Jay Leno's Tank Car Gets Banked

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Jay Leno's tank car gets twin turbos
Posted Jul 31st 2006 7:03PM by John Neff
Filed under: Aftermarket, Tuner Tuesdays, Etc.

Automotive enthusiasts the world over have become intimately familiar with many of the exotic, muscle and classic cars contained within Jay Leno's personal collection. One of the most famous is his Tank Car, which was featured as a driveable vehicle (video) in Gran Turismo 4. The imposing hot rod is powered by a 1792 cid V-12 Continental-designed, Chrsyler-built tank engine (hence the name) producing 810 hp and 1,560 ft-lbs. of torque. In these days where a $1.25 million Bugatti Veyron puts out 1001-hp, however, a Tank Car needs to be packing a piece with more than 810 hp. Right?

Wrong, according to Leno, who enlisted his friend and turbo legend Gale Banks to address the Tank Car's glaring power deficiency. The solution was a pair of turbos source from Honeywell/Garrett Turbo Technologies that cost 10 grand a piece and are normally used by Toyota's CART program. Many of the turbo systems components were custom made by Banks and his team out of solid billet aluminum and Robert Bosche company was tapped to convert the engine to fuel injection. The outcome should be an output in the neighborhood of 1,600 horsepower and 3,000 ft-lbs. of torque, more than enough to embarrass a Bugatti Veyron on paper. Not all of that power can be channeled though the Tank Car's 6-speed Allison transmission, though, so the motor will need to be limited at least in First, according to Popular Mechanics.

The Twin-Turbo Tank Car will be making its first public appearance at the Woodward Dream Cruise in a few weeks, and we'll be sure to stop by and check it out on our way up and down Woodward Ave.

http://es.autoblog.com/2006/07/31/jay-lenos-tank-car-gets-twin-turbos/
 
Hot damn.

That's a bloody big power increase with just 2 turbos and changing to injectors. Must have been a really lazy engine beforehand.
 
Considering it saw service in a tank, I'd say so.

Well, PD, you've gotta go visit Leno's pad again...
 
TS
Can Leno handle 1600HP? His fancy hair-do will get all ****ed up if he puts his foot down.
Would you kindly stop bypassing the swear filter. There are thousands of words in the English language. Please use ones that aren't swear words.

You said to someone else...
TS in another thread
Nice bypassing of the word censors. 👍
Then you say...
TS in anpther thread
Where's the ****ing ugly option?
me in that other thread
That option wouldn't be here as this a family forum. We have a swear filter for a reason. Please don't try to get round it.
Pot. Kettle. Black. :dunce:
 
daan
Would you kindly stop bypassing the swear filter. There are thousands of words in the English language. Please use ones that aren't swear words.

You said to someone else...

Then you say...


Pot. Kettle. Black. :dunce:

Fixed my post, is it more to your liking?
 
It sounds like he played GT4, wasn't happy with the Tank's lap times on the Nurburgring, and -- like all GT beginners -- went to upgrade the power first. Since he couldn't do it in the game, he did it for real. :sly:

Doesn't he already get wheelspin at 80MPH? With the old-school 4" wide tires, I can't imagine he's turning any of that power into forward motion. I forsee him showing up a bit late to the Tonight Show the next time he drives it to the studio.

Someone asked if this was a diesel engine. The link below says it ran on 80 octane. That's low, but doesn't sound like diesel. I would imagine he tuned it to take advantage of at least California's weak 91 octane.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/powerlist/engines/1302941.html?page=2&c=y
 
Arkangel
Doesn't his Tornado have around like 700hp? I remember reading about it in Road&Track but it was long time ago.
His Toronado has 1000hp. You're 300hp off, ha ha.
 
Would I be too German if I asked him to ship it to Germany and have a professional racing driver lap the 'ring? :sly:
 
TS
Can Leno handle 1600HP? His fancy hair-do will get all messed up if he puts his foot down.

While others have already defended the honor of Mr. Leno's hair, I'd just like to state that at a kajillion tons, the Tank car isn't exactly fast with its stock 800 or so ponies. Well, 6.2 is fast, technically... but there are 250 hp cars that are faster than that.

I'm betting 1600hp will get him a 0-60 time of maybe... 6.1. :lol:
 
Lucky man Jay Leno is. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
 
So where as before when it had around 600bhp more than it could use with its prehistoric suspension and skinny truck wheels - it now has what, around 1400 unusable bhp?
 
Actually, as he'd probably need 500 of the 800 for the 6 second time... (Quick math), that's about 1100 unuseable hp. Yup, pretty close. :lol:
 
Good gravy! When this car gets complete, the only thing he'll have to do is put it in drive and let his foot off of the brake!

I wonder how fast the tank it came out of would go if you put the beefed engine back in?
 
As if it wasn't completely impossible to get rolling in GT4 without wheelspin, now its going to be worse than the Speed 12.

I thought that we did establish that this thing was a supercharged (in the tank it was anyways) diesel? That would explain the huge power increase from twin turbos. I wonder how the turbo lag is, that is a bunch of displacement to boost.
 
Gabkicks
yeah gt4 probably isnt too great of a representation of the car's performance :p

Then again it uses an automatic in real life, so just letting off the brake would get it rolling well enough to get traction I'd think.
 
If it is supercharged as is, will the Supercharger be staying with the turbo's?
 
It uses 16 gallons of oil, so if its in GT5 and I hope there is a realistic oil change option, like how much, more oil , more money, will cost more to service! The same goes for all other mainteniaince
 
live4speed
If it is supercharged as is, will the Supercharger be staying with the turbo's?

I think it was only supercharged in the tank. It is NA in the Tank Car, until now. :nervous:
 
I don't think that car can handle 1600HP. It's like the name, a tank. The purpose of that car would be good for showing off and for an airport runway.
 
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