You’ve probably heard the term “max effort” thrown around lately if you’re a car enthusiast and you’re a fan of vehicles from “The Big Three. It’s a term used to describe a vehicle that has reached its performance pinnacle. Well, what exactly constitutes that? Is it, say, making nearly 1,000 horsepower at the rear wheels? Or, is it reaching the potential of the factory components?

Everyone’s max-effort definition might be different, but rest assured, this 4.6-liter Two-Valve Mustang GT built by the guys at Batten Motorsports out of Veazie, Maine, is just getting started. The starting point for this New Edge Mustang commenced with a challenge from its owner, Scott Hughes.

Scott’s objective is to build one of the baddest Two-Valve Mustangs around, and that goal began with the incorporation of a 3.6-liter twin-screw supercharger from Kenne Bell. If you’ll recall, KB’s offerings for the ’96-’04 Two-Valve Mustang are capped at the 2.8-liter Mammoth supercharger.

Thus, the folks at Batten Motorsports, in conjunction with a friend Jason Smith and Ken Bjonnes of Palm Beach Dyno, the team was able to retrofit a 3.6-liter supercharger setup to a 2.8-liter lower manifold, creating a first (and possibly not last) of its kind and engineering the KB setup for extreme power output.

The result the first time around was more than 900 horsepower and 868 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. If you’re finding you are asking yourself how this was done, keep reading…

With Scott’s Two-Valve Mustang backstory in mind, you might be asking yourself how the magic happened. Fortunately, the folks at Batten Motorsports don’t mind filling in the blanks for us in this instance.

“The biggest challenge we were faced with during the build was engineering serviceability into our setup,” Coty Batten, owner of Batten Motorsports, told us. “With a supercharger that size consuming the engine bay, we certainly had our work cut out for us.”

He reaffirmed that the assembly process of this car is where he and his team feel at home, and that they know these cars better than most. Call it custom, if you will.

“We knew what it would take to make the first round of power with the 2.8-liter supercharger; above that figure is where we had questions in the back of our minds,” Coty explained. “It goes back to math and science. We needed greater efficiency and volume. We needed the 3.6-liter supercharger. To make the 3.6 work, we needed some mock up parts first. We reached out to Kenne Bell with our idea, and they hit the ground running! They sent out all of the mock-up parts we needed to start our design and engineering.”

Coty and his team incorporated components from the Shelby GT500 kit, such as the inlet and drive. This attention to detail displayed by Coty and his team employs the blower on the manifold with serviceability in mind — a massive benefit for any enthusiast, no doubt.

Moreover, Coty says it is much easier to swap spark plugs, injectors or coils without pulling the complete unit off the manifold. His kit allows for the inlet to be removed, allowing full access to the unit. Coty and his team built an offset adapter which mates the larger 3.6-liter supercharger to the original 2.8-liter intake manifold.

“The adapter also serves as the point of introduction for future nitrous and methanol nozzles,” he told us. “We fabricated a new recirculation pipe for the KB bypass valve, and we modified a Fox Mustang throttle cable. We added an IAC provision, as the GT500 inlet does not provide one. We milled the idler plate down to clear the case support in the front of the supercharger.”

“Typically there are many revisions before the parts are put to the test. We are proud to say that we nailed it the first shot,” Coty added.

If you’re looking to replicate this exact setup for your Two-Valve Mustang, you’re in luck. Batten Motorsports has plans to produce its adaptive system for those interested in making the move to a larger, 3.6-liter supercharger. He says that, due to the size of this blower, a cowl hood and an aftermarket K-member lowering kit are required.

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Making the inlet changes rewarded the team with a perfect lineup using the massive 5-inch inlet from the 2.8 kit. Batten Motorsports then modified a 10-rib set of GT500 blower pulleys and achieved a perfect belt alignment, which served to test the Dayco belt laser tool. "We have yet to see any aftermarket blower system have such a perfect belt alignment," Coty said. "It is not often that you see engineering nail a project in the first shot."

Keep an eye out in our next segment on this car, where we dive a little deeper into Scott’s Two-Valve Mustang and the rest of its combination.