Forced Induction 92 Gt Vortech Install - Pic Heavy

Have had a build thread on another site or two, so thought I would put one on here and catch up to where I am at on the install

Had a 89 Coupe with a S-trim awhile back. Ended up selling the car. Have been through a couple other cars the latest being a 92 GT, red with black interior. Picked it up as roller. Tucked all the wires and dropped in a low milage stock motor (73,000) I picked up from MPS. I put a Tremec 3550 behind it. Only real mods are the E303 that was in the motor, full-length headers, 3.73 gears.



Been leaning towards another supercharger and finally found a deal. A local guy was changing from a EFI supercharged setup to a HUGE cubic inch carbed nitrous motor. So I picked up pretty much everything he had.

Vortech V2 S-trim
Intercooler w/all piping and connectors
3 pullies
Complete 92 motor
Complete 92 engine, injector, and O2 harnesses
Upper/Lower Cobra intake
1” intake spacer
A9L
30# injectors
Granatelli 75mm Mass Air Meter
BBK air filter
Holley fuel pressure regulator
MSD 8456 Pro Billet Distributor
MSD 6AL-2
Accel ignition coil
AC eliminator bracket
Smog pump eliminator bracket
BBK shorty headers
Off-road X-pipe
Flowmaster with flow tubes and turn downs
O2 sensors
Starter, alternator, ps pump
All belts and hoses
Factory fuel tank with 255 pump
Guage pod with boost gauge, afr gauge, and adjustable shift light









I got an AWESOME deal on all of it and sold a bunch of it off

Also sold the stock Vortech brackets and bought the Renegade brackets.

I decided to go with a straight discharge instead of the curved discharge on the supercharger to make the intercooler piping easier and less bends. Spoke with Vortech about it. Went ahead and sent it in for them to do the S-trim to Si upgrade and put a straight volute (discharge housing) on it for me. Actually just payed for the upgrade which is like $330 and he told me I could do the straight volute for no additional cost because they change the volute and the impeller anyway so they can just put a straight instead of curved.

Sold the 30# injectors and 75mm mass air I got with the supercharger stuff and bought a set green top 42# injectors a friend had.

Made brackets and mounted the intercooler, making sure it cleared the AC condenser good



Bumper back on







I did remount the fog lights. I had to cut some of the cross brace out where it would have hit the intercooler

Picked up a 3.125 8-rib pulley for the supercharger, and a 6.87" 8-rib crank pulley. Also grabbed a Vortech MaxFlow Bypass from another member:








The bracket I made for the intercooler had it hanging a little lower than I liked. So I changed the bracket up. I have it all mocked up, just need to get it welded.




Had the intercooler bracket welded up. Got it installed and much happier with the intercooler up higher. Still need to redo the lower brackets since I moved the cooler up some. Here are a couple pictures of the modified bracket installed.







Renegade bracket kit came in:



Supercharger finished. I sent it in for the Si upgrade, minor rebuild (all new bearings/seals), and change the to a straight discharge outlet instead of curved. Once they got it torn apart the found some loose bearing tolerances. So I went ahead and had them replace the gear case.It was about $350 more but figured I might as well have it done while its already there. Also had them send me a weld on flange for my bypass valve.

I also ordered a smog pump bypass pulley. I played around with the piping. Its kinda hard to mess with it too much without the supercharger in place, because I don't have a definite location of where there Power Pipe will sit once it attached to the supercharger.

Ran across a member on Corral that had just listed a A9L with SCT chip and C&L MAF calibrated for 42# injectors (I already have a set). So I jumped on it.

Supercharger came in. Like I mentioned earlier, when I had my supercharger upgraded I and them put a straight discharge instead of the 90 degree one it comes with.





Original piping layout went through the factory air box opening. I actually wasn't happy with the intercooler piping layout and the tuner wasn't happy with all the bends in it, so I decided to redo it. Ignore the ugly blue couplings, they are just for mockup lol.

Came across a deal on an Explorer Intake setup so I snagged it




Added a 1-1/2" nipple onto the power pipe for the return line coming from the Vortech MaxFlow bypass valve. It angles back towards the inlet of the supercharger.






This is the 3" metal pipe and bracket that will be rigid where it passes through the base of the fender apron with a silicone coupler on each side of it to connect to the intercooler piping.



