Baer Brakes are found in the wheelwells for fade-free stopping, with Halibrand wheels setting a surprisingly well-considered retro-tech style to the machine. The Toyo tires are Proxes 275/35-18s with an amazingly low treadwear rating of 40 to ensure pliant traction at all times. Inside, Auto Meter Phantom gauges pick up the silver metal theme, while VinylMayhem did the tasteful add-on graphics.
Under hood are Denso Iridium spark plugs-a proven aid in avoiding misfiring in supercharged engines, along with a Bassani X-pipe and after-cat exhaust system.
Vortech's Mach 1 Kit
And then there is the Vortech V-1 SQ supercharger installation, for which Trevor's car is acting as the guinea pig. For its '02-'03 Mach 1 kit, Vortech began with its existing '01 Mustang Cobra kit, which means the blower installation is readily familiar to Mustang enthusiasts as few changes were required. As always, the Vortech buyer has his choice of a standard output (around 7-8 pounds of boost) or the high-output variety (10-11 pounds of boost). The high-output has proven most popular.
Actually, there are two Vortech kits for the Mach 1. The standard kit is everything-supercharger, aftercooler, fuel pump, and so on-minus anything to do with the Mach 1's ram-air hardware. In other words, the standard kit supercharges the Mach, but simply ignores the hoodscoop, leaving it there for looks.
Optional is the Functional Ram Air kit. It adds those parts necessary to connect the air scoop into the blower's intake path. In a bit of lawyerly labeling, the Functional Ram Air kit does deliver all the function the stock Ford ram-air arrangement does, which is to deliver what air may go down the scoop into the general vicinity of Vortech's conical air filter.
Getting back to the standard Mach 1 blower kit, as expected, the blower sits on a Vortech-supplied bracket, facing the engine so as to share the serpentine drive belt.The oil pan is punched and fitted with an oil drain-back line from the blower. The battery is relocated to the trunk to accommodate the aftercooler reservoir. The aftercooler radiator and electric water pump are fitted to the lower radiator support. Iridium spark plugs are highly recommended. A 255-lph fuel pump replaces the stocker in the fuel tank. The 38-lb/hr injectors are swapped for the stockers. And the kit comes with a voucher that is returned to Vortech for a custom-calibrated computer chip. The kit is complete and well detailed, which also means it retails in the $6,000 range and will take the home-shop enthusiast all weekend to install. The battery relocation and dropping the fuel tank for pump installation are meaningful jobs by themselves, after all. As always with Vortech, the installations are clear and complete.
As for the Functional Ram Air option, that kit was still under development at our deadline, so final materials, dimensions, and pricing remain undetermined. What's involved, however, is a new tray-or lower section-of the hoodscoop. It has a large outlet and tubing leading down to Vortech's open element air filter in the right inner fender.
There has been talk inside Vortech of making a sealed box for their air filter, along with a trap door to seal the regular air inlet whenever the hoodscoop supplies the majority of air, but at this point that's just talk.
Hitting The Rollers
We began our test day by running the Mach 1 on the chassis dyno. This was done on Vortech's Mustang dyno while we observed. All went well and we soon had our dyno results.
The first official pull netted 362 hp at 6,850 rpm and 328 lb-ft at 5,050 rpm, while the second pull showed 371 at 6,700 rpm and 327 lb-ft at 5,050 rpm. That's a gain of 9 hp and a loss of 1 lb-ft of torque as the oil warmed up.
If these numbers seem low, they are. That's because the Mustang dynos-which load the car to replicate its weight going down the road-religiously read substantially lower than the more widely known inertial Dynojets-as much as 40 hp less at times.