Whipple GT Kit on Mach1

[seeyalater]

How much hp are you looking at when tuned?

Whatever the Stage 1 Kit is. I think they claim 750 which I'm fine with.

Sponsored

 

[HKusp]

Whatever the Stage 1 Kit is. I think they claim 750 which I'm fine with.

That's going to be crank horsepower. At the wheels you'll see 650-680-ish on the stage 1 with the stock throttle body.

 

[Angrey]

That's going to be crank horsepower. At the wheels you'll see 650-680-ish on the stage 1 with the stock throttle body.

I'm showing my age here, but it's pretty crazy we talk about these kinda numbers like "meh."

I bought my first new edge mustang in 1999 and in the early 2000's, before the terminators, 650-680 wheel horsepower would have been one of the baddest mustangs in the nation, certainly the cover Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords worthy. Even after the termi's came out, 680 to the wheels was pretty monstrous (a little less so when you consider those cars were 300-500 lbs lighter but still).

Today, 680 on pump gas is like brushing your teeth routine and yawner.

My 1999 GT came from the factory with 265 hp. The cobras of that era had like 290, 305 at the CRANK. I remember when they breached 300 hp level again and it was a big deal.

500 hp is the new 300 hp. Blown cars making 750 to the wheels are a dime/dozen. Crazy times.

If you had a low 11, high 10 second car, you were probably one of the fastest street cars in your state. Now we don't really pay attention and turn our heads until someone breaks into the 8's.

 

[Whitedevil95]

I'm showing my age here, but it's pretty crazy we talk about these kinda numbers like "meh."

I bought my first new edge mustang in 1999 and in the early 2000's, before the terminators, 650-680 wheel horsepower would have been one of the baddest mustangs in the nation, certainly the cover Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords worthy. Even after the termi's came out, 680 to the wheels was pretty monstrous (a little less so when you consider those cars were 300-500 lbs lighter but still).

Today, 680 on pump gas is like brushing your teeth routine and yawner.

My 1999 GT came from the factory with 265 hp. The cobras of that era had like 290, 305 at the CRANK. I remember when they breached 300 hp level again and it was a big deal.

500 hp is the new 300 hp. Blown cars making 750 to the wheels are a dime/dozen. Crazy times.

If you had a low 11, high 10 second car, you were probably one of the fastest street cars in your state. Now we don't really pay attention and turn our heads until someone breaks into the 8's.

Facts!! I also am so impressed by how far things have come in this regard. I started driving in 2000 and a Heads Cam Intake pushrod 5.0 making 300 wheel was a real street machine back then.

 

[Coastal-Mach]

I'm showing my age here, but it's pretty crazy we talk about these kinda numbers like "meh."

I bought my first new edge mustang in 1999 and in the early 2000's, before the terminators, 650-680 wheel horsepower would have been one of the baddest mustangs in the nation, certainly the cover Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords worthy. Even after the termi's came out, 680 to the wheels was pretty monstrous (a little less so when you consider those cars were 300-500 lbs lighter but still).

Today, 680 on pump gas is like brushing your teeth routine and yawner.

My 1999 GT came from the factory with 265 hp. The cobras of that era had like 290, 305 at the CRANK. I remember when they breached 300 hp level again and it was a big deal.

500 hp is the new 300 hp. Blown cars making 750 to the wheels are a dime/dozen. Crazy times.

If you had a low 11, high 10 second car, you were probably one of the fastest street cars in your state. Now we don't really pay attention and turn our heads until someone breaks into the 8's.

I know what you mean, being a teenager in the fox body days. 225 at the crank, I thought it was a rocket ship.
Still the best platform to dump the clutch and hold on.

 

[seeyalater]

I know what you mean, being a teenager in the fox body days. 225 at the crank, I thought it was a rocket ship.
Still the best platform to dump the clutch and hold on.

225hp? Holy crap. I was into VW GTIs with 130hp and when the VR6 came out with 170hp we thought it was so fast running the 1/4 in 15.6

 

[GreenS550]

I put the Whipple kit on my '19 Bullitt with their tune. It made 675 at the wheels with 93 octane tune. Drove better than stock and it made the active exhaust sound better than any mustang I have ever owned. Too much torque for the dragstrip with slicks. After about 4 passes the clutch started slipping. It did pull the front wheels off the ground, though...

 

[seeyalater]

I finally had a little time over the weekend to get started with the installation. Armed with determination and a vague idea of what I was doing, I thought, "Hey, why not snap a few pics and jot down a quick guide? Could save someone else from the brink of insanity down the road!"

Whipple emailed me a list of items that are different on their GT and Mach 1 (Bullitt, 350):

• Hose Bag
• LTR Bolt Bag
• IC Pump Mount
• IAT Pigtail
• EVAP Parts
• 87mm TB Adapter
• Air tube from 87mm TB to airbox

I wasn't sure if I'll really need all of those parts above, so I decided to just dive in and figure it out as I went along. YOLO, right?

So, the first order of business, plug in the Tomahawk tuner to download the factory tune so I can send it to Whipple because the instructions state that it takes about a week for them to send you back their tune. To my surprise, someone from Whipple called me the same day telling me that they no longer use the Tomahawk programmer, and they are sending me the new RTD programmer via overnight shipping.

