[Icestang05]

Hi Guys - This forum only allows 15 pictures per post, but I have it on good advice that I should go ahead and post in separate threads.

Here are the pictures I promised from my install of an Edelbrok E-Force supercharger on my ’05 Mustang GT. Much of this will be too basic for you guys that do your own work. The last car I really worked on was a ’69 Charger R/T – a fabulous car, but from the stone age compared to the ’05 Mustang.

This is my first experience working on a modern car. I consider myself a pretty good mechanic generally, but I have no experience with new cars.

I ordered the kit from Summit Racing on Friday, and it arrived on Tuesday by truck in two large boxes:



This E-Force 1580 kit has everything needed for installation on ’07 and’08 models. ’05 and ’06 require hardware kit 15804, which relocates the thermostat from the cold side of the radiator to the hot side (unfortunately requiring the removal of all the lower radiator hose hook-ups which was a real pain!). Here’s what was in the boxes:





There is a warning at the beginning of the manual that any previously installed aftermarket tuning equipment, including CAI’s, underdrive pulleys etc. must be removed or the engine may blow up (what they call “severe engine damage”). I’m not sure if that’s really true, but I’m starting with a bone stock 05 GT, so hopefully, no worries.

The manual says to remove the hood, but I didn’t want all the hassle and alignment problems that could cause, so I left the hood on – this turned out not to be any problem at all. I’m really glad that I didn’t follow those instructions. Here’s what it looked like to start:



Just so you’ll know where we’re going, here’s the “after” picture:



First step is to remove the battery. Detach the negative terminal first (I knew that), then the positive. Next remove the insulating sleeve off the battery – be really careful with this – the sides are paper thin and brittle after 5 years. I naturally tore mine:



Then out with the battery and battery box:



Then detach the charge motion control valve (CMCV) electrical connector from the rear of the manifold. The instructions aren’t very clear, so it took a bit of messing around to find the push-in harness connectors, and pry them out with a screwdriver. I put masking tape labels on all the electrical connectors – I’ve read stories about how some guys mixed these up, and had days of problems trying to find out why the engine wouldn’t start, or would quit or go into ‘limp home’ mode. I was really paranoid about the wiring, because I don’t understand it, and I need everything to work, as this is my daily driver and I’m dead without it.



Electrical connectors are then removed – this took awhile, because there are different types that have different release mechanisms that I’m not familiar with. Then disconnect the evaporative emission tube, both PCV lines (won’t be reused), and electrical connectors from all the fuel injectors. Disconnect the fuel supply line from the fuel rails. The instructions said there was a special tool for doing this, which I borrowed from my local car repair shop. I also borrowed a ½” breaker bar (for the serpentine belt tensioner, and impact gun (absolutely essential for removing the alternator pulley later), and the size socket that is usually right for alternator pulley bolts before I started, as I wouldn’t have transportation. The fuel rail and injectors are then removed. Be sure to have shop rags and a catch bucket handy, as the fuel rails are full of fuel that will get all over the place if you don’t completely drain them (I got fuel all over the place):



Then remove the stock injectors from the fuel rails. This also took some figuring out, since I’ve never worked with fuel injectors. I found that inserting a screwdriver between the clip and injector, and prying outward the clips would come off – probably a special tool for this, which I don’t have:





After removing the brake booster vacuum hose and the air inlet tube between the throttle body and air filter cover, the stock intake manifold is removed. Cylinder head sealing surfaces are cleaned up, and masking tape applied to prevent stuff from getting into the exposed ports:



’05-’08 installations reuse the intake manifold gaskets, so I was careful not to damage them on the way out. I cleaned them and put them in a baggie for installation on the blower later:



Remove the air filter cover, filter and airbox, also removing the mass airflow (MAF) sensor from the air filter cover, putting tape on it so it won’t get confused with the similar MAF that comes with the blower kit. Use a breaker bar to take tension off the serpentine belt and remove it – it won’t be used later.

Next remove the alternator bracket and lower bolts, the alternator connector and power wire. The alternator electrical harness will not be reused:



That does it for the top end for now. Part II next.

[Icestang05]

Part II

Now the front bumper cover has to come off so the intercooler radiator and water pump can be mounted to the front bumper. Remove the two upper front bumper cover bolts, located between the grille and headlights. Then jack the front end up. The husband of a friend of mine was killed when the MG he was working on fell on him, so I always put the car on jack stands and re-insert the lift to take some of the load (belt & suspenders):



First, the lower splash shield – 7 small bolts:



Then the front inner fender wells (3 screws & 5 push pins each). The push pins are essentially one-use items, and if I had to do it again, I’d order a box of push pins rather than trying to reuse the old ones. I friend at a body shop gave me the only 5 that he had, so I could replace most of those I mangled:



I’m very thankful that I bought this little panel puller tool before I started – these push pins (used all over the place) would be miserable to get out without it:



Here’s what the push pins look like when they come out. These have small Phillips heads on them which are totally easy to mangle. The 5 new ones that I got have plain push pins, which can be popped out with the panel pin tool above – much better. The one on the left came out relatively intact – the one on the right didn’t:



Right fender well removed, now the left:



Now the bumper cover can be pulled forward at the top, and the electrical connectors from fog lights, turn signals and running lights released. Then the bumper cover and grill can be removed intact and set aside:



The foam bumper pads are held on with larger-head push pins, but a couple of screwdrivers did the trick:



The foam bumper pads are removed, leaving the bare bumper.



