We Put a $50,000 Engine in our $500 Ranger

Mount This Guy Right Here Feel Like I Need Something for This to Go On, I Think This Seems Like a Good Spot for It to Be Little Elevated Piece Right Here Would Be the Best Way to Go.

Okay So It'll Look Like This, Probably Fat Flat Over Bop Bop Perfect. Thanks, Dad, Yes, Son, I Love You.

This Piece of Metal Is Way Stronger Than It Needs to Be for the Job But It's What We Had Laying Around So I Just Bent It Up and We Will Attach It to the Tunnel Here. Oh My God, And Attach the Shif to the Top and Then Attach the Shift to the Transmission. We'll Be Shifting Ready.

All Right It's In Park, Go Reverse, Neutral, and Then The Other Ones. The Shifter Is Hard-Mounted in the Cab and It's Actuating the Shifter Arm Down Here So Shifter Is Done. I Hope It Works That Looks Awesome.

Plum Fuel Lines We Got the Radiator Done Finish the Power Steering Pump Ah Oh My God Making Slow Progress But Uh We're Getting There No God Please No There We Go No No No No No Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait. Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait Shifter Done Intake Spark Plugs Done Switch Panel Plugged In Ready to Go.

The Avatar Has Awakened Oil Going In I'm Feeling Just So Proud of Everybody Who's Worked on This Thing So Far. I Mean This Has Really Been a Companywide Effort. So Many People Put Their Hands on This Truck It's Been Really Cool and I Think Everyone's Just Itching to Hear This Thing Fire Up.

We Finished Pouring Gas In It We're Going to Pressurize the System See If There's Any Leaks Anywhere Else and Then Go From There Aaron Hit It. Bud Oh We Got Leak Back Here, Leak Back Here, Leak Back Here. Here Good Lot of Fuel That Looks Like a Fitting I've Had Like a Leak That Was a Bad One Ready to Go.

Ready No Sparky I Don't Hear It Power to the Coils Power to the Injectors But They're Not Firing Why Aren't They Firing It Didn't Turn Over Unfortunately Don't Really Know What the Problem Is. Boys at Link Should Be Able to Remote In Yeah Kind of Help Us Out.

What's Up, Dude? Hey Buddy What's Going On Uh You Happen to Be Bored What Is Trigger Offset Zero Okay That Should Fire It Up Off-On-Off Okay Verified All Right So It Turns Out We Were Getting Signal to All the Coil Packs Initially We Thought There Was No Signal What Was Weird Is That Nothing Was Firing Maybe One, Two Are Bad Right But The Odds of Having Eight Totally Defunct Coils Is Super Unlikely.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right let's see holy we bought this Ford Ranger for $500 and we're going to drive it 500 mil in the deserts of Mexico in the Nora 500 to have any chance at finishing the race and not dying we've had to upgrade our Ranger a little bit so far we've upgraded the brakes the wheels and tires and the suspension costing us just over $22,000 but the truck is still pretty slow and doesn't push through loose sand quite as fast as we' like come on which means we need more power which means we need a new engine which means we bought this LSX crate engine for $115,000 did I mention that this truck is 28 years old just want to make sure we don't forget that but 15 grand only gets us this LSX crate engine we also had to buy a ton of supporting components to make it work we bought cooling fueling electrical components a fuel cell a new transmission and a bunch of other ingredients to make sure we get the most out of this new engine all together including the engine we spent $50,000 on Parts just right here that's not the stuff back there yeah there's no way we make money on this video there's no way yeah so head on over to donam media.com I think Chewy's ready to go what about you guys yeah let's do it we got a lot to do boys first things first got to get the old engine out M I always forget about this I don't know how jimy oh hey Whack It O oh Jesus Christ cross brace out the stock 4 L V6 that's currently in the ranger makes a blistering 152 horsepower it's not going to be quite enough so with the LSX that we're throwing in this thing our goal is to hit 500 horsepower at the rear wheels oh 500 horsepower that's going to be super super easy and you're put it did something that's how old applying for AARP as we speak radiator radiator officially out don't don't don't don't don't so to get the engine and transmission out of this truck is going to be a little bit tricky partly because this truck is so much taller than it used to be that it's going to be hard to get our crane to pick up the engine and transmission and clear the core support so what I'm thinking is we cut the core support out and that'll give us plenty of room to just pull the engine transmission right out the front super easy plenty of room to put the new stuff in and then we can bolt this back in and weld it back up where we cut it voila woo now look at all this room we have this thing's going to come out easy peasy right guys all right all right