2/24/10 - Have you ever wondered what adding a stroker kit would do for your engine’s horsepower and torque? Answering that question accurately can be tricky because there are so many variables, such as “Is the car supercharged or naturally aspirated?” and “Are the cylinder heads or cam going to be upgraded at the same time?” The answers to these important questions can change the power considerably. So here is just one example to give you and idea of what can be expected. Eddie’s ’93 Notchback was originally built with a Vortech V2 supercharger, unmodified-out-of-the-box Twisted Wedge cylinder heads, an Anderson B31 cam and Edelbrock Performer RPM intake manifold. Using an Anderson Power Pipe and the “stock” Vortech 3.33 inch pulley, the car put down an impressive 500 rear wheel horsepower and 451 ft/b torque on Realspeed's Mustang Dyno. Searching for even more power, Eddie installed a World Products Man-O-War 371 cubic inch short block. The short-deck (8.2 inch “302” height) block was topped off with the same cylinder heads, intake and camshaft as before. The same 70mm throttle and EGR spacer were retained, as was the 80mm Pro-M Mass air meter. The shorty headers were replaced with long tube headers. The old engine had completely maxed out the old 42 lb injectors and fuel pump, so the fuel system was upgraded with a Glenn’s Performance dual pump and “sleeper tank” system with 60 lb injectors. To keep the boost from dropping with the new larger engine, the supercharger pulley was changed from 3.33” to a still-mild 3.12” pulley. This kept the boost level approximately the same. (At most engine speeds the boost was about a 1/2 lb lower with the new engine and pulley.) Back on the dyno the new 69 cubic-inch larger engine produced 588 rwhp and 571 ft/lb, an increase of 88 horsepower and 123 ft/lb torque. For information on dyno tuning your car click here 2/4/10 - This week’s Tune Of The Week is our first “apples-to-apples” comparison of the new 2-valve Twisted Wedge heads with cams on a 2003 Mustang GT. The car is supercharged with Vortech’s standard base-model kit. It has no power pipe, no intercooler, and uses the standard pulley that comes with the kit. With the stock heads it put down 366 rwhp, a respectable gain of about 110 horsepower over what a similarly equipped car would make without the supercharger. After the customer installed a set of Twisted Wedge heads and Comp Cams #XE270AH-13 cams, he brought it back to us for a re-tune. With the stock heads he had pretty much maxed out the MAF sensor and the fuel pump, so a Lightning MAF and Boost-a-Pump were also installed. Without changing any other parts, the car picked up to 43 horsepower, to 409rwhp. Further gains would have been possible with agressive tuning but the customer stressed that he wanted a conservative tune to be as safe as possible while maintaining good power. It should also be noted that power was still climbing at 6500 rpm. The test was stopped there because we deemed it to be the safe limit for the stock short-block assembly. With a built bottom-end and an aggressive tune, these heads look ready to make some serious power right up to 7000 rpm. The better flowing heads started showing the restriction of the “stock” Vortech air inlet at higher rpms, and the boost dropped compared to the stock heads. Switching to a Power Pipe would have brought more air to the supercharger, bringing the boost level back up and increasing power even more. Changing the supercharger pulley to bring the boost back up is also an option. But for this test all the hardware was left the same. 1/21/10 - This week’s Tune Of The Week is a mostly-stock 2001 Mustang GT featuring minor bolt-ons and a nitrous oxide kit. Tuning the mostly-stock car gained 10 rear-wheel horsepower (without the nitrous) and snappier throttle response. When the car arrived it had no nitrous pressure gauge and no bottle warmer. Installing a gauge revealed the cold nitrous bottle only had 550psi even though the bottle was FULL. Installing a bottle heater brought the pressure up to the 950psi the kit was designed for and restored the performance that was lacking. A switch-chip was installed to allow for instantaneous changes to the tune for the best performance with or without the nitrous. With the nitrous oxide on the car gained 89 rwhp and 114 lb-ft of torque. 12/17/09 - This week's tune of the week is a 2006 Mustang GT that we install stage 2 comp cams valve springs required and did a custom tune on the car. This car also had some minor bolt on such as a C&L cold air kit, shorty headers, high flow mid pipe and 4.10 gears. With all these modifications over stock this car gained 50 rwhp and 18 rwtq, with about 20-25 rwhp from the cams alone. 12/3/09 - This week's tune of the week is a 1995 Ford Lightning with a Vortech supercharger. This customer came to Realspeed to have us just check out the current tune, when we found it to lean and the mass air meter pegging we installed a meter and had Dan do a custom tune. With the custom tune the Lightning gained 58 rwhp and 37 rwtq. Unfortunately the fuel pressure was dropping at high rpms so Dan was not able to push the Lightning to it's max potential power. 11/21/09 - This week's tune of the week is a 2006 Saleen Mustang that came in with a mail order tune from a reputable company. The customer wanted to make as much power as he could with the stock fuel pump, but without pushing the limits of safety. We installed the next smaller size pulley going from a 3.8" to a 3.6" pulley. Dan had commented that the tune was decent for a mail order tune but the car was running rich and the timing was conservative which left some things to improve on. After a custom tune the car gained 53 horsepower & 41 torque at the rear wheels and 1.5lbs of boost. 11/10/09 - This week's tune of the week is a 2001 Bullitt Mustang that came in with a Paxon supercharger on it. This customer originally came in for a baseline test, to check the mail order tune from Paxton. Dan couldn't even run it all the way through the rpm range, due to how extremely lean this car was running. After a tune the car improved from the original 313rwhp to a very nice 354rwhp. That's a 41 rwhp gain and the car is much safer with a nearly perfect 11.8 air/fuel ratio. For information on dyno tuning your car click here www.realspeedauto.com Ph.631-563-7325 All parts listed are for the Ford Mustang unless otherwise noted. Copyright 2009 Realspeed Automotive Inc. All rights reserved. mustang parts:: mustang performance parts:: 2005 mustang parts:: mustang cobra parts:: ford mustang performance parts:: 2005 mustang performance parts:: ford mustang racing parts:: aftermarket mustang parts:: after market mustang parts:: high performance mustang parts:: fox body mustang parts:: billet accessories:: mustang cold air intake:: best lower control arms mustang:: shifters:: short shifter:: shifter:: mustang lowering springs:: pro 5.0 shifter:: mustang clutch::