Now drain the radiator, and we’re ready for some reconstruction! But no, if you have an ’05 or ’06, you’ve got to install the cooling system upgrade kit #15804. This is a royal pain in the ass, as it means taking off all the lower coolant hoses. I’m sure there’s some kind of special tool to lock open the spring tension hose clamps found on new cars, but all I have is a water pump (channel lock) pliers. It took about 45 minutes of wrestling just to get the block hose off – no room for hands and tools. At least some things never change. The easy part was to remove the water crossover on top of the engine. First remove the upper radiator hoses from the water crossover, then the heater hose. Put tons of rags or paper towels in the engine valley to soak up the coolant. I didn’t have enough, and wound up with coolant all over the floor under the car. That’s because there is a drain hole in the back of the engine valley that dumps into the clutch housing:



Remove the water crossover from the engine, and save the o-rings for installation on the new water crossover:



The manual says to save the hose clamps for re-use, but thankfully the new hoses came with clamps installed and locked open – whew. The new hoses went in a lot easier than the old came out. It’s hard to see, but looking down, the hose with the white patch on it is the surge tank hose coming up from a ‘T’ fitting to the main lower radiator-to-driver’s side block hose. There is a potential chafing issue between the surge tank hose and the air conditioning hard line, but I’ll just watch it to see if a problem develops:


The stock thermostat is removed and taken apart to save the o-ring that will be used in the new thermostat housing.


NOW I can finally get on with installing something. The intercooler radiator hangs on the back of the 4 inner bumper bolts. The factory bolts are too short, so longer ones are included in the kit – but only for the top two. I have no idea why Edelbrok did this. The manual says to replace the two top inner bolts with the (supplied) longer ones, and then to hang the intercooler radiator on the bolts and attached with the 4 (supplied) flange nuts. The lower bolts are the same size as the uppers, and are factory bolts with no threads on the insertion end - No go with the flange nuts. I’d made several calls to Edelbrok’s 800 number, always waiting on hold for 20 to 30 minutes to get not very satisfying answers. They asked for pictures, which I sent to the email address they gave me, but they came back a couple of days later as rejected from their server – no idea why. They did agree to overnight the needed longer bolts, but I decided not to wait – the uppers would have to do, as I need my car:



The intercooler water pump mounts on the outer passenger side bumper bolts, which were supplied in the longer version:



Now for the fun (read tricky) part. The main PCM connector is disconnected from the PCM bracket. Depending on model year, one of the wires (the red one for ’05) is cut 2” back from the chassis side of ’05 or ‘06’s, from the engine side for later models. This will be connected to the intercooler water pump relay (supplied) by crimping the butt connector pre-installed on the water pump wire to the wire cut and stripped from the PCM connector. So far, so good. But the relay and ground wire are supposed to be installed on the back side of stock fascia bolts that are too short. I found a bolt around the shop that would work for the relay, and just drilled a hole and supplied my own nut and bolt for the ground wire. No idea why these two longer M6 bolts weren’t supplied.

Now came the even more fun part. De-pinning certain wires from a number of the stock electrical connectors to add new harnesses and partial harnesses. If you’re familiar with how these connectors work, this should be easy. It took me about 3 hours to figure out how to lift the inner wedge locks without breaking them, then more time to figure out how to release the individual pins without breaking them. There are a number of different configurations that each have their own way of locking. At any rate, I got to learn how these work. I won’t go into any detail, but I’d be happy to answer any questions by PM. Bottom line – go slow, label everything.

The intercooler surge tank gets mounted on the inner passenger strut tower bolts, and the intercooler surge line is run from the pump to the tank. The air conditioner service port must be bent so that is is positioned between the surge tank and passenger side fender.
Now the foam, bumper cover, inner fender wells and splash shield can be reinstalled and the car lowered off the jacks. On to part III.

[Icestang05]

Part III

There are two coolant hard lines in the engine valley that need to be removed by unbolting the bracket from the backside of the head on the passenger side. I once again had coolant all over the floor – don’t forget lots of rags to soak it up. The top hard line is the one with a flexible hose, the bottom plugs into a fitting with two o-rings at the front of the engine.