students let's talk about what it's going to take to get 500 horsepower into our Baja Blaster well it's going to take an engine swap so that broken down into steps is only five steps seems pretty easy doesn't it step one remove the stock engine that's what we're working on right now we can also be dressing the LSX putting some of the bits and Bobs that we have for it on it that'll be easier to install outside of the vehicle than they will be inside of the vehicle step two is installing the LSX which should be fairly easy we just got to hoist it in there drop it on the mount bolt it in place the big step and the majority of the work come at step three just got to Wrangle the five elements the cooling system water the drivetrain takes power down to the ground the Earth the intake and exhaust air the fueling system fire and all those things combined Captain Planet or the hot chick from fth cents six cents fth element or uh the Avatar dude then on to step four fire it up hopefully assuming step four goes well we can move to step five which is taking this thing to a Dyno getting it tuned and seeing how many horsepower we can get through those 37in tires don't you dare okay you going to pump it up yeah yeah baby oh yeah no problem there she is go she's free you know what this was a valiant engine it was it a lot of water it drank a lot of water and it didn't die so great job little four you did everything you could thanks to Nissan for sponsoring today's video a dang it the ice dragon's now enraged and his Roar causes you to freeze in Terror oh come on all right Rogue your move I roll out of the Shadows revealing my aggressive new styling and Flash my headlights to get the ice dragon's attention you do what now wait I thought you were playing as a rogue I am a 20124 Nissan Rogue can you do that can he do that okay hold on hold on hold on I turn the drive mode dial to sport mode and launch all 201 hers per straight at the ice dragon think again ice dragon cast blizzard breath covering the ground and slippery ice are you guys serious right now I see the ice and I laugh knowing that I have intelligent all-wheel drive and not just sport mode but five total drive modes you wouldn't dare I crank the dial to snow mode and drive across the ice with e hey Google find me the fastest way out of here hey you can't do that oh yeah I got Google built in finding you the fastest route now wao wao what about us I swing open my doors revealing a black semi analin leather interior and room for five people I jump in the Nissan Rog we jump in the Nissan Rogue not so fast the ice dragon slams its hulking body in front of the exit preparing for its final strike hey Google play the the ice dragon's favorite song I'm a big scary ice dragon more treasure you could ever imagine take your adventures to the next level with the 2024 Nissan Rogue to learn more click the link below all right Jerry yeah I already did it that's so much less satisfying I know well those guys are prettying up the engine bay to get it ready for the LSX we're going to get the LSX ready for the engine bay so I'm about to mate the transmission in the engine which means installing this flex plate then slamming our brand new transmission on the back of this thing and then we'll put them in the truck as a unit this is an automatic transmission this is a 4l8 from gearstar out of akan Ohio oh that's a HomeTown of yours that is a HomeTown of mine it's super beefed up so it's going to be able to take plenty of abuse that we're going to give to it via this LSX and hopefully there will be over 500 horsepower coursing through this transmission a little more tilt little more tilt yep a little more right there go in go in go in holy crap yeah automatics automatics are pretty easy there's no splines if you can't tell how easy that was uh editor could you please insert some of our struggles with past Transmissions okay okayo oh God Almighty so you might be wondering why we went with an automatic transmission over a manual transmission yeah I want to know that well think about it okay A lot of times these trucks are built to do like long races you don't want to be shifting that whole time and many these things have so much power it's not like you have a hard time kicking the tail end out if you want to an automatic is going to be pretty reliable we're not going to burn any clutches out doing anything stupid and it will be a little bit more comfortable that said we are going to have like a ratchet style shifter so we can choose what gear it's in yeah baby and we won't have to clutch so it's going to be pretty choice they built this for us custom they took into account what rear end we have in the truck so this thing is geared to work with that flawlessly we'll have top speed of they said 385 mes hour yeah we're coming for you Elon I would like some beef jerky please well okay okay okay now that the boys have the engine mounts