Video: “The Law” Runs 10s First Time Out with New Turbo 5.3L Combo

When we last visited with Cameron Powers about his turbo 5.3L swapped Ford Crown Vic, things weren’t going all that great. In fact, “The Law” was broken thanks to a piston rod that performed a moving violation right through the side of the block. However, in the last four months Powers has been hard at work putting together a new and even more powerful combo for the Crown Vic that has already had some very promising results.  

Powers picked up another stock 5.3L that was promptly refreshed and re-ringed with a looser gap. The old Master Power turbo was ditched in favor of a Precision GTSH 76mm turbo, and the intercooler was also eliminated. “I decided to get rid of the intercooler because I knew it was acting as a restriction,” says Powers. “Now I’m just using methanol injection on both sides of the turbo to cool down the intake charge.”

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A big reason that methanol injection makes so much sense here is that The Law runs on boost-friendly, knock-resistant E85 corn-juice. To push the E85 Powers put together an “over-built” fuel system centered around a big Magnafuel 625 pump, which feeds an Aeromotive 1:1 FPR and 95-pound Delphi injectors. The fuel and spark are controlled by a Megasquirt MS3X engine management system which Powers tunes himself.

While The Law was down Powers also took the chance to beef up the drivetrain. The Turbo 400 transmission was rebuilt, and a set of custom 31-spline Moser axles were added to the rear end. Traction is still provided by a set of Mickey Thompson drag radials mounted on the stock 17-inch police issue steelies.

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The first trip to the drag strip with the new set up was very encouraging, with The Law running 11.1 at 127 MPH the first rattle out of the box. Powers added one degree of timing to the tune before the second pass, and the resulting ET was a blazing 10.76 at 131 MPH. “I still need to work on getting the launches more consistent,” Powers tells us. “But all these passes were on 16 PSI. I’ll be upping it to 20 PSI before I go to the track the next time, and I’ll be aiming for low, low 10s – or maybe even a single digit pass.”

Does The Law have what it takes to break into the 9s? We shall soon find out, so keep it tuned to LSXTV for more junk-yard LS fueled drag strip action!