Jay Leno 1989 Ford Shogun Review – Video
It started as a Festiva… until Chuck Beck and Nick Titus mounted a Ford SHO V6 in the rear, and Jay decided to inject a little nitrous.
The Shogun is a Ford Festiva-based road rocket that, taking into account it’s beefy rear fender flares and aggressive air vents, looks like it was created to do battle with the Renault R5. The Shogun was a concept car developed in 1990 to shocase the talents of the Yamaha-based SHO V6 engine. These cars were manufactured as a join venture between Chuck Beck of Special Editions Inc., in Upland, California and Rick Titus and only 9 were originally produced.
The mid-engine rear-wheel drive dynamo relied on the SHO Taurus for a good deal of its parts. The most inspiring, of course, is the 3.0-liter, 24-valve, Sequential Electronic Fuel Injection (SEFI) SHO V6 (Jay is insulated from the 3.0 liter’s loudness by a plexiglass divider). Thanks to Special Editions, the Shogun lives on and can be constructed if someone with a donor vehicle has the courage. A Ford Festiva is agumented with numerous high-quality body pieces including fender-flares, a trick front airdam outfitted with PIAA driving lights, special vented hood and rear fenders with venting grills. With 220 horsepower and a 2190-pound gross vehicle weight, the cars 9.95:1 power-to-weight ratio promises to pack a punch (note: with the shot of nitrous, this changes drastically from 9.95:1 to 7.06:1).
A true enthusiast like the rest of us, 220 horses just wouldn’t cut it with Jay. So, being a man with a sensitive funny bone, he (naturally) turned to laughing gas for a power infusion. The car was delivered to Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS) in Cypress, California where a dry manifold nitrous system was installed with NOS’s trick throttle-sensitive Progressive Nitrous Oxide Injection. A dry manifold setup injects the nitrous int othe intake tract just upstream of the throttle body. Once activated, additional fuel provided by raising the fuel pressure from about 40psi to approximately 75psi. The Progressive Nitrous Oxide Injection circuitry controls the rate in which the nitrous is intrdoced. Technically, the primary Super Powershot nitrous solenoid is pulsewith modulated proportional to throttle position. In the car, this translates to the following. Once half throttle is attained nitrous is injected in a linear fashion as the throttle heads to wide open. At wide open throttle the nitrous system is also wide open providing as much gas as the system is jetted for. Jay’s Shogun is jetted to provide 300 to 310 horsepower, a gain of approximately 90 ponies. The introduces the nitrous in a much less shocking manner as the additional power comes on smoother. This is good, comsidering the SHogun can be made quite tail-happy with a little right-foot effort. The system on the Shogun includes a 15-pound bottle capable of 3-4 minutes of WOT operation, a bottle heater and an electronic bottle valve that opens and closes the valve from the cockpit. The hatchback runs wild SuperTrapp mufflers which allow Jay to wake up the neighbors at a moments notice. Performance testing stock Shoguns were capable of posting some pretty impressive numbers. The car had published 0-60 times in the 4.6 second range. The Shogun sported quarter-mile performance of 12.9 seconds. Note these are WITHOUT power adders.