bolted up to the truck I've got the rest of the engine mounts right here and these are about ready to go onto the engine the only thing is there's a handful of ways they could go on and I don't got no instructions so we're going to take some measurements and try to get it right the first try but we might not unfortunately we have the starter blocking Us in the location that we want so we got to move the motor mount a little bit forward that's going to push the engine further back which is going to make contact with the firewall so we have to start beating or cutting firewall to make room to fit this engine that's right but overall while it is going to take more work it's going to be better the engine further back puts it more towards the center of the truck which is going to balance the truck even better Q cutting and Sparks beat stick beat stick hey stabilizers stabilizing okay now drop it a little oh hey now hold on hold hold hold hold brake line is pinched between the block and the frame there we go right here okay all right so we're getting real close okay so your your engine mount is like touching I think we didn't quite get it in but we found out where we're having clearance issues so we're going to pull it about halfway back out just till we have room make some clearance give it another shot but we were closer than I thought on the first try with the old beat pump it up pump pump on it do the pump right now okay lovely lovely love what I'm seeing love what I'm seeing get go get it in get it in get it in there she is there she goes good job boy thank you guys so much for watching see us next time make sure I'm just kidding we got got a lot to do big one getting crossed off there oh yeah now it's time for the real work step three is most of the stuff so I think we're going to start with intake and exhaust because those are the things that are least likely to fit with the engine and the truck situation so we're going to start with the headers and see what we find probably going to go right in how bad does it look dude it's doesn't look possible no way it's going through that no you'd have to feed it up from the bottom looks pretty good though yeah looks good don't that's pretty close yeah there's absolutely no chance of our headers clearing in between the cab and the frame we need to cut some clearances we need to bang stuff out oh wait hold on hold on we've been trying to make the headers fit in the traditional way which is to say down and out the back but as you might remember in our video where we tore down this LSX the LSX actually has extra head studs no other LS has that but the L LSX those head studs are interfering with our headers and it's not like we're going to compromise or remove those head studs they're there for a reason and we're going to keep them oh I know how we do it D other way around so they're facing outwards out forward oh forward oh now that's not a bad idea J I actually for this right now does it actually work is the pattern line up yeah the patterns equal so you can do thato that's great get out of here for real I think it can be cool we just want to make sure that we're not choking ourselves out with exhaust fumes in the cab of the truck uh you know we're going to be in this thing for a long time uh consecutively you know we don't want to die but I think I think this could be cool we tried so hard to do this well yeah even the best laid plans boys another bold decision that will literally be the only thing people talk about remember those guys put the headers forward a bunch of freaking idiots just give me moral support oh you got this you're going to do great just keep going just keep going don't give up are you sure just go come on do it going come on you got it you got it you got it you got it you got it it's all done that looks pretty good does it that looks pretty good with our forward- facing header situation we do gain a lot of clearance in some critical areas but we lose some up here uh we are interfering with the alternator the alternator is a very delicate piece of electrical equipment and we would like to not melt it with this exhaust we're going to try to make some more clearance so that we can have room to heat wrap the headers and hopefully the alternator as well so that both things not only can fit where they go but work for the rest of time okay I thought sunglass was going to be enough that was not the case good job boys we're looking good from the front this thing looks like a monster like an animal of sorts it looks like Dr less' spider from Wild Wild West remember that movie oh you're doing dude you got the Deep Cuts okay we've got a to-do list for ourselves today we just got done with the headers uh by choosing to run them backwards so now we're on to another few big items getting the intake into the cabin so Justin and Nolan are going to be working on that we need to make a transmission brace so I'm