LS-swapped, Eight Turbo Mustang Hits The Dyno Aiming for Big Power

By Brett Foote - March 8, 2021

This LS-swapped eight turbo Mustang may not make much sense, but it is certainly fun to watch in action.

Those that are fans of YouTuber Boosted Lifestyle and the man behind the channel, Kyle Williams, already know about his affinity for LS engines, Mustangs, and turbos. Prior to building his current LS-swapped, eight turbo Mustang, this same 5.3-liter mill was used in his old SN95, which sadly met an early demise when it ran across somebody else’s coolant and smashed into the wall at the drag strip.

Williams bounced back with a new rolling chassis, however, and was able to salvage the drivetrain. He previously ran a single 88mm turbo setup but wanted more. More turbos, at least. Thus, he decided to go with one huffer per cylinder and created this eight turbo Mustang, a project that just wrapped up and headed to the dyno at AFR Autoworks to see just what it was capable of.

Obviously, slapping eight turbos on anything is a bit silly and also counterproductive. This project has thus predictably attracted some hate online, but Williams shrugs it off, reminding everyone that it was done on a shoestring budget and yet it actually works…somewhat. “The budget is about $3,000 and the turbos are $80 each,” he said. “That being said it still worked well-ish.”

Things didn’t start out so hot, as Williams and his crew had a rough time getting the car to put down over 500 horsepower – a far cry from his goal of 1,000 ponies, which would include a 200 shot of nitrous if necessary. After finally hitting 555 horsepower, they started inspecting the turbos to make sure everything was working properly, even taking them apart to check for issues.

Once the eight turbo Mustang was back together, it immediately ran better and made 670 horsepower. Then, finally, a respectable 737 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, before things went wrong with one of the huffers. “When you’re on your low airflow, what happens is your turbo goes into surge and stalls out, it stops absorbing air,” one of AFR’s employees noted. “It will over speed and it’s damaging to your turbo. This one is fighting against the output pressure of seven other turbos competing to get air down that pipe. So it is going to be the hardest working turbo.”

“Overall we couldn’t get consistency out of the thing,” Williams added. “One pass would make 33 psi, one pass would make 23 psi, so, it’s back to the drawing board. We did have the nitrous there. We planned not to use it because of the obvious flaw with the boost. If the boost would have held steady at 33 psi and we would have made 750 wheel horsepower with it, then I would have added the nitrous, but it was no point trying to band-aid the boost fix with nitrous.”

Regardless, of this somewhat disappointing day, we’re betting that Williams isn’t done just yet. He’ll obviously hit his 1,000 horsepower goal, no matter what. Could he make that much power with less than eight turbos? Well, of course. But lots of people do that, and it’s obvious that he’s just trying to do something a little different for once, and we can’t fault him for that.