After the intercooler was...
After the intercooler was tightened, we flipped the blower back onto its base and installed both the inlet and outlet connectors to the midplate of the blower. Coolant from the reservoir will come in from the right side of the blower, run through the intercooler, then exit out the left side.
While the calibrator would work great for a car with a manual transmission and 3.55 gears in the rearend housing, Project MILF presented us with two distinct problems-it's an automatic transmission-equipped car, and the 8.8-inch rear is now stocked with a set of 4.10 cogs. We lucked out in the sense that D'Amore had to create a custom tune for Project MILF to take into account the new gears. Instead of ordering and loading the FRPP tune, he revamped it, especially in the transmission department. "Tuning is critical in every car, but more so with an automatic," he says. "A majority of what I did with the tune of the car was not maximizing power but protecting the transmission from the increase of around 200 lb-ft of torque."
We felt comfortable that D'Amore could get the transmission to live behind our juiced-up Three-Valve, namely because his '06 GT routinely runs in the low-10-second zone while still transferring power to the rear wheels via a stock 5R55S that has had its tune worked over. To do so, he fiddles with how the transmission shifts, mostly within its assigned slippage and converter lockup points. "The problem portion of the transmission lies in the 2-3 upshift," he explains. "There's a lot going on during that shift, as you have one clutch pack disengaging at the same time another clutch pack and band are engaging. The timing between all three of those actions on that particular shift needs to be perfect. If it isn't, the clutches will slip more than they should and will burn up. To keep that from happening, I changed the clutches' slip reduction so they do not slip as much between shifts. This ultimately leads to firmer shifts, and obviously keeps the clutches from burning up. I also have the converter locking up sooner in Fourth and Fifth gears, further reducing slippage in the trans-missions internals. To maximize power, I raised the shift points to 6,400 rpm. It took me a long time to come up with the perfect tune for the transmission, but this setup should allow the transmission to live at this power level."
This is how the blower will...
This is how the blower will look with the intercooler on. The intercooler will sit in the intake galley, which means the height of the blower will not change.
Project MILF turned the dyno rollers to almost 440 rwhp and a little more than 422 rwtq. If you look back to last month's power figures, you will see that the Big-Boost kit raised our sweetheart's peak power numbers by 55 ponies and 48 lb-ft of torque. As for the track times, we kept our drag radials on and made four passes down the Raceway Park quarter-mile.
With our sizeable increase in power, we knew that getting into the 11s should be easy as pie, and we were not disappointed. We shaved a whopping 0.650 second off our elapsed time with a best e.t. of an 11.54. Trap speed rose by 5.5 mph to a blistering 120.57. Best of all, the car is tractable and docile for the power level.
Now that we bought the wife some diamonds, we'll have to outdo ourselves pretty mightily. Think she'd be insulted with us suggesting she needs some visual enhancements? There's only one way to find out!
With the intercooler and blower...
With the intercooler and blower mated, it was time to lower the supercharger back on top of the engine. While it took one person to lift the blower off, it takes two sets of hands to lower it back on.
To go along with the fuel...
To go along with the fuel system that comes with the Big-Boost kit, we decided to help things along and swap out the 400hp kit's 32-pound injectors for a set of 48s that are used in the GT500. Keep in mind that, due to the engine being supercharged, the short-style injectors are a must, as the tall injectors will not fit.
Once we had the new injectors...
Once we had the new injectors installed in the fuel rails, we reinstalled them on the Three-Valve. We routed the intercooler feed line under the driver-side fuel rail (arrow) and linked it up to the inlet port on the blower midplate.
Next came the installation...
Next came the installation of the heat exchanger. Its job is to aid in reducing the coolant temperature by running it through this radiator-type piece. We mounted the heat exchanger in front of the radiator so airflow from the car moving forward would lower the coolant's temperature before making its way back into the inter-cooler reservoir. Once the heat exchanger was in, we hooked up the rest of the feed lines.
Moving the coolant throughout...
Moving the coolant throughout the intercooler system is the job of this small electric intercooler pump. It, too, mounts in the front of the car, right behind the bumper. The pump and the heat exchanger came with their own mounting brackets that installed easily.
Once the pump was in, we installed...
Once the pump was in, we installed the pump relay to the passenger-side shock tower and proceeded to wire in the pump. We deviated from the directions as they called for wiring the pump into the resistor wire on the alternator. Knowing that this would cause interference, we opted to route the power lead to a key-on power source in the interior of the car.
To protect the power lead...
To protect the power lead wire running to the pump, we snuck it inside the front crossmember. The last thing we need is some road debris damaging the wire and cutting off power to the pump.