Welcome to The Square-Root-of-One.

Project TPS Reports

One BAD ASS 5.4L Powered Mustang

Give it up for Triton Power

Build Credits

Forums	Peep This Crazy Ass Site	New 5.4L 2v intake	Square Root Of One Products
Mod List	Stop Xenu	Fark Off	Racing Pics

It started normally enough. Just a need to go fast all the time, so a simple 03 Mustang GT was purchased and slightly modded. Little stuff like big brakes, subframe connectors, seats, etc... All the little mods really made a drivability difference and exposed the real power deficit that the little 281cid OHC engine suffered from.
Trying to get maximum use of the power that was on tap an independent rear suspension and bilstein coil overs were added all the way around. The IRS was a great feeling and decent handling setup but there were shortcomings. The soft bushings allow the diff to load and unload rapidly which eventually led to its total distruction. Repeated attempts at beefing it up only made me poorer though and the rear steer tendencies were beginning to show themselves vividly as I got more in tune with the handling of the car.
I wasn't happy with the fragility of the IRS, and after breaking it severely 3 times I said the heck with it and went back to the 8.8" solid axle but now with a Maximum Motorsports torque arm and panhard bar. I decided that it was time for a power upgrade and I initially looked to N2O. I thought maybe a 4.6 and 125hp of nitrous would be enough. Wrong. Note to self, there's no such thing as "enough".
Then it hit me. Why not just drop in a 5.4L? It'll make more power than the 4.6 and be easier on the motor than nitrous or a blower. So parts began to accumulate. First intake adapter plates and intakes were collected.
And other intakes and all kinds of little intake tract parts, fuel system parts and some custom roll bar work to seal up loose ends. The car was finally approaching a state that I could contemplate installing the tall deck motor.
Then more motor parts, more fuel system parts and a Oil Air Separator of my own design and construction found their way in to the project. OHC cars aerate a lot of oil and drink it into the intake. This is bad, so the OAS is a very important component to keeping the new high compression engine breathing clean pure air.
3 sets of ported heads and a pair of 5.4L blocks gave me parts to build from and parts to use for all the mockup work for new parts designs. I would have been happy with any one of the block/head combos but the extra bits made the ideal pairings much easier to come by. I added a nice set of Comp cams to make the heads worth it and we are off to the races. EDIT: Turns out I sold the GOOD ported heads pictured and kept a set of basically stock PI heads that had new valves and a port match job done. Man do I feel silly. Now I've got designs on a set of Trick Flow's forthcoming Twisted Wedge modular heads which will be ported till hell won't have it. Then back to the races.
Porting my HPS 4.6 Hardball'R intake was intended to shorten the runners and open up the inlets. After the big stuff a simple port match to the runner exits for the heads and adapter plates.
Engine completed on the stand and just about to go in. A very exciting time for a lot of people. The motor went in without any major hassle despite the size and mounted up just like the 4.6L. The hardest part was really the waiting.
Engine going in with all the little bits being installed. HUGE credit for the installation goes to Travis Marple for his incredible expertise and epic coolness. Without Travis' hard work and expertise I would never have been able to do the swap. Travis and company pulled 14hr days with little to no instructions or forehand knowledge of what was to be done and did it in record time. There are 2 people in the world other than me I'll let touch my car. Travis is one of them.
Finally got all the parts hooked up and the hood clearanced and it's ALIVE!
Some Pics of the whole car. You'll want to know it for when it runs you down.

