Ford Taurus SHO review and test drive

October 11, 11:12 PMTampa Sports Car ExaminerMichael Berenis

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Ford's most popular sedan is back again, but this time it has the power of twin turbos boosting it into the market. The new 2010 Ford Taurus SHO captures various markets with it's spacious design, unique technology, and twin turbo performance. Any motor that is built from the factory to withstand twin turbo is automatically placed into the tuners target. The Ford Taurus SHO comes stock with a 3.5 liter V6 and a twin turbo forced induction system creating 365 horsepower and 350 foot pounds of torque. Nice!

Video content: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO review

There are many new ideas about how to tune the twin turbo system, but not many products have made it to market yet. This leaves the challenge up to tuners and builders to perform self fabricated modifications. It may be possible to retune the boost control electronically through the vehicles ECU to generate safe gains upwards of 400 hp  and 400 tq. A safe investment of under $1,500 in tuning and aftermarket exhaust, intake, and some minor weight tweaks could see this vehicle well into an 11 second quarter mile time.

Finally an American tuner vehicle with all-wheel drive and factory derived turbo setup, the Ford Taurus SHO is aimed at satisfying the currently dominated JDM market. Will it take over and run with the likes of Nissan Skyline, Toyota Supra, Subaru Impreza, and Mitsubishi EVO? Maybe, but probably not thanks to it's really high curb weight and bulky frame. Some extreme weight reduction will need to occur for the avid performance enthusiast in order to keep up with the likes of JDM legends. With a curb weight pulling in at a heavy 4,368 lbs it is not going to be possible to keep up mod for mod with these light weight JDM counterparts.

Video content: Under the hood tuner chat about Taurus SHO

Regardless of weight, the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO does a pretty good job of laying down impressive quarter mile times. Seen in the video below, the vehicle ran an impressive 12.752 second boosted appearance. Not many videos are available of modified monster SHO's yet, but it is expected that the tuner community will start modifying these vehicles as warranties expires and used car prices reach the $10,000 optimal build zone. Check out the following footage of a somewhat stock 2010 Ford Taurus SHO running the quarter mile!

Video content: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO quarter mile test drive

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