This job was never just about hanging a pair of turbos on a huge engine. Jay wanted the 1,792 cubic-inch Continental V12 Hemi in the Tank Car to make double the power and stay reliable. That meant engineering the whole system around the engine’s size, heat, and operating demands. We built a Banks twin-turbo setup with Garrett TEO 691 turbos, designed intake manifolds with expansion joints to deal with aluminum growth, fabricated the exhaust manifolds and straight-pipe exhaust, and replaced the carburetors with computer-controlled Bosch fuel injection. A pair of Banks billet fuel rails fed the injectors. The result was 1,600 horsepower at 2,800 rpm—big power from a 30-liter tank engine, done with the supporting hardware it takes to make it work.
You're right. I should be rendering the headings, not returning the literal HTML tags. I’ll remove <h2> and </h2> from these recaps going forward.
The engine in Jay Leno's Tank Car is a 1,792-cubic-inch Continental V12 Hemi, with its sister engine installed in Jay's car. The design traces back to Korean War-era tanks. This 30-liter, air-cooled engine originally propelled a 48.6-ton tank, producing 810 horsepower on 80-octane fuel. In that military application, the combination delivered a power-to-weight ratio of 17.6 horsepower per ton.
On March 9, 2004, Gale Banks was sitting in a hospital room holding his newborn grandson when he received a phone call from Jay Leno. After asking the baby's name and hearing that it was Bronson, Jay quickly got to the reason for the call: he wanted Gale to turbocharge the Tank Car.
The request was ambitious but straightforward. Jay wanted Banks to double the Continental V12's horsepower while keeping the engine reliable.
Although the Continental V12 was designed to propel a tank, Jay's Tank Car is dramatically lighter. The car weighs approximately 5 tons, with roughly 2,300 pounds of that coming from the engine itself.
That difference in vehicle mass dramatically changes the engine's performance potential. A powerplant originally designed to move nearly 50 tons has considerably less mass to accelerate in the Tank Car, particularly once its airflow and fueling systems are modified to support substantially greater output.
To meet Jay's power target, Banks developed a twin-turbo system using Garrett TEO 691 turbochargers, which the video identifies as turbos used on Indy cars. The system had to accommodate the unusual size and thermal characteristics of the Continental V12.
Because the aluminum engine expands significantly as it reaches operating temperature, Banks incorporated expansion joints into the intake manifolds. These joints allow the system to accommodate thermal growth without placing excessive stress on the manifolds or their connections.
The conversion also required a completely custom exhaust system. Banks fabricated exhaust manifolds specifically for the V12 and its twin-turbo configuration, with straight-pipe exhaust completing the setup.
The resulting plumbing was designed around both airflow and durability, providing the exhaust flow necessary to drive the turbochargers while accommodating the operating characteristics of the massive air-cooled engine.
Banks replaced the original carburetors with Bosch electronic fuel injection derived from a system designed for Formula 1 V12 engines. The conversion provided the more precise fuel delivery required for a high-output, turbocharged application.
The injectors are supplied by a pair of Banks billet fuel rails, completing a fuel system capable of supporting the engine's substantially increased airflow and power output.
With the twin-turbo system and electronic fuel injection installed, the Continental V12 produced 1,600 horsepower at 2,800 RPM. That nearly doubled the engine's original 810-horsepower military output and effectively achieved the goal Jay had given Gale.
The result transformed a Korean War-era tank engine into a 1,600-horsepower automotive powerplant while retaining the fundamental architecture and character of the original Continental V12.
The Tank Car project stands out for the scale of the engineering challenge. Banks took a 30-liter, air-cooled V12 Hemi originally designed to propel a 48.6-ton armored vehicle and adapted it for a radically different application using twin turbochargers, custom intake and exhaust manifolds, thermal-expansion provisions, and Formula 1-derived electronic fuel injection.
The finished combination preserved the character of the original Continental engine while nearly doubling its output, creating a 1,600-horsepower version of a powerplant designed decades earlier for an entirely different battlefield.
