S197 Mustang Programmable Management System Tuning - Cloaked Oak

Anderson Ford Motorsport's new Vortech/PMS combo outsmarts Spanish Oak for big power gains on an '05 GT

By K.J. Jones

Photography by Anderson Ford Motorsport

Anderson Ford Motorsport's...

read full caption

You may recall our recent dyno test of Anderson Ford Motorsport's '05 Mustang Power Pipe and the horsepower/torque gains we reported after installing the cold-air induction tubing and Professional Mass Air Systems' 80mm sensor on a bone-stock, new GT. The Power Pipe produced increases of more than 15 rear-wheel horsepower and 14 lb-ft of torque on the naturally aspirated test car, and did it without additional tuning from a PMS unit or other tuning system. Well, induction maven Rick Anderson is at it again. This time, he's combining Anderson Ford's Power Pipe fitted for the Vortech S-Trim supercharger (PN 4FU218-010SQ) and the company's brand-new, Series IV PMS tuner in an effort to hop up the blower's performance on the '05 GT's trey-valve mill.

The primary Power Pipe tube for the blown application is still 4 inches in diameter. For the blower, however, Anderson gave the fully coated inlet a small bend rather than maintaining the straight-shot pipe used in the naturally aspirated kit. A 4-inch rubber elbow connects the pipe to the blower inlet, and Anderson still uses an 80mm Professional Mass Air Systems mass air sensor for the Vortech kit. Stock fuel injectors are upgraded to 60-lb/hr pieces, and two in-tank, 255-lph fuel pumps are employed to ensure the fuel side of the combustion mixture is sufficient enough for the blower's boost. An aluminum heat shield, a new, relocated ACT sensor, a 3.48 pulley (the stock pulley is 3.60), and a conical air filter complete the application. Add up all these parts with a PMS, and you get Anderson Ford Motorsport's Stage II Anderson/Vortech SQ-Trim kit ($5,045).

The Power Pipe kit for Vortech-blown...

read full caption

Prior to installing the Stage II blower kit, Anderson Ford's Screaming Yellow '05 test mule sported the same simple mods (JBA headers and Bassani's X-pipe and mufflers) that were in place when the naturally aspirated Power Pipe was reviewed in our story, "Big Air" (Dec '05, p. 102). In the initial Power Pipe test, the final rear-wheel horsepower and torque totals were 308.41 and 324.07 lb-ft respectively, a considerable jump above the 292.42 hp and 310.53 lb-ft the car made without the pipe.

According to Vortech, '05 Mustangs in stock form have experienced increases of as much as 120 additional flywheel horsepower and 65 lb-ft of torque between 8 1⁄2 and 9 1⁄2 psi of boost with the S-Trim, without any mods other than the upgraded fuel pump and injectors, a DiabloSport Predator tune, and the bypass valve that are included in the blower kit.Rick's goal was to determine how much more the blown Three-Valve's overall power output could be enhanced and how much more efficient the air/fuel ratio could become if the supercharged engine was tuned with the PMS. For this evaluation, premium 93-octane pump gas was the standard fuel used, as it has been for all performance tests Anderson has performed on its '05.

The Anderson Ford Motorsport...

read full caption

The PMS, the crown jewel in the Anderson performance lineup, has long been one of the most dynamic and powerful tools available for fine-tuning modified (aftermarket camshafts, bigger fuel injectors, and such), naturally aspirated, or power-adder EFI Mustangs of any age. With the new Series IV version of the tuner, the person at the controls has the ability to worm into an '05 Mustang's Spanish Oak powertrain control module and create custom programming tables that can change the 4.6's performance parameters on a scale greater than the conservative (by comparison) settings the new 'Stang was equipped with from the factory.

Think of the PMS as a conversion box of sorts. Technically, the latest-series PMS can take engine-management (fuel and ignition-timing control on a individual-cylinder basis, and camshaft retard and advance) signals transmitted by Spanish Oak and manipulate them to represent tune-up settings the factory processor should have established from the outset to compensate for the S-Trim's needs. On the test car, however, the management system's stand-alone capability was used (the PMS does not look at the factory computer's output when it's used as a stand-alone processor). Anderson Ford's dyno-tuning experts experimented with various settings until the optimum performance levels were reached.

With the Vortech S-Trim in place, installing the Power Pipe is a simple procedure, as you can see by the photographs of TJ Clark setting it up on the shop's test mule. The Series IV plug-and-play PMS makes tuning the '05 GT's Spanish Oak equally as easy and, as evidenced in the dyno stats that follow, broadens the performance horizons of the Vortech-huffed '05 Mustang.

Horse Sense: Anderson Ford Motorsport's Programmable Engine Management System has been a perennial leader among the various plug-and-play tuning systems for EFI Mustangs. The system's controller, which could be mistaken for some sort of handheld video game, puts a nearly endless amount of 'Stang-tuning possibilities at a user's fingertips.