1966 Ford Bronco - Black Smoke Bronco

For starters, the engine was rebuilt, balanced, and blueprinted to ensure vibration-free operation by Beck Racing Engines in Phoenix. The head received the usual high-horsepower, 12-valve treatment and was fire-ringed and machined for 14mm ARP studs to handle some serious boost pressure. A 12-valve lift pump was used, and a four-cylinder P7100 pump built by Turbo Auto Diesel was used as an injection pump along with marine injectors. Vortech helped Chaz design an air-to water intercooler (complete with a small radiator to recirculate and cool the water for the intercooler), and his good friend Ray Bong helped test-fit the engine 17 or 18 times in the Bronco's chassis until they got it right. As far as turbos, there have been many-the first providing an outrageous 453 hp and 712 lb-ft of torque at the wheels and 88 psi of boost pressure. The engine, however, proved almost undriveable with this turbo, not making full boost until 3,000 rpm and defueling at 4,200 rpm, only leaving about 1,000 rpm of useful powerband. Eventually, a compromise was reached, and the engine was detuned to about 350 hp while remaining torquey, driveable, and fuel efficient.

Even though Chaz has more than 400 hp (crank) on tap, gets 25-28 mpg, and can even run on biodiesel or vegetable oil, his '66 Bronco has even more mods in store for it. Right now, he's switching over to a 4R100 automatic transmission with a custom-built Sun Coast torque converter designed to always keep the engine under boost. He's also looking at adding A/C to keep him as cool as his custom ride. Now that Chaz has taken the steps to create an awesome 4BT swap (he took First Place for best engine swap at the DHRA Vegas Nationals), we hope to see more four-cylinder swaps out there. Almost 30 mpg and 400-plus horsepower in these times of high fuel prices sounds like a good idea to us.