Twin turbo-ing my mustang?

Hey so i own a 2006 ford mustang, as most people, I like the idea of more performance, and my friend and I like to work on our cars, we most definitely aren’t prodigies but we like to dabble and learn. Basically he was talking me into twin-turbo-ing my mustang. He was saying probably wouldn’t much harder than doing a single turbo as its a v6, and it be faster to spool up.
Is it pure lunacy or could it be pulled off. Also on the off chance it does work, it would be pretty cool, so worth it or no?

Also just generally wondering, turbos take a while to spool up and kick in at higher rpm’s however my mustang revs fairly low, for example if i’m cruising at 60 its prob around 2000 rpm’s and at 100 its just under 3000 and most of the time unless i step on it it doesn’t rev much higher then 3000 so would turbos even make much of a difference? or as i have a relatively high displacement engine would it take less rpm’s to spool it up?

anyway i wanted to hear your take on twin turbo-ing. I already know what most of you are going to say but was just wondering? Also il be able to talk about your opinions to my friend.

thank you

To get you to do the spending, and avoid blowing his car up. It is a lot more involved than most dabblers can handle.

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Uh, you know that internals on the 4.0L SOHC aren’t forged right? I want to say that they are reliable up to about 300 RWHP. A twin turbo setup, would likely exceed that by decent margin. Your engine would basically be a timebomb.

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Between the lack of real gain on the 4.10 gear cost and the expense of the Turbo I still say upgrading to a later Mustang GT is money better spent . I doubt if the insurance cost will be all that much more .

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I 100% believe you and understand but how come there are turbo kits from big companies out there specific to this mustang v6 model that would pump the car up to 400hp if the car can’t handle that much boost and power? Especially most of those kits say that they can be run on a stock v6 engine

Because they don’t care if your engine blows up . Plus they think that a real shop will do the install with attention to making it function properly.

Just like you can buy trailer hitches for vehicles that the manufacture says is not suitable for towing.

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Twin turbos are always better than a single for Vee engines. They spool up faster. Harder to package, more expensive, however.

Did you price those 400 ho kits? The 6 or 7000 dollars the more complete ones cost would put you into a GT V8 easily.

The 400 hp they advertise is because why would anyone pay $6000 just to match an 06 V8s 300 hp? And hanging a turbo on an old, worn engine is recipe for broken parts.

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He’s my room mate and best friend, he would have to drive me around if anything happened to my car so its in his best interest that it doesn’t blow up. but i do understand how the installation would be the challenge. i was hoping that with a couple of hours for as many days as it needs and a lot of youtube and patience we’d make it happen, but that would be ambitious

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Might be the wisest option, might have to save up a little and hope my car still sells for a bit

yeh i

yeh i was planning on buying 2 turbos and then individually buying parts from the kit to save some money, because some turbos can be found for cheap, but it would still cost quite a bit and would be a challenge to organise and install.

but yeh i know it wouldn’t be easy on the engine but the idea of turbo-ing my car just sounds so exciting, would be fun and interesting to see the difference of the before and after being boosted. but yeh i know how that would just most likely end up in expensive mechanic trips.

At high altitude a turbo can improve performance a lot without over stressing the engine as much.

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I haven’t seen any place that you mention the internals or even the externals you will need. At the minimum you will need: crankshaft, rods, pistons, tunable (including a means to tune it) or custom tuned ECU, higher volume fuel injectors, custom exhaust, transmission, and dyno time to get everything dialed in. Almost forgot the additional cost of alternative transportation for when the Mustang is “out of service”. All this can add a quite considerable cost. Good friend or not, all this is great on someone else’s dime. Or is he a good enough friend he’s going to split the cost and repairs with you?

So the plan would be that this a never ending parts gathering project? And probably never be finished. With the end result of you not being able to use your car for long stretches of time. Sorry just my 2 cents worth.

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“Cheap” and “performance” rarely work out well.

It usually comes at the expense of “reliability”. Or the life of the car.

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That bears repeating. A 16 year old engine with–probably–much more than 100k miles of wear and tear on it will not last very long after being boosted.

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This will not save you money. It will cost you more that buying a complete kit and will not work well. Cheap turbos are no bargain.

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Mustangman and ledhed75 hit the nail on the head, a vehicle is a system so any performance upgrade needs to address the system as a whole.from front to back.

i.e. Adding significant power at the start is concepually easy but then the question becomes “Is every existing subsequent component from the radiator to the tires robust enough to handle the additional power w/o failing and actually get the power to the road?”. The answer is frequently no.

Which brings us to cost. The Turbo’s alone ain’t cheap, the cost of all the additional “by the ways” can make the parts cost alone eye watering and then there’s the value of your time and labor.
To me it’s like trying to turn an off the rack suit into a tuxedo … possible to do but cheaper and a better result if you just started with a tuxedo to begin with,

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Designing you own turbo installation is a guaranteed disaster, given your level of experience, regardless of engine type or age. For this engine it’s a waste of time and money, you’d be way ahead trading in for a car with a V8.

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A V8 swap would potentially be easier. The rear axle needs upgrading to the V8 axle for both. Significant wiring and an ECU change are required for both. The V8 swap requires far less fabrication. Both projects will require the car be stationary for weeks to months to years (many projects stall for many reasons). Both projects will cost as much as trading for a V8 car.

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Hi @santos.orenga_180962:
You’ve received some great feedback here.

But do remember that many of us had the same passion for trying radical ideas back in our youth. While many of the things I tried did fail, what I learned by experiencing them was invaluable.

I wouldn’t trade those failures for anything.

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