Project Beefy (UK Vortech Build)

[Nodster]

My little project kicks off today so dedicating it to @beefcake and the team who helped me with picking a tuner kit and many many questions over the last few months and were so helpful in getting everything shipped safely to the UK, and of course a big thanks as well to @Wengerd Performance for helping with the tuning in this project.

Project Beefy will see my dad and I undertake the installation (from tomorrow) of a V3-JT Vortech Supercharger ( 4FQ218-330JT ) with heritage gears into my 2018 GT. Nothing too exciting. I have the JLT intake to go with the kit and the plug n' play BAP. I opted for the smaller LU47 injectors and I have set of NGK 6510 ( NGK LTR7IX-11 ) spark plugs to fit. So probably what you'd class as a basic level kit? I don't know what to expect haha.

Work done to date on the car to try and help prepare:

• Steeda billet rear vertical links

• Steeda full IRS kit

• Steeda front strut brace
• Wider wheels and better tyres (265 front / 305 rear)

The only work I've done to date with the kit is to check the items off the parts list, then have one or two meltdowns along the way as I forget what I've ordered, the most recent of these was my panic over injector spacers (or lack of) lol. It's OK, apparently I can skip that step of the install. Phew!

And then some preliminary work on the spark plugs which I've gapped down to 0.028". Wengerd asked for 0.027" so I may give these another check before fitting. There is also an oil change to be done at the end. Exciting.

I'll pop up some pictures along the way of the install.

But the first job today is setting up the "event tent" outside which we picked up from Amazon. I can't remember on the size we bought now, it is either 3x3m or 3.6x3.6m. But it should be big enough and tall enough to stick the front end under, raise on stands whilst having the bonnet (sorry hood) open and still not touch the top. I have some side panels to then zip on to keep everyone protected from the elements and we're also going to modify the feet and anchor them to some sturdy wooden bases (weighted down) just in case the wind decides to pick up - but it isn't forecast.

Here goes nothing!

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[beefcake]

i like it!!!!

 

[Michael_vroomvroom]

So cool to see something like this on this side of the pond. Good luck!

 

[Nodster]

So the tent was a success. It was the 12ft variant thankfully. The GT fits inside nicely and even when rasied up, it still has enough room to open the hood. Dad had made some wooden bases and then bolted the tent to those and then for good measure threw on x2 20KG bags of gravel on to each corner. So it's weighed down by 80KG now. I think it is pretty safe.

The wood is just there as a precaution - she is up on actual axle stands just behind. I'm paranoid about things falling. I'm going to slide one of my spare alloy wheels under each side as well tomorrow just so when under doing the oil change I won't get squished. But there's plenty of room.

I've got jars everywhere in the shed. Can't tell you how many of these chocolate desserts I've had to eat. It was such torture (not really). But they make for excellent bolt/nut/screw storage when taking things apart!

And finally made a small start ready for tomorrow, removed the airbox / intake.

Sucessful day of prep over.

 

[Nodster]

First full day attacking the install. Project Beefy is underway!

What started off quite well slowly turned to frustration. Whoever deisnged the mounting bracket clearly was having a bad day and just generally hated people. What an absolute b*tch of a job!

The bumper removal went smoothly.

Managed to drain the coolant, remove the tank and remove the aux belt without much issue. And trimmed down one of the mounts as instructed (time will tell if it is enough for the intake tube to clear or not). Spilt some coolant over myself from the upper rad hose, so had to go change my pants.

Then had another little panic after removing the throttle body when I remembered "Oh I have the Steeda TB spacer installed, now where did I put the original bolts!?" But thankfully managed to find them.

Mounting assembly finally installed, with the belt roughly in place.

One thing we couldn't understand is the instructions say the lower two 200mm studs that go into the engine cover which the supercharger bracket then attaches to, should protrude 3.75" with the spacers on. One of them did, the second however was only 3.2". So we had to back it out. This felt very wrong as surely it now isn't threaded all the way in and therefore isn't tight... But it had to be done, otherwise the nut and washer would not fit on the mounting assembly to secure it. But why is the 200mm stud not 212mm from Vortech to take up the slack? We used blue loctite but I still am not comfortable knowing it had to be backed out of the cover half an inch / 12mm. Nothing we can do about it now though.

Mounting bracket secured.

Drainage hose attached to the supercharger base.

Mounted the Supercharger to then have another panic about why the heck the AC pipe is in the way of the discharge tube. My dad I spent ages mulling over whether we'd orientated the blower incorrectly, but on triple checking the 5 bolts were actually in the correct 5 holes (there are 6 in total) we flicked through the guide to find that yes, the AC pipe has to be bent out of the way at a later stage (eek!). Here we can see the top most bolt hole is not used.

Why not have a blank in the one not in use Vortech?

The instructions could also have made note of the AC pipe issue earlier to save us a bit of time thinking. Here is the offending AC pipe.

However it seems to be mounted correctly as far as I can tell. The belt clearance is tight, but should hopefully improve once correctly on the tensioner as it is slack at the moment. Just clears the cover behind it.

