The second installment of the Dark Horse buildup is going to cover Powerdyne's Supercharging system. Last month, we installed a set of JBA headers and a Bassani after-cat system. The combination of JBA's 1 1/2-inch primary tubes and Firecone merge collectors coupled with Bassani's twin-outlet stainless steel muffler gave us a 30hp kick in the gas. Now, it's time to up the ante even more by force, feeding the three-valve motor with 6 pounds of boost to add an additional 60 hp and 37 lb-ft of torque on top of that. Since the truck is going to have the Mustang essence, we thought it all too fitting to hook up with Powerdyne, one of the industry leaders when it comes to pony car huffers. The guys at the company are knee-deep in the Mustang community, so we are happily surprised they poked their heads out and designed a true bolt-on truck kit.
The supercharger we will cover has a centrifugal design, which makes it a whole lot different than the Roots-style blowers from the '70s. Instead of being mounted directly on top of the engine, these are stationed in front of the block, so there is a lot less teardown involved. Think of the centrifugal-style supercharger as a belt-driven turbo; there have been some design changes to make them work off of belt power, instead of exhaust pressure, but they are very similar.
What makes Powerdyne's unit different than the competitor's is the company's SilentDrive system. Instead of using a set of gears to turn the internals, Powerdyne went with a dry belt, much like a timing belt setup in an import car. With no drive gears to lubricate, this system eliminates the need to route oil from the engine or a separate tank to the supercharger, simplifying installation. The absence of hot engine oil also allows Powerdyne superchargers to run a little cooler, and as we all know, cooler air equals denser air, which equals more power potential. One more thing to point out about the SilentDrive belt system is the noise, or lack thereof. The belt-drive system is very quiet compared to gear-driven counterparts, so if you want to be Mr. Sneaky Man and not have that tell-tale whine become audible until it's too late, this might be the system for you. Enough with the blah-blah, let's move on to the install.
After stopping at the gas...
After stopping at the gas station and filling up with premium fuel, we pulled into Powerdyne's facility, where Vinnie started the installation by tearing off the factory intake tubing and airbox. Take care when removing this stuff because it will all be reused later.
The fan and shroud also had...
The fan and shroud also had to come out to allow us room to work and also let us take these fabulous photos you see here. It takes a special set of tools to remove the factory fan on Fords because, instead of bolting to the water pump with four bolts like the trucks of old, this fan threads directly onto the snout of the pump.
Looking at the picture, you...
Looking at the picture, you can see the wrenches have pretty large ends on them. The larger one is designed to surround the bolt pattern on the fan's pulley to allow you to use the other to loosen the fan. Vinnie points out the fan has reverse threads, so in this instance it's righty loosey, lefty tighty.
The support bracket for the...
The support bracket for the air intake also had to be removed...
to provide enough clearance...
to provide enough clearance to jimmy the fan and shroud out of the engine compartment without killing the delicate fins on the radiator.
Once Vinnie had that out of...
Once Vinnie had that out of the way, he covered the throttle body with a rag and blew the engine off. He said, "This is crucial because we don't want any debris to fall in the injector ports and damage the internals when we do the injector swap."