Now, onto the teardown. The bumper, battery tray, k-bracket, etc took maybe 2 hours to remove and was pretty straight forward:

Maybe another couple of hours to remove the intake manifold, change spark plugs, etc:

First Mach 1 / GT Difference: I was planning on using my stock 87mm throttle body and now realized that it will not fit on the plastic GT adapter plate that comes with the kit, and the TB to airbox tube will also not fit the 87mm TB. After considering dropping a chunk of change on the 87mm parts from Whipple at around $300, I stumbled upon a brand spanking new 132mm TB for a steal on Facebook. Fate, or just dumb luck.

Injectors, gaskets and such we're installed on the lower part of the supercharger and it was finally installed on the engine. It was a bitch to lift and lower carefully alone. I literally stood on the shock towers and carefully lowered it.

All the rear (firewall area) bolts on the lower and lid of the supercharger are a little hard to get to, but the middle one on the lid is pretty much impossible to get to. Reaching it was like playing a game of Operation on expert mode.

There are tons of hoses and this probably took the longest to sort out, run correctly and make sure they don't interfere with any moving parts. I finally got them sorted without summoning the wrath of the automotive gods.

Second Mach 1 / GT Difference: On the rear, passenger side of the engine you need to re-use the left bank 3-wire harness to connect to the new 2-wire IAT sensor on the supercharger which requires a 3-to-1 adapter that I have not received yet. So hopefully later this week, I can finish this.

Third Mach 1 / GT Difference: On the GT, the EVAP valve sits on the driver's side of the engine with it's wire harness run in that location. On the Mach 1, the EVAP valve sits by the throttle body. You need to re-locate your EVAP to the driver's side (GT position) on the lid of the supercharger, but your harness is not long enough, so you need the Whipple EVAP harness extension and bracket which I don't have yet.

Fourth Mach 1 / GT Difference: Just when I thought I had it all figured out, a wild aluminum coolant tank appeared! This one was unexpected since there was no mention of it from Whipple. The aluminum coolant tank that all the hoses run into is about 1.50" too wide and hits the oil cooler in the Mach 1. I'm waiting to hear back from Whipple if they have a smaller version. If not, I will just have to use some spacers and move the coolant tank inwards a little.

So hoping to have these few missing items by the end of this week and be ready to flash the new tune and start it up.

Of course as I was refilling the engine's coolant last night I noticed it was leaking from the t-pipe. I think I may have lost an o-ring that goes behind the plastic ring inside the coupling.

 

[HKusp]

You made a TON of progress in a weekend. If you look at my Whipple install thread, you'll see how things can go awry when you THINK you have a skill-set, but might just have overestimated those abilities a bit.

 

[seeyalater]

I finished the installation this past weekend and overall it went fairly well.

I ended up using a couple of 1" aluminum spacers to move the coolant tank inwards 1" and everything lined up perfect. (only 1 shown in pic below, but I did add the second one after I took the pic)

I tidied up all the hoses and wire harnesses. I still don't like the way the TB harness look, I might try and run it differently at some point.

I refilled both coolant tanks with Motorcraft coolant and added a bottle of Water Water. While I had the undertray off, I went ahead and change the oil to Motorcraft 5w-50. Re-installed the bumper, etc which is pretty straight forward. The only little issue is that the driver's side brake ducting will not fit now with the coolant tank in the way. So I just left it out.

I installed the Whipple tune using the RTD Tuner which only took a few minutes and was really nervous hitting the Start button for the first time. I was expecting all sorts of noises and check engine lights, but to my surprise it fired right up just like it did when it was stock. No weird noises or dash lights.

I drove around my neighborhood a few times slowly to get temps up and kept adding coolant until it seemed like all the air was out. I then went on a short 5 mile drive taking it easy. I haven't had a chance to open it up yet, but driving normal under 3500 RPM you would not know there was a supercharger installed, it drives and sounds 100% stock.

The few times I got on it a little harder, you could feel the power slowly coming on. Hopefully I have some time this week to drive it a little more and really open it up.

Here are my dash readings after a short drive. Hopefully it all looks normal. I'll try and post a video when I drive it some more.

Is there a reason to do some Datalogging with the RTD? or is there no need with the basic Whipple tune?

 

[Angrey]

Are you using the jumper so that your IAT is actually IAT2? You should be at 210F for CHT with an IAT2 of 82F, unless you were really beating on the car.

I don't know what others are seeing for CHT, but mine never get close to that unless the car is under some load/exertion to cause them to be up there, especially at those ambients. You should check your radiator/coolant system to make sure you don't have any air pockets there as well.

 

[HKusp]

I agree with Angery on the CHT. On a 77 degree day, not beating on the car, 210 is a little warm and it most likely is the coolant hasn't completely filled all the voids. Otherwise everything looks really good on your install. Keep working the air out and watch those temps come down. You're going to notice a BIG difference when you DO actually get on it. It's a night and day difference over an NA car, believe me.

 

[seeyalater]

Thanks @Angrey and @HKusp. I'll take the car for a spin tonight and see where it's at. I did leave both coolant caps off while it's sitting in the garage, so hopefully some of the air bubbles escape.

 

[GreenS550]

What I remember is that on "sport" the exhaust was the best sounding exhaust I have ever heard (well, maybe except for my 445 FE stroker in my '66 Fairlane GTA). I took my whippled Bullitt with the Whipple tune to my local dyno and it dyno'd at 675 RWHP at 7,500 RPM. I remember it drove better than stock as well. Good IATs and decent gas mileage.

Sponsored