Vortech Blower Install - 2006 Mustang GT

March 10, 2008 | Installations

For those of you considering adding a Vortech Supercharger kit to your 2005+ Mustang, we have put together a short article on what you can expect. ModularFords member Javier Socorro (blkonblk) allowed us to follow along with the Vortech blower installation he was having performed at D’Agostino Racing in Davie, FL.

Here is Javier’s nearly virgin engine bay. His car is stock other than a Demolet cold air intake, SCT custom tune, and Flowmaster mufflers.

Here you can see most of the parts included within the kit. Vortech sends everything you need to install the system except the tools.

To start the installation, the front bumper must be removed. Having a lift for the install is a definate plus, but not a requirement. Here the fender liner is unbolted for easy access to remove the front bumper.

With the front bumper removed, place it safely out of the way. An old blanket works well for protecting the bumper cover from being damaged.

Joe has removed the cold air kit, and MAF. The plastic radiator cover has been removed, and the coolant tank shown here will be removed as well.

The upper intake manifold is removed, but will be reinstalled later.

 

With the car lifted in the air, the factory oil sending unit is removed to install the fitting shown for supplying the supercharger with oil pressure. The factory oil pressure sending unit is reinstalled into this fitting as well.

While we are still underneath the car, the oil pan needs a hole punched into the side of it for allowing the blower oil to drain back.

Using a tap, we thread the hole we created in the side of the pan in the last step. This will allow the oil return fitting to be screwed into the oil pan securely.

Here the oil pan fitting is shown installed. An oil drain line from the blower will attach to this fitting.

Using hardware supplied with the Vortech kit, the power steering reservoir is relocated.

The removal of the factory intake manifold was neccessary to remove the coolant crossover tube. Here a new outlet is added to the crossover tube.

Here the modified coolant crossover tube is reinstalled.

Here we see Joe reinstalling the factory plastic intake manifold.

With the intake manifold back in place, its time to install the supplied 39 lb./hr. injectors, as well as reinstalling the fuel rails.

Next step is to install the supercharger mounting plate, and idler as show here. In the lower left corner you can see the oil feed line. This connects to the fitting we showed you earlier.

Now we see some progress, the blower is mounted to the bracket, with the oil feed line and oil drain line both connected.

A note about the feed line - Be very careful when tightening the line, as this is what can result. This is the sprayer nozzle that sprays oil onto the gears inside the blower. It comes pre-installed, but it is VERY fragile.

Back under the car, the intercooler pump is mounted.

Here, the instructions tell us to move this large harness, down along side the engine, to make room for the intercooler and coolant reservoir. Unfortunately, there must be some different harness lengths, as there was no way this was possible on our car. The injector wiring was not long enough to allow enough room to do this, so instead, we pulled the harness up onto the motor to make room. This definitely does not look as nice, but there was not really any choice.

Pictured is the Vortech supplied coolant reservoir on the right, and the smaller intercooler reservoir on the left. Notice how we have the harness pulled up onto the engine, to make it all fit.

Next up, we mount the intercooler. Although we do not have a picture of it, we ran two lines from the intercooler to the front of the car. One of these will hook up to our intercooler pump, mounted earlier.

Next we installed the supplied air intake tract, MAF housing, and air filter.

After mounting the heat exchanger shown here, the front bumper can be reinstalled.

MAF sensor installed, along with DiabloSport MAFia.

Here, we see the removal of the stock single pump setup. The 05+ Mustang makes it easy when replacing fuel pumps. Remove the back seat, and the rubber plug in the floor board.

Here is the fuel pump upgrade kit that comes with the Vortech Kits.

Here it is installed.

Yes, that does look like a bandaid. We decided to go ahead and upgrade to the FRPP GT500 Fuel Pump upgrade. The added pump the Vortech kit comes with is a gyrator style pump, designed to operate in return style fuel systems. Returnless pumps are designed to run with varied voltage. We HIGHLY suggest you upgrade your pumps at this time.

Here is the Shelby GT500 Fuel pump kit. We are not going to cover the installation in this article, as it was previously covered in our JDM / Saleen Blower installation article.

With the fuel pumps installed, and plugs regapped (not shown) all that is left is filling the coolant and intercooler systems with fluid.
With everything finished up, we hit the dyno.

 

Click dyno graph for a larger image.

Special thanks to D’Agostino Racing, Ford Racing, Diablosport, Vortech, and to Javier!