going to be working on that while Adam works on mounting the fuel cell so we got a lot more to add to this list but this is a really good starting point I think we're going to have a very progress filled day we're trying to pull this interior part and right under the seat there's an entire ecosystem of mold I don't know about you but I don't want to breath that in I found some Pokémon you found Pokémon cards why does every car of ours have cards we got Pikachu oh of course we got Pikachu yeah we're keeping this in the truck nice yeah I'm too weak to go outside so we've removed the entire interior we are going to be running the intake from the engine bay into the cab so that we're sucking in the freshest air possible keeping the engine nice and happy not sucking in a bunch of dust and dirt and it's also going to sound really cool nice it's wild dude that's excellent this is so weird but I love it I shot that right at Zach yeah I was getting nailed fuel cage will be here we'll have a spout over here to be able to refuel yeah does it look good or what yeah it does sweet so we got a fuel cell from radium over here and this system like basically everything for the fueling being the fuel rails pressure regulator the surge tank the tank is right around 6K ya so we kind of went crazy on the catalog but we you know want to make sure it's reliable right and uh when we're out in the desert I'm sure we'll be we'll be thankful that we have it this is a 22 gon tank 22 gon tank and what's cool about fuel cells is they're supposed to be able to retain all their fuel if you're tipped upside down they're heavily Dent resistant so that fuel doesn't go everywhere and we've got a fuel surge tank inside of this guy so that helps with fuel starvation nothing says race car like a big fuel s yeah and radio makes some nice stuff a really unconventional way of doing that nice next up I'll be mocking up our engine oil cooler and our transmission cooler this is going to help us cool all our fluids down and hold more capacity now our Factory Ranger did not have this that's also because this was just a cruiser we're going to be blasting through the Baja desert we're going to be at 5,000 RPM 6,000 RPM so with a larger cooler capacity it'll just be more reliable another positive thing about putting it back here is it frees up room in the front and throws weight to the back so that when we do send this thing off a jump it'll be as level as possible steering box out and we get the new one in oh baby here we go rep Place steering box in quick and easy job are you done with the Trans brace Joby no next thing I have to do is start working on the radiator and this thing is huge look at this sucker it weighs a good uh 25 30 lbs probably we have some clearance issues obviously with our front support here so uh a lot of cuts but eventually we'll get it in there and really this is super important we're going to be out in the desert it's going to be hot as crap yeah one of the most important parts our cooling system if we want to make it 500 miles we can't be overheating right overheating is akin to death yeah all right it's a brand new day but we need to figure out who's going to do the wiring we got to do the Avatar the ECU the controller of it all and that's honestly my least favorite work yeah I don't I'm not a fan you got anybody you know anybody dude I heard of a guy you did yeah who is it oh my God hey I heard you guys needed some wiring help just who we needed yes dude we've got the one and only Aaron Parker here to help us out with the wiring that is his specialty and I couldn't think of a better person for the job what what's uh what am I doing uh wiring that everything yeah you just got to like make it all work and stuff and looks like uh got my work cut out for me so my plan today is basically to attack what I like to call the foundation of this truck which is your battery charging system and the starter uh installing our switch system and asking the guys how they want the truck to function when they hit a button does the fuel pump come on or does the ECU control it it's all up to them whatever they want I can get it done first things first check out the truck Adam did a great job H me on the right path and he got all this Sweet Link gear comes with a plugin ECU and a wiring loom that actually is plug and play and requires very minimal in order for us to fit this unorthodox engine into uh our truck so it's pretty cool because again I don't have to mess with any of the inputs or outputs it plugs directly in and the only thing I'm going to need to do is extend a couple sensors because again our engine is not in the normal orientation that this application demands links plug-in Loom 1,200 bucks ECU 1,700 bucks seems like a lot but for a standalone ECU and plug and play harness that's like a no-brainer thanks link so in order for Aaron to get all the new wiring in all the old wiring has to