Banks Headers observations.
 

Truck: 99 V10 Superduty F350 4wd CC LB with 4.30 gears.

Just some basic observations on the evolution of my truck. I have a RV/ tow shift improving kit, Volant cold air intake, Superchips 1715 set at 87 tune, Fm70 muffler and Banks Torque tubes. I use the truck primarily for towing a boat and hauling a truck camper.

I ran the truck last year with all the above minus the Banks, but with the SPD Y pipe. Believe it or not the SPD made a difference in towing hills but the Banks made even a bigger difference. The truck will pull hills now at a lower rpm before downshifting and keeps speed even easier. The drone I had with the SPD Y and FM70 at around 2000 rpms is substantially reduced with the Banks. The truck is barely any louder at idle with the Banks but under accelleration has a throaty sound now, better than with the SPD and stock manifolds.

I do not have anything to do with Banks and even bought my Banks torque tubes from a wrecked 2004 truck and installed them because of doing the broken manifold bolts. Headers do make a difference across the rpm band, at least for me. I would think any header is beter than stock manifolds.

If I had to do it over again or was looking for a V10 with the most performance and pay load I would move up to a 2005 + year class truck.
That will probably be my next truck, but for now I am going to enjoy what I have.

I ordered the power pack for my truck, it should arrive on Fri. Can't wait! Not sure what tuner I'm going to get though.

Thats good to hear, I am in the mid'st of deciding what to get for my 01 v10 to open it up and help it tow, I have a 20ft enclosed car trailer. What made the most noticeable improvement?

You joined the site in 2005 and you still don't know what tune you should get? :-X14

for some information on tuning, look up my thread about Banks power pack on my 2002
Might surprise you

Holly smoke, you would think Krewat is getting kickbacks from SCT or somthing.HA. SCT looks pretty good, just exploring my options.

No, no kickbacks. Mike at 5-star is a great guy to work with, and is always there to answer questions or concerns. I haven't heard anyone ever say anything bad about him, or his tunes.

Krewat only gets kickbacks from Nitto.:-innocent

mwah hah hah hahahahahahahahahahahahaha


:-X25

Saggy. If you want even a bigger wow, ditch the superchips tuner and get a SCT. When I did I said WOW!

I have the full banks kit too!

Gotta get that SCT with good custom tunes.;) Before I bought Mikes tunes I was running the canned tunes from SCT. Mikes were a huge improvement.

PBR30,
I know the headers made the biggest improvement. The Superchips biggest improvement was in firming up the shift points, I did not notice much difference in performance on the 87 tune.

Boxcar are you saying the WOW factor for the 5star tune is as good as the Banks WOW factor? :-X16

thanks for the info.

Sounds like a great list of mods.

Only things left are the 4.30s, PI heads and 5 star tunes!

Well I started the dismantling stage, in order to put my Banks power pack in. Everything but the exhaust manifolds came out good. I had to cut a few exhaust studs with a dremmel and a right angle attachment, I could'nt physically get too those ones. Out of 20 studs I had about 9 break, 3 the nuts came off, and the remainder the studs came out with the nut. I had 3 that an actual 13 mm fit on, some were so rusted that I had to drop to a 10 mm to fit. All the others I used bolt extractors. In the end I'm left with four that I can't get out. 2 are beneath the head surface, and 2 are above. You guys are right it is a project where you have to take a break here and there. I hope it is worth it in the end. I tried finding the cam socket from Grainger and they could'nt. I phoned 5 different shops. This is one job they did not want to pick. Like I will call them again. I don't really want to start drilling it is a bit over my tool and mechanical experience level. I was tempted to put the headers on and just live with the leak but that's not right. Worst case scenario is pull the heads and take em to a machine shop I guess. I will keep this post updated on what happens.