Legendary speed guru Gale Banks and “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno have a lot in common – they’re both self-made men with a penchant for high-powered transportation. Shortly after the world famous comedian asked his friend to “Banks” a tank-powered hot rod by adding twin turbos and fuel injection to the Korean-war era powerplant, Leno launched a new website aimed at giving the public unparalleled access to his famous car collection. Leno asked Banks to appear in a few videos explaining different technical topics, and the rest is history.

Banks appears in videos on http://www.JayLenosGarage.com discussing the difference between turbocharging and supercharging, the history of diesel, what’s new in fuel injection, and other interesting tech topics. Banks uses his 50 years of automotive engineering and record-setting powerplant knowledge to shed light on some of hot rodding’s most interesting topics. Jay’s 17,000 square-foot garage serves as a jaw-dropping background. 

The three videocasts are “GM Minute” segments as part of Jay’s Garage website. So, what’s new in fuel injection these days? Find out at http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/index.shtml?vidID=65509, where in addition to the answer, you’ll get a quick history lesson on the changes it went through to present day.

You’d think that a multi-ton, 800hp, 20 foot long polished aluminum roadster powered by a tank engine would be wild enough for consummate car guy and popular TV host Jay Leno, but the diehard gear head knows that there’s no such thing as too much power. With that in mind, the Tonight Show host turned to his friend Gale Banks for a little help.
“There are two things Jay wants in a car,” said Banks, “a loud horn and huge power.” So the Banks team went to work dissecting a spare engine and creating a game plan to get the big roadster rolling with twin-turbo power, a specialty at Banks. It wasn’t easy, however, as getting parts to twin-turbocharge an engine designed more than half a century ago for an armored war machine proved difficult; the crew actually whittled most of the scratch-design parts out of huge slabs of billet aluminum.

Relying on decades of experience with twin-turbo powerplants - from record-setting marine engines in the 1970s to land-speed record shattering passenger car powerplants in the ‘80s and ‘90s and 1,000+ horsepower crate engines today – Banks turned to his crack engineering staff as well as industry contacts to get the unique project done. Bosch was responsible for converting the engine to fuel injection, and the turbos are from Honeywell/Garrett Turbo Technologies. The massive twin TR 72T turbos are magnesium-housing units originally designed for Toyota’s CART racing efforts.