The top pipe in this picture is the one that connects to the drivers side inlet of the intercooler and heads back across the bottom of the core support towards the outlet of the supercharger, which comes down right next to the pass side frame rail.

The bottom pipe in the picture is the pipe that connects to the top side of the rigid pipe on the fender apron and runs up to the throttle body.



This pipe runs from the bottom side of the rigid pipe then connects to the pass side outlet of the intercooler.



Got some more work done on the car.

Oil feed line made
Oil drain line made
Pan tapped and installed the fitting
Renegade dual brackets for supercharger installed
Pulled the engine harness apart and de-pinned and deleted unnecessary wires (no pictures)
Re-wrapped the headlight harness and integrated the updated headlight harness and relays
Cleaned up some of the wire tuck behind the drivers side fender
Trimmed some of the front bumper support to tuck the intercooler a little better
Messed around with a location for the MSD 6AL2 but cant decide where to put it
Figured out which belt I needed for the accessories
Tapped factory oil sensor extension for oil feed line fitting

Here are a few pictures

Got my valve covers fabbed up and dropped of to the welder to have them tigged. I used two drivers side valve cover so they wouldn't have any holes to start with. Added 12AN fittings and made baffles for underneath.









Decided to mount my MSD 6AL2 inside the car on the passenger side of the transmission tunnel.



Valve covers that had baffles welded in and -12AN fittings welded on for the catch can setup.





Got them sanded down




Hit them with a couple of coats of self-etching primer and then painted them with "aluminum" DupliColor engine paint







Also got my intercooler bracket back. I didn't like how the intercooler was sitting so I added another piece of square tubing on the front of the bracket to move the intercooler forward about an inch.







This is the pipe that connects to the outlet of the supercharger. Also had the flange welded on for my MaxFlow bypass valve.



Also got the rest of the tubing back and installed. This is the 3" metal pipe and bracket that attaches to the lower inner fender apron:



The underneath side of the same pipe. The pipe that attaches here goes to the outlet of the intercooler





On the other end of the intercooler the pipe makes a 180 degree turn and back along the back side of the core support and then attaches to the pipe that comes out of the supercharger (with the flange on it)









Back over on the pass side. Where the metal pipe comes through the inner fender it attaches to the pipe that runs up to the throttle body:

Got my plate mounted to the transmission tunnel for my MSD box , along with the MSD rubber vibration mounts



Then the box mounts to that. Also added weatherpack fittings as well as a new sticker from MSD LOL






I got the lower intake drilled, tapped, and plugged



Measured so I could pick up a supercharger belt. Took me a couple trips the the parts store but finally found the right one:










Got the intake, 42# injectors, and fuel rails on.








Got everything except for the catch can and a couple of little things done. I put the ghetto upper radiator hose in until I can get the Vortech pipe. Still need to get the AFR gauge hooked up and pick up a boost gauge.

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Had a small issue with the bypass valve not opening so has terrible surging problems. Think I got that all taken care of. Still have some slight surging aground 1500-2000 RPM ranges need to track down, but it's not bad. Drove it some last night. Always feels good to drive a car after it's been down awhile. Actually drove it to work today.

Have some odds and ends to take care of:

Vortech radiator pipe on the way
Had to order a couple more T-clamps because I was a couple short
Have a new 4" to 3.5" coupling coming for power pipe to MAF
Catch can should be here tomorrow
Need to pick up 12AN hose and fittings for catch can
Still need to grab a front fender to bumper bracket for pass side
Need to hook up my Innovate AFR gauge
Need a boost gauge and fuel pressure gauge
Trying to decide where to mount my gauges







Short video of it running

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-k42LmNIkvU

My catch can came in. It has two 12AN fittings on it, drain valve on bottom, air filter for the top, and is powder coated black. Ordered my fittings. I started working on a bracket to mount the catch can on the side of the AC compressor. That was about the only spot left under the hood lol.

Here is the catch can



Got my Innovate LC-1 wideband and gauge installed. Put it in a pillar pod. Still need to pick up a boost gauge and fuel pressure gauge









Running a lot better. I went through the entire piping system, and tightened everything again to make sure. Still having minor sure around the 1200-1500 rpm range. Want to get a fuel pressure gauge and boost gauge installed so I can see where everything is at. I'm still convinced it's the bypass valve.

