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This famous YouTuber brought his Fast & Furious RB26-swap Mustang fantasies to life
Chances are, you’ve seen this pretty far out swap before. A Ford Mustang fastback with an RB26 swap straight out of a Nissan GT-R. Sound familiar? This sacrilegious swap (to Mustang purists, at least) shot to fame as the star car in Tokyo Drift, one of the more popular installments in the Fast & Furious franchise.
But what you might not know about the crazy GT-R Mustang is that the garage that built the car actually built a total of six examples that looked identical – and the other five used V8s, and those cars were actually the ones used to film all the main action sequences!
So, when YouTuber TJ Hunt was looking to build his next project car, he decided to live out his childhood fantasies. Turns out, TJ Hunt, like many of us, grew up on the Fast & Furious movie series. In fact, a close friend Sung Kang, who played Han in the movie, challenged him to build the movie car in real life! So while the GT-R Mustang in the movie was more of a prop, TJ Hunt’s car is definitely the real, tire shredding deal.
TJ Hunt managed to find a restored and running 1965 Ford Mustang fastback that was “nothing special” just a few miles down from where he lives, and bought the car for just $37,000! That alone should make plenty of Mustang fans envious. But that’s when things got interesting – it’s even got Carroll Shelby’s autograph on the glove box!
With the help of JDM California, TJ managed to source an RB26 2.6-liter, inline-6 single turbo from a Nissan GT-R R32. While the motor that’s gone into the car was stock, it did need some convincing to sit tight in the Mustang’s engine bay. The motor mounts (borrowed from the Coyote series of Ford V8s) were moved rearwards to make more space for the longitudinally mounted engine. The stock RB26 manifolds had to be chopped as well, to make it ft just right. Here’s another fun fact for you Fast & Furious fans: the original movie Mustang first had a twin-turbo RB26 from an R34 Skyline dropped in, but was later converted to a single turbo setup to make it clear the strut towers.
Related: This Is Why The R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R Now Commands Supercar Money
The motor itself ran a few more modifications. Since the car wouldn’t be using Nissan’s famed all-wheel drive system, the oil pan was sourced from an RB25 and then modified to fit. Like you’ve probably guessed by now, this GT-R Mustang is rear-wheel drive, running an RB25 transmission! When it was put on the dyno, it made 440HP on (relatively low) 21lbs of boost and the team decided to not push any further because the car doesn’t even have seatbelts! That said, the car still managed a 1/8th mile time around nine seconds. To keep things safe though, TJ added a race car-style fuel cell in the boot.
Here’s a good lesson to take home – if you don’t chase absurdly high levels of power, you can actually get away with a lot! While the team had good reason to stay at reasonable power figures on the stock RB26 motor (‘cause, safety, duh) a happy by-product is TJ is constantly beating on the car. And it hasn’t blown up. Yet.
Related: This 1949 Ford Coupe Enjoys Some Serious Burnouts Thanks To 2011 BMW Engine
In the video TJ says that this car is a total burnout machine, quite opposite to the original movie car! It’s been doing burnouts, drag races and just a lot of hooning around, and it’s still bulletproof.
While the GT-R Mustang used in the movie made it out of filming alive, it isn’t currently running. And since no one else has attempted the swap since then, that makes TJ Hunt’s car truly one-of-one. What makes this build cooler is that TJ plans to resto-mod the car to a full Shelby GT350 replica. He’s already got all the parts in for it, and it currently wears GT350 decals. The car will be repainted later, and once all the mods are done, it’ll definitely be the only GT350 replica that’s got JDM power inside!
While a lot of Mustang purists may scoff at the idea of taking a perfect car like this and swapping out the V8 for *gasp* a Japanese motor, there’s no denying that builds like this actually push the community to go further. When everyone’s doing V8 swaps for more modern motors, the fact that someone’s keeping an American and JDM-classic alive and kicking really make this build special. Of course, there’s also nothing cooler than seeing a Fast & Furious car come to life in the best way ever.
From playing with HotWheels to tracking his race toy, Sam's come a long way. A penchance for translating his automotive hijinks and geekery into the written word comes in handy every now and then...