The bolts behind the supercharger were a nightmare to fit even with a 9/16" spanner. I feel for anyone who has massive sausage fingers.

And here is how it looks at the moment.

But that has taken us 8 hours today to get to this stage. Finish putting the belt on tomorrow and checking the path / fitment is OK and then on to the next stages of the build. If we finish this tomorrow I'll be amazed. haha.

Thanks.

 

[Nodster]

Day 2 of the install. It went well today, albeit slow. Lost a bit of time to cutting the radiator mounting brackets and then waiting half an hour for the paint to dry. But, no issues to report.

We got the new belt fully routed and finished off from yesterday.

Placed the new cut mounts back on top of the radiator.

Moved the AC line as well (phew!). We did this before re-fitting the upper radiator hose as otherwise you'd never get your hands back in. Had to pull the electrical connector out of it was right where the pipe wanted to be. It should be fine just sitting there.

Cut the sound tube and blanked it off behind the new coolant tank.

And we managed to get all the coolant hoses re-routed and the new tank fitted. Point to note here for Euro peeps, the battery cables make it awkward to adjust the tanks final position, you get very little wiggle room due to the cables interfering. I guess US cars have the brake "stuff" at that side. I don't think I'll be re-using my strut brace because of this new tank and the bracket. The engine cover will need a very small trim.

As you can see we cheated with using jubilee clips for most of the hoses. I can't stand using those spring loaded OEM ones (where possible). So where it made our lives easier, I used clips instead. Was quite lucky I had one of those random boxes full of various sized clips to hand!

And then we managed to get the Throttle Body spacer and Throttle Body re-installed. We didn't have any pipe sealant but used PTFE tape (which should work just as well and stop any leaking air... I'm assuming that is why it requests pipe sealant?) My socket popped off and I managed to chew the ends of the valve. D'oh.

But, things going OK so far. One concern, there is a vac line (I think) sitting on top of the supercharger belt so I really hope later on that it is moved or modified as that can not stay where it is currently! Bit worrying.

That's taken us about 6 hours today.

Thanks.

 

[ice445]

I know everyone hates constant tension clamps (spring clamps), but they really do seal better. They contract and expand with the hoses, whereas the jubilee style does not, often resulting in seepage as the rubber ages, especially in cold weather. Not that big of a deal though.

What I'm curious about is how this car will pass MOT with that honking supercharger on there? Is there something extra you have to do to run that, or is it like most of the US where you can just do whatever?

 

[Nodster]

I know everyone hates constant tension clamps (spring clamps), but they really do seal better. They contract and expand with the hoses, whereas the jubilee style does not, often resulting in seepage as the rubber ages, especially in cold weather. Not that big of a deal though.

What I'm curious about is how this car will pass MOT with that honking supercharger on there? Is there something extra you have to do to run that, or is it like most of the US where you can just do whatever?

I see ah thanks mate. Well they are done up pretty tight so fingers crossed they behave. I'll defo just keep an eye out for any drips. But thanks for the explination .

 

[Nodster]

Not much of an update for Day 3 sadly. I was hoping for a day with less time spent cutting and modifying but turns out there was more of that lol. But we did manage to finally get the intercooler all sorted. Those braces behind the radiator are a nightmare. And so was modifying the ducting - having to just best guess by looking at a small picture was tough.

But then came the snag. Turns out the clips supplied (type #48 x7) to use on some parts of the tubing, were wrong. I've been sent x7 type x44 clips which are too small. The others thankfully, appear to be correct.

83mm isn't big enough to clear the pipework.

So i've managed to track down some 70-90mm stainless clips on Amazon with a next day pre-1PM delivery slot. Cost about £15. Not the end of the world but an annoyance. Someone messed up.

I also had a bit of a FFS moment as I need to change the spark plugs and I think the new coolant tank which we put in yestrday is now in the way and will therefore need to be taken back out for me to reach the right-hand bank of plugs. So I rage quit the build at about half 3 today. I've had a shave, a hot bubble bath, and whisky is next on my list.

Tomorrow the plan, hopefully, is to maybes tackle the injectors (get those swapped) and maybes the spark plugs. Then when the clips arrive finish the discharge tubes. But I need to watch a video on how to do the spark plugs as I'm not sure.

Thanks.

 

[Nodster]

What I'm curious about is how this car will pass MOT with that honking supercharger on there? Is there something extra you have to do to run that, or is it like most of the US where you can just do whatever?

It's all cool for MOT. As long as it passes the basics safety checks and emissions tests it's fine. Emissions should be fine as cats are still in place. And safety wise they just check basics like tyres, headlights, seat belts, suspension, etc.

 

[Nodster]

Day 4 ticked off.

Today was a good day and I'm pleased with how the project is coming together. Amazon delivered my new jubilee clips at 8AM. So no time was wasted waiting around.

We managed to get all the pipework sorted for the intercooler.

New clips (yey!).

Tight for space! The instructions say to feed this pipe with the bov already attached which was just impossible. Could not get it to feed in. So we had to battle with fitting the bov AFTER the pipe was in. So this was upside down trying to hold a gasket in place whilst trying to tighten two small screws. A lot of swearing occurred but it finally gave up and went in. (Yep the bov is on the underside of that pipe!!). One hurdle overcome.

