Let's be honest. Every car enthusiast with a beater car and a few bucks to waste wants to get an eBay turbo and make the perfect sleeper. More often than not, engine blocks get blown, hearts get broken, and that narrow dream of becoming a turner meets a devastating fate. But Westen Champlin isn't your ordinary tuner, he's done worse with beater cars, and this time he's making a sleeper out of his LS-swapped V8 Ford Ranger.
Before fitting a turbo into a naturally aspirated vehicle, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, a naturally aspirated car is not designed to run a turbo. Secondly, make room for modifications, which often means sacrificing something important (like the AC). Lastly, if it's not professional, it's going to be messy.
After much yanking, cutting, grinding, and untwisting, Champlin finally got the turbo to fit in the engine bay without needing to cut a hole in the bonnet. He cut an exhaust outlet on the right-hand-side fender, though (which automatically strips its sleeper tag off).
"I'll be honest, I'm getting really concerned right now because this is going well… there's no other word for it. This is going good," Champlin confessed.
After running a tune on the ECU, he turns on the ignition, steps on the gas, and his LS-swapped V8 Ford Ranger is eligible for some turbo flutter.
"Oh dude, that turbo sounds so good. I think we need to put another spring in it, so we get more boost. I think we're running too little boost right now," he said.
The truck is making one pound of boost, and Champlin feels it's running that low due to a missing spring.
Not to judge his work, but turbo-ing a car isn't always as easy as it seems on YouTube. He seems to have nailed it at one go (that's because we don't get to see the edits).
As you'd expect, something interesting happens in the end, but we will let you enjoy all that action in the video below.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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