As car enthusiasts we generally don’t! The event bringing the forced induction modifying discussion to light (besides my Mighty Car Mods binge) is Curtis Haley’s amazing 2011 Ford Taurus SHO. Along with the Taurus name is the weight, a whopping 4,300 lbs. (thank god this thing has AWD). To combat this gruesome performance limiter, is of course, boosting performance! Incredibly, this Taurus remained stock (at least turbo and engine wise)! After exhaust and injection upgrades, this 365 horsepower family sedan went sky high to 550 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque. This is a huge jump, and with drive train loss, it is making around 392 horsepower at the wheels, and boy will it rip your kids, your wife’s, and most importantly, your face off. This was all able to be done due to the wonderful techs over at High Velocity Motor Sports and Livernois Motorsports. Please ship me one of these, I live in Minnesota and AWD seems quite nice, oh, and the power.
Another thing that has peaked my interests in the world of turboing has been the YouTube show, Mighty Car Mods. This series is full of humor and car porn. Their main mission is to take cars and simply modify them while bringing you along for every step of the way. They made an 11 second Subaru Legacy Wagon, a NOS S2000, a drifting 180sx, a blue turd, and many more projects. They usually hire the help of Dos Vader and Turbo Yoda (a pair of turboing gurus) to help them along the way. While I watch this show all I can think about is buying a cheap shell, gut it, turbo it, and throw it down a track! Inspiration might be the right word to describe this show; promoting working on your car and having tons of fun doing it. Below I have embedded the very first episode of the Gramps Subaru Legacy Wagon 11 second quarter mile build, an ongoing project of complete awesomeness.