We also ran the oil dran line across the top of the rad hose and cable tied it for when needed. Keeps it out of the way.

Attached the vac line to the bov and also ran it across the rad hose as per the instructions.

Final piece into the throttle body.

All complete.

Had some fun refitting the bumper.

For starters, is this just a euro "thing" but what is this box of tricks?

it was blocking the exit for the right hand side of the intercooler (passenger side UK). And I couldn't notch out a gap for the pipe (shown below where it goes) as the horn is moved. The horn uses the hole that this sensor bracket attaches to (top most nut in the picture).

So in the end we chopped the bracket off.

And just re-attached without it. It doesn't wobble or bounce so it is pretty solid. Nice little hack! Still none the wiser what it is as the intructions make no mention of this part?

And finally the bumper. Drivers side (UK) the pipework is a tight fit. Thankfully we didn't mess with adjusting the pipes, we just trimmed some unneeded plastic from behind the bumper. It bulged out and so we simply removed the bulge part.

It is hollow inside but it allowed the outer edge of the pipe to just go into the recess and avoided any pushing out against the bumper. This was mid chop so a bit raggy but no one will see it. And then when fitted it had clearence.

Next we have the fuel injectors and spark plugs to sort. For this final leg we deciced to refit the bumper, underskirt, arch liners and to lower the car back down. It will make for leaning into the engine bay a lot easier than being jacked up.

And all back together.

I just hope the fuel injectors and spark plugs are easy to sort! I might just tackle the BAP instead first thing tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with my ramblings.

 

[Nodster]

Day 5.

Tackled the fuel injectors first thing and actually it was fine. No dramas, apart from spilling a bit of fuel out of the rail on myself (again!). Surprising how much sits in the rail actually, I thought it would have been a lot less. Managed to decipher the instructions as to which injectors to rotate and how the clip goes back on differently. Seemed to fit back in to the engine without hassle. And yep! No spacers required.

I swear past owner had this car down the beach or something.

I then thought, I'm going to have to tackle the spark plugs. This is where things took a bit longer to sort. The drivers side (UK) was easy. The passenger side (UK). OMG. Removed the new coolant tank we'd just installed... then 1st plug, OK, 2nd plug, OK... 3rd and 4th... are you kidding me. But had a good look at the situation and we went with removing the battery, battery tray and then the thin metal cover (nice of Ford to use loctite on these bolts!!).

Ahh hello spark plug #3 and #4. Much easier. Don't worry I cleaned up all the crud before fitting everything back in. Used a 3/8" drive and a 16mm magnetic spark plug socket and a 3/8" extension (6"). Also shortened the sound tube down further and put the blank over it (shown without blank attached).

Next we tackled the intake / PCV hoses.

I was quite pleased with how this turned out. lol. Even used the stepless clamps this time as it turns out my dad did have an oetiker clamp. These things are ace!

The spark plugs set us back on time today as well as having to grind yet more of the rad cover away to fit the vortech plastic intake tube!! It just did not want to go in without a fight. We would have probably been able to wrap up the build tonight but sadly, tomorrow I will have to finish off the intake, then tackle the BAP. Finally fill the coolant and finally apply the tune and fire her up!

@ice445 am I right in saying (I think you helped me last time in another thread) that I put the coolant in and that I can start the car with the expansion cap off, so that the air can escape? Also run the heater on hot to open up the heater exchange?

All the best.

 

[raptor17GT]

nice one, could not imagine trying something like this myself but enjoy reading about others doing it.

 

[Nodster]

nice one, could not imagine trying something like this myself but enjoy reading about others doing it.

Thanks, it certainly has been challenging. Not made any progress today sadly. Weather has been against us.

It was too windy to even try and pour coolant into the tank.

So we just installed the JLT intake, or tried to. The angle of the vortech pipe into the supercharger is slightly raised at one end, and causing a bad angle by the time the filter is installed at the airbox end. Meaning, we can't shut the bonnet.

So we've devised a slight modification.

We can angle the filter in the airbox (there is just enough room) so to do this we've bought a 30 degree 4" silicone pipe which we'll shorten down. We'll then cut the JLT metal coupler in half and use the new silicone pipe to rejoin it. By inserting the 30 degree angled silicone hose we can get the filter to a better position in the airbox and the bonnet should then close.

I'll get some pictures up to explain a bit better this weekend (the weather is looking a lot better!).

 

[edthedrummer]

For starters, is this just a euro "thing" but what is this box of tricks?

it was blocking the exit for the right hand side of the intercooler (passenger side UK). And I couldn't notch out a gap for the pipe (shown below where it goes) as the horn is moved. The horn uses the hole that this sensor bracket attaches to (top most nut in the picture).

So in the end we chopped the bracket off.

And just re-attached without it. It doesn't wobble or bounce so it is pretty solid. Nice little hack! Still none the wiser what it is as the intructions make no mention of this part?

Might be mistaken, but its not the radar system for the cruise control assist and collision detection is it?

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