come out noan noan huh hey did you just go through right there I did it actually went through the bell housing as well no it didn't dude I could see it I could see it nicked it I did hit the bell housing went straight through the floor and hit the Bell house or yeah son of a I was trying to drill out the spot well went through the floor so it's fine nothing nothing job can't weld up that's my bad you know Don't Know My Own Strength man no one has cut a beautiful hole in the firewall which gives us access to our throttle body we can see our engine we want to seal the firewall up to that tube so that no air is like flying through here what we were hoping was that the engine would sit far enough forward that the only thing that would intersect the firewall is actually the intake tube itself but it sits so far back that where it intersects the firewall is around this kind of complex surface of the throttle body so what we're going to do is effectively build the firewall out a little bit further so it lands around here so it will just intersect the tube going to take a little bit of fabrication to make that firewall but it shouldn't be too hard off to the band saw I got to cut this out we'll bend it into shape weld it up okay we need to cover up some Gap and make it fit so it's uh a lot of you know put it on okay now that's hitting we'll go trim that and then so on so forth but it's coming along oh yeah let's weld that sucker in no no no hello uh that's pretty sweet Joby nice job yeah very cool that's going to be loud in the cabin so it's a fart Evac system yeah oh a fart Evac know you could fart as much as that's right just eat them up the methane the gas the methane gas will actually help yeah it's like nitrous but but butan but nitrous Nolan we need more juice funneling beans just refi beans giving noan the beans give it the beans hey it's me but I wanted to show you a new shirt that we made specifically for the Baja Blaster you can see it's got the ranger on there ripping through the desert and there's even a little frog trying not to get run over it's available in wash black and natural and we even made a long sleeve version for those chilly Desert Nights get it all now at donut media.com and give it the beans I'm getting the fueling system together here we're actually using an LS7 sports car manifold as opposed to a taller truck manifold so that's pretty cool we got these really trick fuel rails here from radium the Machining on this is so awesome I love radium Parts here and these dks injectors here they're rated at a maximum of 1,000 cbic cm per minute of fuel deliver amazing and to put that in perspective the stock injectors that were in the V6 on our truck only delivered 200 CC's so huge difference this system is going to ensure that our engine is getting all the fuel it needs at all times looking lovely fuel rails and injectors are on they're in the intake manifold and the intake manifold is about ready to punch into the cab yeah that's pretty big yeah chewy come here bud come right here come right here oh thank you this is so safe we got this thing pretty heavily tacked in pretty tight to all the sheet metal of the truck so now it's time to actually make the hole for the intake confirm that it's in the right place dude nice hole hey thanks man everybody seems to love my hole today I'm going to be working on the battery in the foundation getting the battery masterkill installed and running the cable up to the starter in the alternator I went ahead and placed this one battery here we don't have the second battery yet we could be running this truck with just one battery but in the middle of the desert two is better if one battery dies there's a higher chance of you making it out of there brought all this stuff from the shop basically Motorsports grade off-road heavyduty wiring materials truck is only going to be as proficient as a material used and I think that's really important last thing we want is for the truck to break down somewhere out there and then point their finger at me because the wiring failed good to go the smallest and easiest install but I'll take a w when I can that's right ah a radiator look at that starting to look like a truck again I know fact is we're in small stuff the little bits and pieces that take a bunch of time this is where the fun begins what we have here is basically the foundation of the truck I laid it all out in front and I'm going to be testing it to make sure that everything is installed correctly because unlike a digital setup this one is fixed meaning once it's installed that's it there's no changing things with uh some programming or whatever so uh this will save me some time in the future when everything's installed hopefully I connected everything correctly if I hit this switch and the LED comes on you'll hear a nice little click from the master ignition switch and we have power yeah nice all right let's