Updates:

20071125: I spent about 4 hours pulling out all the Autometer gauges and the associated rats nest of wires to get my new Volt gauge in and fix some ground crosstalk issues that had been nagging at me.
20071126: I have a dyno run scheduled for day after tomorrow. Pretty excited to see what it all comes out to on this version of the combo.
20071128: Dyno graphs. The original 4.6L 2v engine baselined at 232rwhp/279rwtq and after tuning and bolt-on parts finally turned out 244rwhp/280rwtq. The graph to the right is the 5.4's first ever run in anger. It was run on a Mustang 750 eddy current load cell dyno. The tune on the motor is running a full point rich and with a little timing pulled out for the first set of runs. I only ran the pulls to 5500rpm. There's at least another 700rpm in it but longtubes come first.
20071130: Going in for another dyno run on Saturday. This is scheduled to be on a Dynojet inertia dyno which notoriously posts higher numbers. I've never subscribed to that kind of thinking but we'll know for sure tomorrow.
20071202: A set of backup runs on a DynoJet inertia dyno netted exactly the same results as the earlier run. This time we took the RPM's up to 6100 to explore the fuel system limits a little further. Power leaned over really hard at 5000rpm and continues to lean over with a fuel supply limitation brought on by 21# injectors being too small and the intake adapter plates seem to be limiting flow through the intake. There's a new set of 30lb injectors and a new high volume fuel pump to treat the motor to more fuel delivery capacity which should be plenty for up to 350rwhp NA.
20071223: Got a new set of wheels for the beastie. Decided on a used set of Motegi Touge wheels. 18x9 in front and 18x10 in back. They're skinned in Sumitomo HTRZ II in front. The rears are in need of tires but I'm planning on matching the Sumitomos in front with the same tire in back. Front tire size is 265/35/18 and in back they're going to be 285/35/18. I'm putting my 95' Cobra R wheels and tires up for sale to cover the cost of the new rear tires and then it's off to the races.
20071229: Got my tires in and on. Sumitomo HTRZ II 285/35/18 in back and 265/35/18 in front. They're a cheap tire so I don't expect much from them other than 12 miles of commute a day. After the front and back are worn out I'll go for something more aggressive.
20080114: Finally got off my butt and washed the car. Took out the good camera and took some good clean pics. I'm lovin' how it's looking lately. Got a couple minor changes to the external appearance (rear diffuser, grill delete, ...) but this is the basic look it's going to have for a while. The flame dealie behind the cargo net is actually copper filament made into a paper of sorts and cut out in the flame pattern (my first try). It's in the cargo net on the headliner. I like it ... just a little touch inside. I also used the copper paper to make wear patches for the seats. It's doing great at keeping the harnesses from wearing holes in the race seat fabric.
20081115: Longtube headers are well under way. Using 1.75" tubing anbd having the prototypes all hand made, then if we decide to go to production we'll set up a program to computer bend em' and then finally they'll be coated for up to 1400deg F operation. Credit for welding and 8 months of header-jail goes to Kevin Mitz and Bryan McDonnell at RennSpeed Race Shop. That's Kevin behind the TIG welder fabbing up the headers. This was a massive job and it took a really long time but they did a good job of it and they did it during a pretty hard time for their shop. Kevin managed to get 1.75" tubes to fit where there wasn't really even room for 1.625" pipe. See the pics of the finished headers below. Each and every weld had to be done by hand and the amount of trial and error to make them fit was epic.
20081120: More pics of the headers being made. Lots and lots of work and expense but you don't innovate for free right.
20081228: New header pics. These shots are of the driver side just before finish welding. The word(s) amazing(ly expensive) come to mind. Sorry about the poor quality of the pics. They're taken with my cell phone. Forgot the damned digital camera that day.
20090226: New header pics. The headers are done and being installed. Here's a couple pics of the finished product and a video clip of the car running off the bare shorty headers.
