It is the fastest Ford Taurus. . . In the world.
Motor1.com loves drag racing and will openly admit that we are big fans of the Ford Taurus HHO. This particular blue SHO is familiar because it was featured in February, with a clickbaity headline that stated it was more powerful than the Dodge Challenger Demon. It was capable of delivering just over 800 horsepower (or 597 kilowatts) at the wheels (the front ones). But things have changed. First, the pilot of this crazy Taurus got married. The engine produces upwards of 1,000 horsepower (746 kW), making it faster than a stock Demon. We’ll get to that later, but first, let us tell you the incredible story of how this nine-second Taurus was created.
This is Zach with his 1995 Taurus SHO. This is the exact same car that he drove to high school years ago. It was much slower than today and didn’t require a parachute for slowing down. He was bitten by the racing bug, and instead of buying a car with an established aftermarket, this front-wheel-drive sedan, affectionately called the Blue Turd, became a legitimate race car.
In a recent interview, he stated that it’s not been done before. “And I’m stubborn. I will not listen to anyone who tells me that a Taurus is not a car that can go nine seconds.
Today, the engine block and crankshaft of the stock Taurus SHO V6 are still under the hood. The DOHC heads, which are fully-built, are also SHO-specific. The engine’s rest is race-spec. This includes the aluminum connecting rods and Wiseco pistons, as well as the custom-fabricated intake. Unfortunately, the SHO had to sacrifice its 12-runner intake manifold for the pursuit of 9s. However, the extra 200 horsepower was well worth the effort. Amazingly, the transmission is still the original MTV-IV that Ford provided from the factory. However, it has been upgraded with a Quaife differential and hardened gears. This also means Zach is a straight-up shifter madman behind the wheel. We are grateful for this.
This is where the story becomes epic. Zach brought the Blue Turd with its new engine to Denver’s Street Car Takeover back in July. He almost made his first nine second pass there. 1320Video was present, but an oiling problem made the engine an expensive paperweight. He persevered and built another SHO V6 in just six days (yes six freaking weeks). This engine made it to Indianapolis’ Street Car Takeover event.
1320Video was also present at the event, and things turned out to be much better. He was riding like a mad cyclist, his first quarter-mile run down the track returned a 9.94 at just 158 mph. The SHO was tweaked by his team throughout the event. He eventually achieved a 9.65 pass at 160 mph.
He told Motor1.com, “There’s no way that I could have pulled this off without lots and lots of help.” Ebtec, Jaz Tuning and Vibrant Performance were all there to help me. You can be the guineapig if you think outside the box, which is what we do. It takes five times as much work to be as fast as the others.
This is the fastest Taurus SHO around the globe, and Zach intends to make it even faster. He still has more tuning and more boost to go to get to 9.20, which is the ET required to win the Import vs. Domestic World Cup Finals will be held in November. We believe there will be a Taurus at the action, based on what we have seen so far of the Blue Turd.