make it look pretty all right so I'm going to be busy with the shifter here we're going to go from a column shifter setup to a floor shifter here with our new automatic transmission this guy right here this is from B&M it's called their pro gate these things are pretty serious Gates there's really no way that you're going to accidentally shift out a gear or anything like that the shifter here is like spring-loaded pretty cool a lot of off-road Racers use a shifter like this if they're running an automatic transmission it's possible that the momentum that the shifter had going over whoops could have shifted it out of gear with this there's no chance of that happening so I'm going to hop in there mark our spots where the shifter is going to sit I got to make sure it's in an ergonomic position and easy to access we don't have seats yet we have no seats in the building what we do have though is this box which I think will be an approximation of where that seat to be at maybe driving my little car I'm trying to just find a good place to mount this guy right here feel like I need like something for this to go on I this seems like a good spot for it to be little elevated piece right here would be the best way to go okay so it'll look like this probably fat flat over bop bop perfect thanks thanks Dad yes son I love you this piece of metal is way stronger than it needs to be for the job but it's what we had laying around so I just bent it up and we will attach it to the tunnel here oh my God and attach the shif to the top and then attach the shift to the transmission and will'll be shifting ready all right it's in park so Go reverse neutral and then the other ones the shifter is hard mounted in the cab and it's actuating the shifter arm down here so shifter is done I hope it works that looks awesome Plum fuel lines we got the radiator done finish the power steering pump ah oh oh my goodness making slow progress but uh we're getting there no God please no there we go no no no no no no no wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait shifter done intake spark plugs done switch panel plugged in ready to go the Avatar has awakened oil going in I'm feeling just so proud of everybody who's worked on this thing so far I mean this has really been a companywide effort so many people put their hands on this truck it's been really cool and I think everyone's just itching to hear this thing fire up we finished pouring gas in it we're going to pressurize the system see if there's any leaks anywhere else and then go from there Aaron hit it Bud oh we got leak back here leak back here leak back here here good lot of fuel that looks like a fitting I've had like a leak that was a I've never had multiple leaks that was bad ready to go ready no Sparky I don't hear it power to the coils power to the injectors but they're not firing why aren't they firing it didn't turn over unfortunately don't really know what the problem is but boys at link should be able to remote in yeah kind of help us out what's up dude hey buddy what's going on uh you happen to be bored what is trigger offset zero okay that should yeah that should fire it up off on off on okay verified all right so it turns out we were getting signal to all the coil packs initially we thought there was no signal what was weird is that nothing was firing maybe one two are bad right but the odds of having eight totally defunct coils is super unlikely I swapped out the coil to another brand new one we had and that did work so we've got spark now I just need to change every single coil pack I think it's more likely that there's something minutely different from the proper coil pack than what we got because the odds of all eight of them being bad is like insanely I'm going that's what I'm hoping for yeah all right let's see holy yes that looked like a demon spit fire dude that was crazy oh it's getting there H that's a beautiful thing my God off to the dino our Dino numbers are officially in Adam has written our Peak horsepower on the back of this whiteboard uh and stock this truck made 152 whopping horsepower so let's see what it makes with our new LSX drum roll please put that Bo flip that three pretty good so that's slightly shy of our goal of 500 but that's over 500 the crank oh easily our torque numbers are 550 oh nice great awesome I call that a super win yeah this thing is going to be Wicked fun oh my God that sounds awesome dude that sounds so good does it sound yeah dude holy crap unfortunately we can't drive this thing just yet even though we spent $75,000 on our $500 truck it still doesn't have seats so we've spent $18,000 on roll cage material seats bunch of interior stuff to make this thing both safe and race ready so we're going to install all of these parts and then take our Baja PL back out to the desert to test our 453 horsepower LSX make sure you like And subscribe so you don't miss a thing bye byebye