There is something to be said for the newer Mustangs and by newer, I mean the 2005+ pony cars. The S197 platform brought with it an all new body style, a 3-valve engine, a new retro look and something else – a comfortable ride with the creature comforts of a high end sports sedan. Heated seats, on-board navigation system, hands free telephone calling and even voice activated commands to play your favorite MP3s.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a die hard performance Mustang enthusiast, with a blown 650+RWHP ’97 Cobra and a terminator-equipped 1998 Cobra convertible in the garage, but as I get older I find myself adding comfort and reliability to my requirements for a car. On cold winter days, there is nothing better then pushing the remote start button and watching my daily driver defrost and preheat the leather seats from the comfort of the house before heading out into the white icy abyss (not all of us live in sunny Florida or California).

My friend Don is no different (just older). He also prefers the creature comforts and reliability of his 2006 Mustang GT over the older Mustangs, but he recently began asking about adding a supercharger to his car. He wanted to add a little more horsepower and torque, but also wanted to retain the factory drivability and reliability he has grown accustomed to, so the search was on to find a supercharger kit that fit his requirements.  After some research and discussions with my peers in the industry, I recommended that Don purchase the Edelbrock E-Force supercharger kit, not just for the impressive horsepower and torque gains with low boost levels, but also because it looks great and came highly recommended by all of the shops I talked with.

The Kits

Street Legal 2005 to 2010 page here – PN 1580, 1582
Competition Kit for 2005 to 2010 page here – PN 1585, 1587

Edelbrock has two kits available for the 2005-2010 Mustang GT; a street and emissions legal kit that boosts a stock Mustangs horsepower to 466HP and 439 lb/ft of torque and a competition kit that can increase the horsepower level to well over 600+HP. Being a stock motor and with mandatory emissions testing every two years here, we opted for the street legal E-Force kit.  Best of all, both kits fit under the factory hood.

The heart of each system is the Eaton Gen VI 2300 TVS Supercharger. “The Eaton TVS rotor group is the main component of the system, though from there, the rest of the kit is designed from a clean sheet of paper,” said Jason Snyder of Edelbrock. Eaton’s assembly features a four lobe design with 160° of twist for maximum flow, minimum temperature rise and quiet operation for excellent drivability.

The E-Force kit comes with everything you need to install, with no cutting required.

The supercharger assembly has been integrated into the intake manifold for a seamless design with minimal components. Edelbrock’s inverted supercharger assembly allows for an incredible amount of intake runner length for maximizing low end torque. The Eaton TVS rotor group is the main component of the system, though from there, the rest of the kit is designed from a clean sheet of paper.  “The goal was to make the supercharger as efficient as possible by removing any possible restrictions,” explained Snyder.  “To help aid in  doing this, the rotors are inverted in our design, pushing the air upwards.  This allows us to only have to turn the air 180 degrees once, versus a typical down-flowing supercharger design.  Everytime you turn the air, it requires more boost pressure to keep that air flowing.” An integrated bypass valve helps eliminate parasitic loss under light throttle for improved mileage potential.

The stock engine bay with mild bolt-ons before ripping the intake off for the E-Force kit.

The Mustang systems breathe through a specially engineered 85mm electronic throttle body. This combination results in a shorter, less restrictive intake path for improved air flow, without the need for a jack-shaft. Keeping the air cool is a high capacity air-to-water intercooler and low temp heat exchanger.

Not to be left out is the attention to detail Edelbrock brings to the plate with their E-Force systems.  Each hose, nut, and bolt is designed specifically for each kit, which keeps the consumer from having to cut or modify any of the components to fit properly. “We want people to take the kit out of the box and bolt it on without any cutting or grinding,” said Snyder.  “We get the factory CAD data from SEMA’s  OE Exchange to design all these parts. Even down to to the coolant lines in the intercooler; we don’t use bulk hose that you cut to length; we order molded rubber lines so it fits just like its supposed to.”

Features and Benefits:

• Installs under the stock hood while maintaining factory accessories
• 2300cc (140 cubic inch) Eaton TVS GEN VI rotor assembly
• Unique intake manifold design with 15″ long runners (Increased low-end torque)
• 100,000 mile self-contained oiling system
• Optional 3 year/36,000 mile warranty
• 466 HP and 439 ft./lbs of TQ with low boost!
• Made in USA for absolute quality and performance

Installing the E-Force Street Legal Kit

Being in the performance industry for years, I have seen and installed my share of supercharger kits. Some were high quality, some, well, not so high quality. From the time I opened the box, it was apparent the Edelbrock kit was going to be one of those high quality kits. Just the engineering involved in packaging the kit to fit into 2 boxes was amazing, but it didn’t end there. Once unpacked, I immediately noticed Edelbrock had not only clearly labeled each bag of hardware, but they had also included a photo of each bolt type and its corresponding length and thread specs in the full color installation manual. If you have ever had to try to find the correct bolt in a massive bag of unlabeled hardware, you will appreciate Edelbrock’s attention to detail here.