20090227: Pics of the headers being installed and more intake manifold stuff. This is the NEW HPS 5.4L Hardball'r Intake Manifold. It's got a number of improvements over its little brother and fits like it was born there. I really couldn't be even a little bit happier with the new intake. It also gained 10hp/10tq over its little brother and ported Reichard Racing intake adapter plates. You can see the coolant crossover line being plumbed in the pics to the right. Below you'll find some great pics of it installed on the car. It installs with about an inch of clearance to the hood. I might just be able to get my strut tower brace to clear. Big thanks to TPS Motorsports for their efforts. They had to install the longtubes which were exceptionally tight fitting into a car with an engine that makes longtube headers a major pain to install anyway. They did it fast, and inexpensively.
20090402: Pics of the car on the dyno (underhood shots), a quick vid of the car doing a dyno run, you know... good stuff. The "same basic results" you'll hear is me referring to a timing increase not netting any real benefit of higher numbers. Not surprising. The longtubes were worth 20hp like you'd expect. I didn't lose any torque which was moderately surprising. The car is a beast now even more than before. Couldn't be happier (for the time being)! More HUGE thanks to Mark Olson and TPS Motorsports. I'm a pretty picky guy and I wanted only the best tuner to touch my car. Mark is that sort of guy. He's a real hardcore techie, and a car nut bar-none. His tune is perfect and he was a pleasure to meet and work with. I have to pass more thanks and credit to Mike Mak (owner) of TPS Motorsports for arranging to have Mark tune the car. Mike Mak has been my source for vendor references during this whole project and has gone to great lengths to make sure that I had the best craftsmen in the industry work on the beastie. Mike and Mark, you're both rock stars! Thanks a bunch.
20090417: Some idiot lady decided to be impatient and turned left in front of me causing me to T-bone her car with my baby. So it got to spend a month in the body shop. Got the car back from the body shop (and subsequently TPS Motorsports again) yesterday and decided to take some crappy pics. I'll update these later with some higher resolution shots. Big thanks again to TPS for pimpin' it and keepin' it real. Out of the whole mess of wrecking the car TPS hooked me up with a screaming deal on a 99 cobra bumper and a 2000 Cobra R' hood. Really pulls the Fauxbra R' thing together really nicely.
20090430: Put on my Momo steering wheel. I've had the damn thing for a year and just finally got around to putting it on. Granted I haven't actually had the car for most of that time as it was stuck in header jail. Now that I have it back the build is kicking into high gear.
20090522: Decided to go completely nanners with the build. Went out and got a Lightning blower setup and we'll let that and the nitrous try to amuse me for a while. The sale of my HPS intakes paid for the blower and the labor to install it. With 10.5:1 compression I'm limited on the amount of boost I can safely run on pump gas but I think I'll be happy with 400+rwhp on boost and another 150-175 with the nitrous running. Should be ok. Have to cobble together some plumbing and a front mount heat exchanger and pump but nothing I'm really worried about. I have the pulley bridge and lower pulley coming in a few days.
20090524: Started painting the blower setup. I figure if it's going to stick out of the hood it should match the body color scheme or at least get close. Doing a flat black to the bulk of it as black dissipates heat the most evenly and accenting it with a nice bright blue to echo the main body color. Did the lower manifold in pure blue. The mid plate is mostly black with a nice 25% wide stripe of blue. The blower itself is amost pure black with the Eaton logo and a few of the fasteners treated to some blue accents. The upper plenum is mostly black with blue on selected areas.
20090530: Ported the runner outlets on the lower manifold to match the heads, which so happen to match the gasket. After all that I had to have a little fun and set the whole shootin' match in the valley to see how it'll look. I like it. Looks good despite the enormous height. This is just a mock-up setting right here. I still have a hell of a lot of work to do re-routing every single tube and hose under the hood, replacing the alternator, crank balancer, fuel system, moving the battery to the trunk and figuring out what to do about a heat exchanger and pump and a set of 60lbs injectors. I also need to find a methanol injection kit. I think I have a line on one of those though.
