from coming in.

We have the banks 6 gun and intake and scoupe and OBX 4" exhaust and AFE mouth piece and the truck is a beast. It also gets 18.2 MPG rolling on 33" tires.

Winter time -50 out and she starts up perfect.

Everyone bangs on Banks but the truck on setting 4 with no cat does not puff black at all and ive raced a few guys with EFI live and bulley dog LBZ and murdered them and they cant believe it.

Not everyone wans 1000 ft lbs and a slipping trans.

 

sure its what ever makes you happy but beating a bulley dog duramax is not really something to measure your truck against and while efi live is considered the best its only as good as its tuner and the mods that accompany it i agree with you not everyone wants to take there truck to the raged edge. i have installed and tryed almost every chip on the market on all the popular diesels and i will tell you this the only reason your happy with your 6 gun is because you have never drove the truck with a real tune. and i'm not talking peak power or e.ts i'm talking the hole package drivablity throttler response, MPG ,towing even if you had a efi live tune that made the same peak power you make with your 6 gun there would be no comparison in the truck it would feel like a whole new motor and you would gain a honest 2-4 MPG for example my truck has a 7'' lift and 37' on the highway i can get just under 22 mpg and towing my 10000lbs 5th wheel around 13.5 mpg

 

do you have any pics of the plate? was there a part number for it ?

 

i normally dont drive in water other than maybe a heavy rain occaisionlly and not apt to be that deep a snow so i would guess that i would probably be all right with closeing off the box.

 

unless you guys state how fast you are driveing and about what kind of terrain your driveing in your mpg claims dont mean much.

 

^ in both cases towing and driving it was for the most part fairly flat with some miner grades when i got 21.89mpg i was going 118km or 73.75MPH and when i was towing the trailer i was going 108km or 67.5MPH and the weather was ideal

 

now that fuel mileage is truely impressive, especially the towing figure. towing my 10000 lb. 5th wheel i would probaly get right around 12mpg at 68 mpg. empty at 74 mph 19 or possibly 20 mpg. i may have a little steeper hills. i only recently completed these mods before leaveing on this trip. isee we have some of the same mods but you have more. i plan on doing a egr delete and possibly a pcv reroute but more for engine and egt heat reduction than anything. which of your mods do you think contributed the most to your good mpg , especially towing.

 

is that canadian gallon or us? lol might make a difference..

 

lol no this is in us mpg my truck is a us truck so i'm always checking against the dash but these tunes are fairly new so i just started getting these numbers this summer and don't have a good avg but you have me thinking i will double check my numbers when i get home and i don't remember what my L/100 is that would clear up any confusion i'm up north working right now

 

as for what the most important thing for mpg is its defiantly the tune when i bought the truck bone stock it got 16.8 mpg with the bolt ons it went to 18.7mpg than with a copy of a stage 3 hypertech as a base it went to 22.7mpg than came the lift and tires than it went to 17,7 mpg than with a copy of a ppe stage 3 as a base and 4.56 gears it got 18 ish than i tried a copy of a ppe stage 4 and there was almost no change other than drivability than i tried a copy of ppe stage 5 as a base and that is were i got 21.89mpg highway and plus my daily commute thats freeway/city i was getting high 14s and now it high 17s but keep in mind these numbers are ideal weather and i don't have a good avrg yet i haven't been home enough to drive it

 

in my last posts i forgot to mention that i took my fuel mileage from my trks dic, i guess its called that. i dont think the recent mods increased my fuel mileage more than 1 or possibly 2 mpg. my biggest gain seemed to be in power especially at lower r.p.m. and it cooled the engine down some too.

 

i missed your other post when i just posted mine. i see you have a o6 lbz. wonder if that would make a difference. otherwise it looks like i needed a stage 3 hypertech. i havent heard of that. is that like a edge but different brand.

 

what i'm doing is using my hp tuner (laptop) to copy my friends chips than using there chip as a base for my tunes. yes the hypertech is just a different brand but i do not recommend if you want a better chip go with a PPE Economy Xcelerator but if you want the best its EFI live i would only recommend going with a PPE if you can get a good deal on a used one but if your going to spend any kind of money put it towards EFI live its about 1000x better than your edge in every way