Wanting to do a sleeper ES build and looking for resources
Hi everyone!
So to start, I want to preface this by saying I’m not a car noob with big dreams that will never come to fruition lol. I have been wrenching on cars all my life and recently completed my biggest project ever: my brother and I twin turbocharged my 2017 Mustang V6.
So anyways, why a Galant to wrench on you ask? Well my girlfriend bought a 2008 Galant ES a couple of years ago to drive back and forth between school and our house for her final year of college. She graduated in December of 2018 and the car really hadn’t been driven much until recently when our daughter was born in February. Now the Galant is the “family car” as it has more room than my Mustang for the car seat, diaper bag, etc. Well now we are looking into a bigger family car and I’d like to keep the Galant as a project.
It was in an accident prior to us owning the car, as the front upper radiator support is slightly bent and the grille doesn’t line up with all of the bolt holes. Other than that it has very minor cosmetic imperfections in the paint and is missing the fog lights. The interior is in excellent condition as well, save for some drooping fabric on each of the door cards.
My basic idea for the car is for it to be a sleeper. I want to do a full cosmetic restoration, including repairing the radiator support and grille and a full pint job. I also want to upgrade the brakes, lower the car just a tad, and get a little bit bigger wheels and better tires.
As for the engine I’m torn between two options:
1. The stock 2.4L 4G69 has ~170k on it as of right now. The only service I’ve had to do other than routine oil changes was replace the alternator at about 165k. I could drop the engine and trans, breaking it all down, give everything a look over and clean/replace anything the needs replacing. Probably replace all the seals, injectors, plugs/wires, and just make sure the internals look ok. After all that, it looks like there’s a relatively good history of people turboing this engine in the Galant and the Eclipse, so I’d want to do that.
2. The crazy option: find a 3.8L from a GTS or Ralliart and swap it in, then supercharge it. In case anyone doesn’t know, the Australian version of the Galant (the 380) had an extremely limited run of supercharged 3.8 L versions, dubbed the TMR 380. It had 310 hp and 326 lb-ft of torque. I was thinking of reaching out to Sprintex and seeing if the sell the supercharger that was used on the TMR 380 as a stand-alone unit.
So yeah, I know it sounds crazy but I’m just interested in any links or resources regarding performance for this car. I’ve search around here and some other Galant forums, but many of the threads seem to be outdated and link to products or sites that are no longer available.
Any help would be much appreciated!
