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The race is on every time a new pony gallops out of the stable. How quickly can the power be ramped up, the e.t.’s dropped, and the top speeds increased? For Willy Diaz and Adrian Gomez of MAK Performance, staying ahead of the pack was definitely on their mind. So, modding the 2018 Mustang GT was the first order of business, when the shop’s new project arrived.
They quickly developed a set of cat-delete pipes to make it easy for racers to open up the exhaust and not melt the catalytic converters at the track. Then they were all-in on installing the new ProCharger High Output Kit (PN 1FW204-SCI) for the 2018 Mustang.
What do you order right after taking delivery of a 2018 Mustang GT? If you are MAK Performance, a ProCharger P-1X supercharger (PN 1FW204-SCI) is near the top of the list. (Photo Credit: MAK Performance)
These blowers cater to the new Coyote platform and its high-revving characteristics. — Adrian Gomez, MAK Performance
Since ProCharger had recently released its initial kits for the latest Mustang, the stars were aligned and the MAK team was ready to see what the P-1X could do on the Gen3 Coyote 5.0-liter engine.
Willy Diaz and Adrian Gomez got down to business by removing the front fascia (which is easier than the early S550s) and factory induction.
“The testing we had just recently done with the new P-1X/D-1X blowers only solidified that the way to boost these next-gen Coyotes was going to be ProCharger,” he added. “These blowers cater to the new Coyote platform and its high-revving characteristics.”
MAK 2018 Mustang Combo
• 3.73 rearend gears *
• JMS Chip & Performance fuel pump voltage booster *
• MAK Performance cat-delete pipes
• ProCharger HO system
• UPR Products oil separator
* Installed after this testing
“The High Output system for the 2018 is nearly identical to the 2015-2017 system as far as the system goes. We know the Stage 2 will take some revision as the crank pulley offset is different. The bumper has a new design that will do away with all those broken plastics clips on the side that the first-gen S550 was plagued by,” he said. “Other than that, the installation was pretty straightforward based on our experience with the older S550 cars. ProCharger does a great job of making these systems easy to install and its manuals are some of the best in the industry. We can’t wait to get our hands on the Stage 2 Version.”
The crew at MAK considers themselves ‘ProCharger guys,’ so the installation proved familiar and seamless on the latest Mustang. Just follow the detailed instructions and bolt it on.
Just in case the factory 24 lb/hr port injectors weren’t quite enough to support the boosted horsepower, the MAK crew swapped in a set of stock 2015 Mustang GT fuel injectors. These effectively doubled the capacity of the port fuel injection at 47 lb/hr, but eventually the factory fuel pump ran out of steam on the dyno.
To get a handle on the nuances of the latest PCM controlling the dual-fuel Coyote and 10-speed automatic, Willy and Adrian consulted with a few tuners, including personal friend, Matt Kesatie, of Kesatie Motorsports. There are still things to learn, but they were able to rev the Gen3 Coyote to 7,800 rpm with the blower in place.
“So far so good, it had its challenges, but we have a great calibration team over here. The work isn’t as difficult when everyone is on the same page and supplementing each other’s work,” Adrian said. “Our calibration team has some of the least selfish group of guys we have ever met in the industry. There is still headway to be made, but we are working on it daily.”
The result of this early calibration work and 10 pounds of intercooled boost was an impressive gain of 187 horsepower and 76 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. Willy is confident that these numbers will grow, just as they did when people learned more about the 2015-2017 cars, but for now the digits are solid.
Here is the finished ProCharger HO kit installed with the Coyote-friendly P-1X supercharger, which is built for a wide and long powerband. The MAK GT wears a 4-inch pulley delivering 10 pounds of boost when revving up to 7,800 engine rpm.
It’s a matter of time and development to really see where this car can go. — Adrian Gomez, MAK Performance
Before taking this combination to the drag strip the MAK crew plans to add 3.73 gears in place of the factory 3.15s and add a JMS Performance fuel pump booster to augment the fuel supply, so stay tuned to see what a centrifugally boosted 2018 Mustang GT can do.
With 93 octane in the tank, the stock MAK Performance 2018 Mustang GT auto put down 433 horsepower and 375 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels running in Fifth gear on the shop’s in-house Mustang Dyno. With the factory gears the car would reach terminal velocity in the one-to-one Seventh gear in the new 10-speed auto, but a swap to 3.73s may just allow for Seventh gear pulls.
“We plan to continue to live up to our 20-year-old mantra of ‘power without compromise.’ We are going to see how far we can push this P-1X blower, to really give people an idea what this second-gen S550 is capable of with out-of-the-box parts,” Adrian added. “Most of our customers want something reliable, repeatable, and powerful. That’s what we aim to provide with every combination we put together whether it be our personal cars or customer cars.”
We’ll be sure to keep you posted on how that compromise-free approach works out on this ProCharged project, so stay tuned.
After strapping on the ProCharger P-1X supercharger system, deleting the cats, and dialing in the tuning, the second-gen S550 rocked the rollers with 620 horsepower and 451 lb-ft of torque at the wheels.
