Our Saleen supercharger on the sly went down like this. With a tight three-day schedule to get everything completed, yours truly flew to Bryan's hometown of Las Vegas on day one to pick up the car, then drove the 300 miles to Saleen's Speedlab installation shop in Irvine, California. Baseline dyno testing took place at nearby Advanced Motor Sports that first evening, installation was scheduled for day two, with follow-up dyno, incidentals, and a return to Vegas on day three. No doubt you can guess where we're heading-yup, we encountered a few unexpected snafus.
Our first issue occurred on arrival at Bryan's Vegas residence. The dead battery from several months of inactivity was easily remedied, and we hit the road full of anticipation. Smashing the throttle just minutes into the trip was our first alert to real trouble. Simply put, the nearly new '07, sporting just 2,000 miles, felt like the weakest mutt on a geriatric dogsled team. Our first guess was a tank of bad gas, and a PCM compensation by reducing timing. Running the tank to empty during the drive to Irvine, followed by a fill-up with fresh 91 would cure the blues, right? Wrong! Our evening session on the AMS Dynojet revealed just how pathetic our test beast was, with peak horsepower of 160 at just north of 4,000 rpm. One thing was clear-something had happened to the '07 while it sat with it's owner overseas, for Bryan would have been at the Ford dealer the day he felt such a severe lack of grunt!
The morning of our second day had the Speedlab crew evaluating the '07 with the necessary diagnostics. It didn't take long for tech assistant Jorge Lopez to come up with a diagnosis, as the '07 was throwing a code for inoperative Intake Manifold Runner Control valves, meaning that at full throttle, the engine was sucking through a veritable straw. All involved took stock of the situation to come up with a plan. The last thing we wanted to do was install Saleen's supercharger on a car with underlying issues, but being that the stock intake and its offending control valves are removed during the blower install, we all figured it safe to proceed. The obvious issue this posed was an inability to get a baseline on this particular car, but then again, we have a good idea of what kind of numbers a completely stock '07 will put to the rear wheels-260hp and 285 lb-ft of torque being typical. Not exactly ideal, but it was our only real option given the circumstances.
After a record setting install by four of the skilled Speedlab staff, we hit the road with Speedlab Sales Manager Carlos Duran. No lack of power this time, as it poured on with a nice fat torque curve from bottom to top. Audible detonation occurred at several points, something to be immediately addressed as we dialed in the combination with help from the 550's custom JDM/SCT tune. Back on the dyno at AMS, horsepower was nearly 430 with 440 lb-ft of torque, with an air/fuel ratio right at 12.0, and again, some audible detonation. Not only is detonation to be avoided like the plague for durability reasons, but both AMS's Michael Shapiro and Speedlab's Carlos Duran felt it was hurting our overall numbers, and contacted JDM for some necessary adjustments. JDM responded with a new tune the morning of day three, and the car responded with peaks of 438 hp, and 457 lb ft of torque at just 3,200 rpm! Unfortunately the detonation persisted, and we had to end our day as it stood due to the time constraints of your author.
Both Saleen and JDM's main man Jim D'Amore were surprised by the continued problem, considering the new tune-up sported a richer AFR and reduced timing. More than ever, we all regretted the inability to get a baseline on the car with operable IMRC valves, wondering if the tuning issue was due to related gremlins. Unfortunately, more diagnosis would have to wait until the car was returned to its rightful owner (see "A little help from our friends").