The installation of the kit started with the removal of the stock intake, fuel rails, injectors and cooling system crossover setup.

After removing a few bolts, the front bumper was easily removed to make the installation of the heat exchanger and intercooler pump easier. With the heat exchanger and intercooler pump mounted to the OEM bumper bracket and the required plumbing complete, we restored the vehicle's front end to its OEM state.

After the required stock parts were removed and some quick clean up of sunflower seed shells (it appears a chipmunk had made some areas of the intake its dinner table), we mounted the supercharger assembly on the engine. Even in its unfinished state, simply mounting the supercharger instantly transformed the look of the engine bay entirely.

Do you know what this is? It is a special socket required to remove the alternator pulley from the alternator. Yes, Edelbrock included it in the kit; they thought of everything when designing this kit. Without this tool, a trip to our local Ford dealer would have been required in order to swap the alternator pulley to the new pulley provided in the kit.

The completed installation. Not only was the Edelbrock E-Force kit one of the easiest kits to install and one of the best engineered kits I have ever seen, but it looks absolutely amazing, almost like it was an OEM piece from Ford.

Wrapping it all up and starting the Mustang

With the supercharger installed (installation took six hours in a moderately equipped home garage using only hand tools, no hoist, and no air tools), we were ready to bring Don’s pony car back to life. But before we could turn the key and fire it up, we needed to install a tune in the vehicle’s PCM. The Edelbrock kit ships with a tuner, but we opted to go with a tune from Brent White over at Brenspeed and an SCT X3 Flash programmer instead. Brenspeed installs and tunes a lot of Edelbrock kits and we wanted to take advantage of his tuning experience and the reliability of SCT’s hardware for this project.

With the tune installed, Don’s S197 fired right up and idled like no modifications had taken place. After a quick check for any fluid leaks, it was off to the dyno to check the air/fuel ratio and see how many ponies the Edelbrock kit had added.

Strapping the Mustang onto the rollers

During the 45 minute drive to the closest dyno shop, Misener Motorsports, Don’s Edelbrock-equipped Mustang drove like a completely stock vehicle (at least until you put the gas pedal down). After a brief fight with the wideband O2 sensor bung, (installed a few years prior, with no anti-sieze) we strapped the car onto the rollers, and made the first dyno pull. Right out of the box, Don’s pony laid down an impressive 423 rear wheel horsepower and 400 lb/ft of torque.  That puts us right at 480+HP at the flywheel if you figure the standard 15% drivetrain loss with the manual transmission, being 20HP more then the advertised 466HP by Edelbrock. After a few more pulls, the power and torque remained roughly the same. It was obvious the intercooler and heat exchanger were doing their job. The Brenspeed tune was perfect with the air/fuel ratio flat as a board at 11.6. A nice safe tune with very impressive numbers to say the least.

The Mustang previously made 286HP and 302 lb/ft of torque to the rear wheels. This was a huge increase of 137HP and 99 lb/ft with the Edelbrock E-Force supercharger.

Living with Boost

The Edelbrock E-Force supercharger was an ease to install and looks like Ford installed it from the factory.  Best of all, Edelbrock includes everything you need and nothing needs to be cut to get this kit mounted right. With the supercharger installed in virtually no time, we were able to push an additional 137HP and 99 lb/ft to the rear tires of this 2006 Mustang GT.

For anyone who has tried to use their high horsepower car as a daily driver, you know that having that much horsepower and torque can get old very fast. Sure, the power and torque is great, until it is pouring rain outside and your tires are a little worn from “testing” your new supercharger. In my friend Don’s case, his E-Force equipped Mustang is a daily driver, and not just by him. His wife uses the Mustang while he is at work to literally get groceries, run errands etc. That means the car needs to be reliable and needs to drive like a stock Mustang in day to day use. Even after laying down 400+RWHP, their Edelbrock equipped Mustang has retained its factory drivability and drives like a stock Mustang. At least until you put your foot to the floor, then all hell breaks loose, including the rear tires.