Brian Schapiro of B&D Racing...
Brian Schapiro of B&D Racing works the keyboard and fine-tunes the SCT calibration for our ProCharged '02 Mustang GT. Major props go out to James Gordon of SCT, who helped Brian create the all-new mass air transfer table that was necessary for the mongo JLT mass air housing we installed to help manage inlet air.
Horse Sense: Up front, we want to give a shout out to an unsung hero in this project effort. The Mustang techs who install products we test receive plenty of time in the spotlight, and to say that "bolting on various parts is something that any Mustang shop can do" is, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much a given for the type of projects we cover here in 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords. While the name James Gordon probably doesn't mean much to most of you, it's now an important name to us. James is the tuning specialist at SCT who devoted several hours of his time (on the phone and by way of the Internet) to help us develop a best-of-both-worlds tune for our radical D.S.S. Two-Valve/ProCharger F-1A combination: one that allows our '02 Mustang GT to make awesome rear-wheel horsepower without compromising its smooth-as-glass drivability on the street. The perfect mix had been elusive for a long time, but thanks to James' know-ledge and great assistance, we've finally achieved our goal-which seemed far-fetched to some people-and can now move on to higher heights with our unique street/race setup.
This is what our F-1A looks...
This is what our F-1A looks like out of the car. It seems like we took this beauty shot ages ago, when House of Boost's Dorian Comeau (he actually was a full-time ProCharger employee at the time) made a trip out to Southern California to install the blower and eight-rib belt-drive system.
Go ahead and say it: "It seems like forever since you guys started working on that ProCharger F-1A/4.6-liter Two-Valve upgrade with your '02 GT." Yes, we acknowledge the fact that this project has taken quite a while to close, but we've finally come to a point where we can confidently say that success has been achieved.
To briefly recap the origin of this saga, the project came to be when your tech editor's curiosity about applying a full-race supercharger to a low-mileage, daily driven, street 'Stang finally became too great to ignore. A plan for installing the big blower (with an eight-rib serpentine-belt drive system) and all of its support hardware was concocted, and B&D Racing, ATI ProCharger, House of Boost, Aeromotive, D.S.S. Racing Engines, JBA, and SCT were selected as the primary players for getting it done.
The Two-Valve/F-1A project reached the point where it is right now, theoretically finished, almost two years after we put our diabolical scheme into effect. While the road wasn't always smooth (there were several months when we didn't work on this project because of schedule conflicts, parts availability, and so on), we're glad we made it to the end nonetheless.
SCT's BA2800 is fine for P-1SC...
SCT's BA2800 is fine for P-1SC and D-1SC applications. However, after a lot of trial and error, it was apparent that the F-1A's demand for air was a bit much for this mass air meter.
One of the last details in making things right with our system is to expand our blown Two-Valve's rpm parameters. As we explained in our last report on this project, although B&D's tuning specialist Brian Schapiro was able to create a map that had the D.S.S. Super MODular 4.6 pumping 484 horses at the rear wheels, an inadequate mass air meter was severely hindering our quest for more performance. The SCT BA2800 mass air sensor is apparently unable to access and process the massive amount of air our F-1A demands and ultimately forces into the engine. This proved to be a problem during our tuning session, causing the air/fuel mixture to go lean when the blower really started pushing wind. The situation left our 'Stang with somewhat choppy drivability in the low-rpm range, and us with severe anxiety about watching the tach to prevent revs beyond 5,000 rpm (to be safe).
To remedy the problem, we're making the switch to an absolutely massive mass air: JLT's 110mm mass air housing (from JLT's Shelby GT500 True Cold Air system), which features the slot-style sensor of a Ford GT supercar. The mass air change will increase our tuning range with respect to airflow's total mass, and allow Brian to work on the tune beyond 5,800 rpm with confidence that the air/fuel mixture won't go lean in the process. The big housing and Ford GT sensor are critical to tuning for smoother low-rpm drivability as well.
Using SCT's Advantage III tuning software, Brian, with the help of SCT's James Gordon, ultimately created two programs for our project car's PCM. The Street tune is a pump-gas-compliant (91 octane) PCM calibration that Brian developed with safety in mind.