I removed both heater hoses from the hard lines, as I wasn’t sure which one would be replaced with a new one from the firewall pass-through, and I didn’t have the tool to simply uncouple it.

The hard lines are connected together with two welded steel brackets. These I cut with a hack saw, as only the smaller of the two (the lower one) is used in the install. The shiny parts in the left side of the picture are where I cut the lines apart with a hacksaw. This is the larger of the two, and is not reused:



The smaller hard line is reinstalled exactly as it came out, and the (supplied) heater hose is connected to the lower of the two heater core nipples where they come through the firewall. I never was able to uncouple the stock fitting, so I finally just broke it to get it off. The new one plugged right in:



Now to the really really fun part of installing new parts – this went much faster. The small idler pulleys are removed, and one of them installed on the Edelbrok alternator bracket (the alternator is repositioned from the engine valley to the front of the engine, as the blower occupies space taken by the alternator and water crossover in the stock engine).



The stock alternator studs are removed and the bracket installed over an Edelbrok idler wheel:



In Mustangs built prior to December ’07, the spark plugs are replaced with colder ones supplied in the kit. I was amazed at how deep in the heads these plugs are. I found that a grabber worked great to get the new plugs started (and for retrieving dropped parts) – I’d highly recommend getting one before starting work:



Finally ready to install the blower. First, turn it upside down and install the o-ring seals saved from the stock manifold:



Next I got a friend to help lower the blower onto the engine. It’s possible to do this yourself, but it’s pretty heavy and I don’t want to bash any parts or fingers. The new water crossover (above right in the picture) also gets o-rings from the stock crossover, and must be installed already hung, but not fastened to anything, on the blower. A little masking tape kept it from going anywhere.



The water crossover is bolted in first. Installation calls for using a torque wrench for many of these parts, which I won’t describe, but it is handy have one calibrated in inch-pounds and another in foot-pounds. One will work, but I don’t like to use a foot-pound torque wrench for inch-pounds at very low values.

The inner crossover bolt on the left is very hard to get at – I had to drop a socket on the bolt from the side and use an extension to reach it from the top.

The blower itself is aligned by sighting down the injector ports to make sure it’s perfectly lined up with the intake ports of the engine. This required some very tiny shifts.



The blower is then torqued down with the 8 supplied bolts (the instructions show 10, 5/side on the torque chart, but the front flange of the blower has been milled off to allow for the water crossover on Mustangs – so only 4/side). I dropped one of the bolts into the engine valley - another reason I was happy to have the ‘grabber’ and a magnet.

The new 41 lb fuel injectors are clipped into the fuel rails, and the fuel rails inserted in the intake ports on the blower. This was the easiest part of the whole install. Just put the clips on the injectors and plug them into the rails (using a little motor oil for lube).







Next all the vacuum hoses, electrical connectors and the fuel supply line are attached. I kept re-routing wiring harnesses until they seemed right. I still have a little more to do after the car is running.



On to part IV.

[Icestang05]

Part IV

Now the alternator needs a new pulley. Fortunately Edelbrok supplied a pulley remover, which is a kind of outside-splined socket. I can’t think of any other way of removing this without this tool and an impact wrench:





The stock idler tensioner assembly is removed, and the stop ground off (I used a die grinder, but a file would work fine). Then the Edelbrok reinforcements are bolted on, and the tensioner is put back in:



The alternator harness with power cable and electrical connector is fastened to the alternator, and the alternator installed on the Edelbrok bracket with pulley facing the engine. It took me 3 or 4 tries before I got the serpentine belt through all the right pulleys and idler wheels.



Now for the throttle body. You need a Torx-20 driver bit. The motor housing, plastic capped spring and TPS sensor (for ’07 and later; for ’05 and ’06 models a new TPS sensor is supplied by Edelbrok). The instructions are very clear here – I just had to be patient and careful.



Here it is installed on the 85mm Edelbrok throttle body. You have to carefully load the spring with a long nose pliers turning counter-clockwise until the tabs line up, then pull up on the plastic part to lock it in. Then the cover can be replaced.



The throttle body is lined up on the blower intake (it’s easy to miss the gasket that’s packed in the same box with the Edelbrok throttle body, so be sure not to throw any boxes away until you’re done – don’t ask how I know).

The Edelbrok MAF sensor is installed in the air cover outlet tube, and the tube connected to the throttle body intake and air box cover with hose clamps. The bottom of the air box is cut out (Wow – a lot more air). It was easy with a cut-off wheel, but you could use drills and a hacksaw blade if you needed to:



Install the new high flow air filter, and airbox cover. Then install the new thermostat & housing with the o-ring saved from the stock housing (the water intake for the intercooler on the blower swivels to get it out of the way):



Then install the driver and passenger side PCV hoses, and attach the ETC extension harness and electrical connectors for the TPS and ETC stepper motor. Connect the intercooler surge tank to the intercooler manifold fitting with a 12” piece of hose (supplied, but I needed to cut it shorter to fit).