20090830: Lots of movement lately. Got the battery reloated, swapped out the 00' Cobra R hood for a stock 03GT hood. I thought it was a shame to chop up such a sweet hood so I swapped it with a local college kids' stock hood. Charged him 50 bucks and called it a day. Now someone else can start out with a cool looking car. Installed and cut the new hood for the blower, permanently installed the blower, finished up the fuel system components under the hood. It's now all AN from the hard line to the rails. Russel makes the 5/16" quick disconnect (LS1 pressure side is same size) to -6AN fitting needed to adapt the system nicely. Aeromotive makes a 99-04 4.6L FRPS (fuel rail pressure sensor) adapter fitting that mates nicely with any of their fuel rail kits. I had to get a set of Lightning fuel rails from them and slapped some 42lbs injectors under them. Getting really close... There's a little bit more to do yet. Most of the electrical system and vacuum system are in some level of disarray. All in time.
20091130: Made a little more progress. Put the new hood pin kit on and finished up the plumbing on the intercooler. New fittings and a pair of cooler cores with all braided line. Good stuff!
20100222: Further grinding away at tasks has it just about done. New methanol tank added and bracket fabbed. Replubming a little of the methanol system. Cleared up the rats nest of wires in the rear seat and got everything into 2 neat harnesses, relays and controller boxes are mounted, the progressive controller for the methanol kit is finally working right. It gets the signal from the throttle position sensor and uses that curve to ramp the delivery rate for the methanol/water mix. The intercooler pump is working and the system showed that it will prime properly from the reservior and it'll flow well. I modified a couple fittings to make the ones I needed and ordered the last few things I'll need from summit (methanol, fittings, you know... stuff).
20100222: Also got the upper radiator hose affixed, all the vacuum lines unfuxored. I also started it for the first time since the blower project began. DAMN! was it ever loud. The tune is set up for 30lbs injectors and I have 42's on it so it went directly to 4K rpm but it ran smooth.
20100301: Cleaned up the intercooler lines and PCV line a bit. Modified a couple fittings and epoxy'd them into the inputs for the in-manifold intercooler. Got rid of the bits of heater hose that I was using as couplers. On the PCV line (silver fitting going into the intake) the old one was temporary and was a straight hose end. Replaced with the nickel finish 90deg to get it all tucked in. Finished connecting a couple gauge sensors, and put a new battery hold down bracket in place. The box just wasn't sturdy enough and would have let go in a wreck. The new bracket will hold it and keep vibrations down. Also replaced the fitting for the fuel rail crossover with a 90deg stainless fitting. That got rid of that extra bend of fuel line sticking out over the front of the motor. Still gotta put a baseline tune on it and put the new fuel pump in and finish the intercooler pump bracket but it's otherwise finished. WooHoo!
20100302: More pics.
20100302: Modified the rear seat delete kit. Clearanced it for the relays and methanol kit controllers and for the battery. Made a neat little aluminum battery hold down bracket and painted it blue to match the paint theme. Set up the bottom panel so the battery terminals poke through for easy and fast jump starts and simpler battery charging. On a car not designed to be daily driven this is a good plan to avoid unnecessary cussing.
20100713: Got my new HPS intake. Taking it back to naturally aspirated trim with a nitrous hit. First coated it with black on top and white on bottom for the heat rejection and dissipation efficiencies of both. Then I did a very poor quality mock-up with MS Paint to see what paint scheme I liked the best. Blue runners with a red breaker line between the black and blue elements seemed like the best option so I did it.
20100726: Then I hit the lettering on the underside of the manifold with blue and red. Yeah, it's not visible as such but I know it's there and that makes it worth it. All the paints used are epoxy enamels and ceramic enamels, some of which took a couple days to fully cure. The cure times and my schedule made the job take about a week.
20100728: Mocked the whole works up and found out I had to run some clearancing cuts for the CPR fuel rails. The interference was small but enough to matter. Dropped it onto the motor and mocked up some bits there. Damn I miss my car.
20100730: More random pics. They're from various phases of the install but they're entertaining.
20100816: Added the nitrous kit back to the motor. It's jetted for 150hp. Hoorah! Made my own brackets to keep everything nice and pretty.