I find it hard to believe that a company the size of Banks Performance couldn't source a turbo or solve a minor C.A.R.B. issue when the site is full of banners like this
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I respectfully disagree. That banner is EXACTLY why they pulled the product imo. They weren't going to let the 99-04 Wrangler muck up their "50-state legal" marketing. Same with the water/meth injection. Gale's SEMA videos before and since emphasized that Banks products are 50-state legal.
For additional reference, notice that AEM's water/meth kit has warnings plastered on their product page "off-road use only, $10,000 per day fine" for their kit. Banks simply dropped that kit. And we can safely assume they didn't drop the kit due to a sourcing problem for controllers (which are way more advanced now), brass nozzles, or basic tubing. That's all in their wheelhouse, but it's not a 50-state legal item anymore.
I spent a good amount of time researching this and asked three Banks techs over the span of four months. Two of them knew less than we do. The newer techs at Banks just spew the same rumors as that we come up with because they weren't around when the kit was sold.
I spoke to one of the two techs who were around and his answer was very different regarding what vehicle the turbo came from and the main reason for why the kit was pulled. He went into detail with me about the elevation issue and said they spent a good deal of time trying to get the 99-04 to pass but it wouldn't play nice and the CARB folks told Banks to pound sand for those years. Again, the 05-06 had no problem.
Do not underestimate the might of the CARB (their mission as a global emissions leader is far beyond caring about a company that's more of a liability than an asset to their cause). CA has been pushing out large manufacturing companies for years.
Also, I don't believe this was an issue with the turbo. A newer Banks tech told the seller of my used kit that the turbo came from a 2006 Volvo S60. The seller then suggested I just buy one of those. I was new to turbos at the time (still am) but I could tell that was not the same turbo and thankfully I did not purchase one. That was bad info.
When I more recently spoke to the seasoned Banks tech he told me it was from an S70 but didn't recall what year. I looked into it —> Bingo. Take a look at the 1999-2000 S70 and you will see it. Just clock the turbo and mount the wastegate actuator to the bolt in the bottom left quadrant when it's oriented correctly. There might be some machining that banks did, but otherwise I 99% believe that's it. The turbo is known to be super reliable, it runs at 6psi, and there are a ton of them because it was on other models as well. I can't recall all the other models but I have that info saved.
To help provide credibility to my conversation, I also discussed other heat exchanger options with him. This tech was open with me on a level that is rare in corporate America. He said that the intercooler kit came with a heat exchanger that in his opinion was larger than it needed to be and he felt going smaller would have provided good IATs and allowed more circulation to the engine's radiator. Those are words spoken when someone is shooting it straight with you rather than worrying about sounding perfect for product liability reasons or never speaking badly about his company. I appreciated that.
The point of my post was to provide some credible evidence indicating what actually happened. The intention was not to drum up more dreamt-up thoughts on what happened. I don't doubt that sales played into it, but a large corporation like that paid a lot of money in tooling, design, CARB, etc. and I believe the 50-state legal issue was the straw that broke the camel's back and some random TJ kit sales didn't come close to offsetting the cost of damaging their 50-state legal marketing mantra.
The tech spent over an hour discussing the above information, parts replacement part numbers, and my future intercooler ideas and wants me to call him if it works simply because he likes that stuff and is interested in the results. He gave me the water pump they used, serp belt they used, etc. and said he would have given me more info but recently Banks updated their database system and most of the info is gone (he was actively trying to find it and said it seems to be gone now). He said the newer techs don't know the turbo stuff (when I asked him about some conflicting info). I appreciated him taking the time to shoot it straight with me. He could have been bullshitting me, but I don't think that was the case.
Edit: words