Now it’s pretty much done. All that’s left is to refill coolant in the radiator and fill the intercooler radiator system with coolant, and it’s time to flash the ECU (gulp).

The kit comes with a Diablosport Predator programming module, preloaded with Edelbrok’s conservative 5 psi boost tune. After 3 ½ days installing this thing I was really nervous about messing something up, and I’ve never used a reprogrammer before. First the Predator saves the stock tune – this takes some time. Then you select transmission type (manual) and ‘Edelbrok E-Force 5psi’ from the menu – easy because that’s the only choice. Then there is a set of instructions to ‘modify parameters’ like axel ratio and tire size (revolutions/mile). I didn’t know these values for this car, so I finally ‘esc’ out of this section hoping it would leave these parameters alone. Then (gulp again) ‘install tune’. There is lots of ‘turn key on but don’t start engine’ and ‘turn key off’ directions. At the end it just says ‘disconnect Tuner from the OBD-II port’.

Now is the moment of truth. I walked around the car a couple of times and checked everything in the engine compartment again – what the hell, just start the f—er up. Turned the key, and she started right up. No engine lights, thank God. Idles good, nice little whooshing sound when running more than about 3K on the tach. I took it around the block a few times (walking distance back if something quit), but everything ran just as smooth as stock. Then I took it out further and pushed a little harder. Lots more power and torque. The next day I decided to push harder – amazing. This thing pretty much melts the tires in 1st gear, and they barely hold in 2nd, squealing a bit all the time. The shift to 3rd is even more amazing, as it seems to just want to go faster, and feels like there’s no end to the power. I love it!

Here are all the stock parts that got removed – if anyone wants any of these stock parts, I’d be happy to send them to you for the shipping:



That’s it for now. I’ll watch for more good stuff (suspension next) in this fabulous forum.

[NastyFX4]

All you had to do was just post another post in the thread, instead of making 4 posts plus the other one!

[TheUNZippee!]

My bad... I was helping the dude, and I didn't explain it well enough. I'll just merge em all together.

[101fng]

pretty sweet write up. i love reading shit like this. nice job on the install OP. now take it to a tuner for a proper blower tune (not that handheld crap)

[carl418]

Excellent write-up. Thanks!

[brianm]

nice info for any one installing a p.d blower because a lot of the steps are the same no matter brand. Good job

[fantas]

Good install bro, keep the pics coming as you do more.

[Iconoclast107]

Nice write up! Congrats, man!

[sharkbait]

I forsee alot of outside views of this thread. Amazing writeup btw

[TheUNZippee!]

That is indeed an amazing writeup.

[DiMora]

Epic writeup.

Very well done.

I've done two Roush blowers myself (M90 and a TVS) and as mentioned there are many similarities.

The Roush TVS R2300, I must say, looks simpler than the Edelbrock...no alternator pulley mod, no TPS mod, but the rest its nearly the same. The Edelbrock throttle bottle supposedly flows more air than the GT500 TB...bigger total opening area when you do the math (big single vs. dual small openings).

Looks like a fantastic kit - although I'd add a Kenne Bell boost-a-pump or GT500 fuel pumps and turn your boost up to 10 PSI if I were you...then you will really move-along - and no matter which way you go, be sure to get yourself a custom dyno tune!

[07CaliSpecial]

Brilliant write up, well done. Thanks for sharing, I;m sure anyone who is considering this mod will find it really useful.

Now, get out there and start enjoying that new found power!

[TheUNZippee!]

Added to the how to sticky

[TGR 96]

Great write up! Did the kit have detailed instructions included?

I can't imagine how good that must feel when you fire it up and everything works properly after all that time and labor. That never happens for me

I am having blower envy...

[Icestang05]

Yes, the kit actually had a great manual, in color in a 3-ring binder. The stuff that was hard to figure out would take a huge manual to explain, and there are slight differences between model years. I'd give Edelbrock a B+ for the manual.

[shanec]

Agreed. There were only 2-3 steps I thought were hard to understand. But I have to say Edelbrock has A++ tech support. I'd call and tell them what step I was on and they could describe in incredible detail what I needed to do next.

My suggestion for self-installers: do it during the week. If you get stuck on something, it sucks to wait a whole weekend to talk to somebody.

[dj10024]

Going to tackle something like this in December. Not sure if I'll go Edelbrock, KB, Roush, or Whipple. Soooo many choices. Right now, I'm even trying to decide on a programmer/tuner. I've had Diablo's on Diesel trucks, but my "local" tune shop does SCT. Decisions...

How many of the other manufacture kits have you cut and re-use the factory airbox?
I've held off doing a CAI, since I know I'm supercharging in a handful of months.