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.
These blowers cater to the new Coyote platform and its high-revving characteristics. — Adrian Gomez, MAK Performance“Going back to 2005 with the Three-Valve S197, then onto to the S550 just a few years ago, us being ‘ProCharger Guys’ is no secret,” Adrian explained. “It was only logical to us to look to ProCharger when it came time to add some boost to our brand-new 2018 GT.
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.
“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 testingAs regular readers know, we covered the design and efficacy of the P-1X on one of MAK’s last S550 project car. These blowers were designed to deliver a broad powerband and keep delivering at the top of the tach where today’s modern Mustangs thrive. That is definitely the case with the latest Mustang, and the fitment is quite similar as well.
“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.”
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.
It’s a matter of time and development to really see where this car can go. — Adrian Gomez, MAK Performance“We are happy with the results,” Adrian said. “The power is similar to the early stages of the first-gen S550 development. If that means anything, it means that there is plenty of room left in it. It’s a matter of time and development to really see where this car can go. The best thing we can say is stay tuned. We are far from done.”
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.
“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.
You might also like
Mustang GTD Says ‘Game On’ With Whipple Boost Around The ’Ring
The Mustang GTD returned to the Nürburgring looking for an edge. It might just have one, as a Whipple supercharger seems to be under its hood.
