Ford Mustang DSS Competition Engine Swap - Project ProCharged Pony - 331 Ways To Waste An LS1

Of course, gaskets, a new oil pump, paint for detailing the engine, oil and filter and coolant are all necessary to complete the build. Crazy Horse Racing in South Amboy, New Jersey, handled the engine assembly and installation and had the Mustang up and running in no time.

While Crazy Horse is fully capable of tuning our pony, LaRocca's Performance has been tuning our ProCharged pony since day one, and therefore we already had baseline horsepower and torque numbers from the Dynojet there. That being the case, we headed back to have LaRocca check the tuneup prior to making some dyno pulls.

LaRocca recommended that we step up in injector size from 42 lb-hr to 50 lb-hr. MSD provided us with a set of its competition 50 lb-hr injectors that we complemented with a 3.5-inch Pro-M Univer mass-air meter. The Univer was designed with the ProCharger's blow-through nature in mind and can be calibrated to your particular injector size when ordered. The computer, mass-air meter and injectors all work in concert to provide the engine with the appropriate amounts of air and fuel, so it is essential that they all know each other.

With the new injectors and meter, we found that the computer had a hard time opening the injectors properly to provide the desired idle. Whereas the '94-up tuning software allows us to adjust the injector's minimum pulse width, the '93-earlier software does not offer that option. To remedy this, we reinstalled the 42 lb-hr injectors and compensated with added fuel pressure (50 psi instead of 43 psi).

LaRocca was indeed right about us needing bigger injectors as the 42s begin to max out around 6,000 rpm. The steady 11:1 air/fuel ratio begins to head north towards 12:1 by that time, but it is still in the safe zone.

With the air/fuel ratio to his liking, LaRocca began tuning for power. At 10 psi of boost, our previous peak dyno figures came in at 473 hp at 5,500 rpm and 474 lb-ft of torque at 4,700rpm. This was with 4 degrees of timing retard and the same 11:1 air/fuel ratio. With zero retard and the same boost, the Mustang laid down 512 hp at 5,800 rpm and 500 lb-ft of torque at 4,700 rpm. In a 3,100-pound car with a good suspension, that's 9-second power folks.

As we mentioned before, this combination is easily capable making another 80-100 hp with a little more boost and maybe a different camshaft. But, we're fairly certain we've got enough to take care of those LS1 Corvettes, Camaros and Firebirds, not to mention most everything else on the road. We even came across a Maserati on the way home. He thought he was a contender, but half throttle in second gear was enough to put a few car lengths between us in a matter of seconds. LS1s? Forget about it. Let's find some turbo 911s.