LS-Swapped Ford Mustang With 8 Turbos Is Almost Ready, We Talk to Its Creator

Kyle lives in Canada, and it seems his insane Mustang is not the first time he's had a Ford vehicle on his hands. In fact, his first-ever car was a 1996 Ford Escort LX with a 1.9-liter engine. This was circa 2006, back when "forums were still popular," as Kyle reminisces. Of course, Kyle wasn't going to settle with having just 88 horsepower, so he took it upon himself to start tinkering around and eventually turbocharge it.

Practice makes perfect

As he was still in the process of learning how to turbocharge a vehicle, the first engine blew up, but he did succeed in his second attempt, albeit only running on 5 PSI (0.34 Bar) of boost. We've asked Kyle what other cars he's owned over the years, and he does seem to suffer from a severe case of boost addiction, which is obvious just by looking at the list he sent us. After he had gotten tired of the old Escort, he moved on to another Ford, a Focus, which he also turbocharged.

He then opted for something slightly different, a 2007 Supercharged Chevrolet Cobalt SS, before deciding to switch back to turbo power by buying a Nissan Silvia S13 that packed an SR20DET engine. But you know how it is, you can never have enough horsepower, so Kyle went on to get behind the wheel of a 1996 Toyota Supra, which, according to him, was the fastest stock bottom end Supra in the world, as it ran the quarter-mile (402 m) in 8.97 seconds, with an exit speed of 155 mph (249.44 kph). Yikes!

After the Supra episode, it seems as though he felt the need to get back in the muscle car game, and he got himself a 2017 Ford Mustang GT, which he describes as "by far the best factory bang for buck car." He had intended to bring some boost into the equation this time as well, but he didn't feel that the MT82 transmission would make a good starting point for what he had in mind. He started experiencing TIG welding as he bought his 2003 Ford Mustang, which he eventually crashed at the racetrack.

He had gotten the car for a good price, and he wanted to use it as a learning point for developing his fabrication skills. It was then that he decided to swap in a 5.3-liter LS engine, and he immediately started taking it apart to see the underpinnings of the GM-built unit. As Kyle states: "I'm the type of guy who needs to do thing hands-on, fails, then learns why I failed to learn how to do it right. I've called this madness- FAILING UPWARDS - where you keep failing until you get better."

Passion provides the drive

Now that's the proper attitude if you're going to start working on your own project vehicles! No more waiting for some shop to finish your build when you can start doing at least part of the work yourself, right? Kyle crashed this Mustang at the track, as he drove over coolant that was spilled by someone in front of him. It was July at the time, and he didn't want to miss the rest of the race season, which would end in October.

And that's how he ended up buying the first thing he could put his hands on, which is his current 1995 Mustang. With no time to spare, he had to quickly devise a plan and get to it if he wanted to be back on track before October. "I ended up putting an engine and transmission in that car, building a turbo kit, wiring it up, and getting it 100 percent ready in 6 weeks to run my personal best of 8.60 @ 160 mph (257.49 kph) on a single 88mm turbo while working a fulltime job."

If that's not commitment, I don't know what is. I asked Kyle the question that I knew was on everyone's mind. Why did he go for an eight-turbo setup? To which he replied: "The 8 turbo build comes out of boredom in Canada. With winter being 5-6 months of the year and the car just sitting in the garage, I had to start working on something". The engine he's running on the car is the same one he had on the Mustang that he crashed.

With an 88mm turbo, running on 30 PSI (2.06 bar), this massive, 2006 pickup-truck sourced LS unit was capable of delivering 1,040 wheel horsepower. And all that on its original, 200,000 km stock pistons, rods, and crank. We were curious to know if Kyle saw a better potential in having eight turbos as opposed to one or two and he said that "It's really fun to think outside of the box and do what people say can't be done. It will not be as good as a single turbo setup efficiency-wise, but the fun factor is there."

Boredom is the enemy of happiness