Hello Fellow BangShifters!
As I’m typing the words that you’re now reading on your screen, I’m less than twelve hours away from hopping into a turbo LS-powered car that last dyno’d at 800 horsepower at the wheels and trekking across the country from Western Massachusetts to Sin City for Holley LSFest 2019.
More about the car itself in a minute as it’s not your “typical” high-horsepower, LS-equipped vehicle, but first I’d like to tell you about the road trip itself:
While Google Maps puts the most direct version of the trip at 39 hours and 2,635 miles, Brandon Furches of Furches Performance and I will be taking his 2004 Monte Carlo on a slightly longer path as we have a few pit stops planned along the way, including:
- Sloppy Mechanics for a dyno tune
- Donating an unopened training video reel to the GM Heritage Center
- Recreating a photo Brandon’s grandfather took in front of the Automotive Hall of Fame
- Picking up a customer’s turbo from Bullseye Power Turbochargers, since we’ll be in the neighborhood (If you consider the continental US “The Neighborhood”).
Oh, and most likely stops at Brian Tooley Racing, Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels, and Turn 14 Distribution, just because. Road trips are all about the stops, right?
This new path puts us at just around 3,400 miles and 52 hours of driving, and that’s just to GET to LSFest West. Once we’re there, Brandon’s hoping to shatter the front wheel drive record at the drag strip.
Yup, that’s right, if “2004 Monte Carlo” wasn’t enough of a hint for you, that last line should have solidified it: This car is front-wheel drive. Oh, the horror.
Furches Performance is making a bit of name for itself in the LS4 world with their 4T80 transaxle swaps, and this car is a testament to the fact that you can make big power with the LS4 platform and have it work with the General Motors W-body.
So yes, it’s an LS swap. Yes, it’s front wheel drive.
It also shoots flames out the hood on command and will smoke the tires on a whim; what’s not to like?
Being a photographer, I even dig the color-shifting wrap that’s on the car which reminds me of the Mystic Mustang Cobras.
So, watch for updates on the Furches Performance Facebook page and Youtube channel as we attempt to drive this beast across the country, and stay tuned for after the show where we’ll have a full wrap-up on the road trip as well as coverage of LSFest West itself!
Great choice of turbo placement…blow a seal and crash into a bus load of nuns. It will melt ice…oh damn…it’s spring! Safe (?) trip.
“What if it goes out and melts down a bus load of nuns? How would you like to write the headline on that one?”
“Nun soup?”
On a more serious note, the turbo looks like it’s placed so the exhaust could be routed through more or less the stock location. It could be that he’d positioned the turbo there and then found there wasn’t enough room to get a large enough diameter pipe. I’ve followed this build for a while. As a W-body owner (’98 Buick Regal) and someone who has been known to take on projects that common sense would say to avoid (currently trying to turbocharge a slant six instead of the usual V8 swap), it’s the sort of project I find particularlyinteresting.