Don't want to drive it too much until I get my catch can setup put in. I did drive it to work but it's only about 3 miles lol.



- Got my fuel pressure gauge put on and set at 39 psi.
- Set timing to 10 degrees BTDC
- Did a fresh air calibration on the wideband
- Went over all vacuum hoses
- Made sure all intercooler tubing clamps were tight

I did find one thing that was a problem on my throttle body, where I removed the elbow for the line that went to the valve cover. I had removed the elbow and drilled/tapped it for 1/8NPT. Evidently I never tightened it completely so it was definitely pulling some air in. Pulled it out, put some sealant on it and reinstalled nice and tight. Made a BIG difference. So after that, and setting timing and fuel pressure it was definitely running better. I was still having some minor bucking problems. I noticed when it would happen that sometimes it would be rich, sometimes it was lean. Seemed like I never could get fuel pressure set just right.

I had picked up a Aeromotive 340LPH fuel pump and never got around to putting it in. So decided to go ahead and put it in and see. Well when I pulled the pump that was supposed to be a 255LPH according to the previous owner, it actually was a stock 95 LPH pump!!

I'm sure the 42# injectors and supercharger were dealing that factory pump some misery.

Ran 10ga wire from the battery and a MagnaFuel dual really setup to the new Aeromotive Stealth 340 fuel pump I put in.

Also have my bracket just about finished for my catch can setup. Going to be mounted next to the AC compressor. Needed to change one more of the 12an fittings over to a 90 degree fitting. It should be here tomorrow. Once it's here and I finish the bracket up I'll be able to finish up the catch can setup. Still having the surging with the blower belt on. Talked to Bob Kurgan at Kurgan Motorsports this week. Going to order a new chip/tune from him along with a slot style blow-thru mass air meter and go ahead and swap to a blow-thru setup.

I got it from this guy I know

elarm1 said:

Nice set up! Comparing your old setups, how beneficial is the front mount?

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Hard to compare. Old setup on my 89 was completely stock motor, injectors, mass air, pulleys etc.

This one is upgraded supercharger, pulleys, injectors, mass air, intake, tune, etc.

Catch can

Got the rest of the parts for my catch can setup. I made a bracket that bolts to the bottom two bolts of the AC compressor bracket. Probably going to end up changing the hose on the drivers side. 12AN stuff his hard to work with because the fittings are so big. The outlet on the catch can for the drivers side is pretty close to the valve cover, so I couldn't go right into the valve cover because there wasn't room. I put a loop along the valve cover on it for now. May change it later if I get a chance.

mikestang63 said:

Nice build. Do you know what type of tune is in the chip?

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It was written by Drag Radial Performance in Florida. I've been talking with him throughout my install.

Original tune info:

A9L pcm
Vortech V1 @ 10 PSI non-intercooled
fuel pressure set to 40 PSI
MSD 6AL box
42# Ford Lightning injectors
Delete EGR, AIR pump, barometric pressure sensor
shorty BBK headers
Offroad H pipe with 2.5" flowmasters
Cobra intake
93 octane, 10% ethanol
85mm C&L MAF, filter and sensor
SCT chip, switch and cable

Slot 0 Base tune
Slot 1 Base +4% more fuel
Slot 2 Base =4% less fuel
Slot 3 Base + 3 degrees more timing in ACT adder table (a more aggressive tune)

jrichker said:

Nice job, I like the fact that you took lots of pictures. It makes an interesting progress build.

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Thanks man. Believe me I have used your threads/posts many times chasing down my rookie problems lol. Still using them now with this car.

Depends who you ask lol. I didn't want to take the chance so I went 12AN

FoxMustangLvr said:

I'm about to do the same thing although i'm N/A right now. I'm going to go with -10 and I could always change the setup to -12 if I ever change my mind about boosting.

How much did the setup cost you with fittings, lines and can?

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Catch can - $55
12AN braided line 4ft - $20
12AN hose fittings - (3) 90's and (1) straight - $60
Bracket for catch can- time and scrap metal lol
12AN bungs for valve covers - $20
Baffles for valve covers - made out of scrap aluminum
Having bungs and baffles tigged on $30

So looks like a little under $200