Kenne Bell Supercharged Explorer...

[sickmtbnutcase]

Hehehe.... You made me laugh when you made the comment of "only have a 1.7l Kb"....... Hehe, heck that 1.7 on the GTs aren't no punks either!!! I am willing to bet that your probably making around 410-425 to the wheels huh? I really debated about getting the 1.7L for my Explorer instead of the 2.2 but I knew that I would want to make much more power than what the 1.7 could put out. I could have added a shot of nitrous on top to compensate for the less slightly less efficient thermal dynamics of the 1.7 as compared to the 2.2; but I wanted all the power on demand at the touch of the throttle. Either way both chargers will turn an average vehicle into a monster when done correctly. Just curious but are you running the stock bottom end on that Mustang or did you go forged already? BTW, you only live 40 miles exactly north of me(Round Lake), maybe this next season if you have a get together for your club I can stop on by if it is ok?

My car's a blast. Kinda wish I would have went with the 2.2 right away, but KB was saying, "Don't do this on a stock block" but by now a few people have with no problems. I'm currently living with the stock block. I don't know how long she'll last, but that really isn't a worry. If it blows, it blows then it'll get forged. Then I have an excuse to slap on the 14psi pulley and throw some blower cams in it.

She didn't make that much power, but that will be fixed in the spring. On 9psi it did 375/390. I'm guessing it's around 390/410 with the 10psi pulley. C&M Performance north of Milwaukee will be tuning it this spring, hoping to make a good safe 420/420 or so. Damn air/fuel is at 10:1 right now. It sucks gas, but at least I won't blow it up. KB says the tune is fine

You're more than welcome to stop up whenever us wistangs guys are having a get-together! We don't really care what you drive or if you're south of the border But I'm guessing most members would love to see that X of yours.

 

[rocket 5979]

Update Days 3-4:

I started tackling the COP's, vac lines, and heater lines the last few days along with some of the idler pulley, clutch fan delete, and alternator relocation stuff.

There are a few things worth mentioning that were noticeably different from the Mustang kit installation yet again. First and foremost is that our alternator will not work with the clutch fan with the way it all has to mount(not enough room). No problem, I was planning on going to a dual electric fan assembly anyways. So I ordered some Flex-a-lite 210B's to keep this thing cool.

Now that cooling and spacing was out of the way I decided to mock mount the alternator anyways to get a feel for how much space I would have. Turns out that our alternators are ****ed the wrong way to work with the relocation bracketry. It would be a fairly easy fix to fab some bracket extenders but since the auxiliary electronics like the engine fans, possible pusher fan(if overheating occurs later on), and IC fans need more amperage than I believe our stock 130 amp alt can put out I opted for a custom built 170 amp alternator from PA-Performance with the wire upgrade kit as a bonus.

Now I get to what has so far been the biggest PITA of the project thus far. The vacuum assembly. As far as I know there aren't any detailed blow-aparts of the engines or engine bays of our Explorers so things went meticulous and slow. I will keep it short by saying that ALLOT of vac lines got deleted with the EGR/DPFE deletes and some were added and Tee'd with the boost bypass/FRPT/PCV and so on so forth. If I do ever decide to start offering these in an Explorer kit form I will definately reconfigure the vac, boost, heater, and IC stuff to make it easier on us! Whew!

On a few more positive notes. It looks like the front drive accessories will line up perfectly. No nosedrive modification needed at all going by the test fit and eyeballing. Another great thing is that the Kenne Bell will easily fit under our stock hoods with tons of clearance left over.

TB and IAC went on in a few minutes. Too bad the TPS and IAC harness connections will have to be lengthened. I hate electrical work! Another thing I noticed is that our TPS reads .75 ohm's when closed instead of the 1.06 that it is supposed to read according to KB. Being that I know the truck is programmed to run off of the setting from the stock TB I transferred the TPS over to the new TB and set it back to .75 ohm's. All stock throttle and cruise control cables went on without modification or problem.

The following pictures have allot of hoses routed everywhere but once I get things worked out and everything is perfect I will be ordering all blue hosing and prettying things up under the hood. I would still really like to be able to fit the stock engine cover on top of the KB to keep its sleeper look. With all the clearance i don't foresee that to be a problem.

Still waiting for JLT CAI, PA-Performance Alt, and the Flex-a-Lite Fans...

 

[rocket 5979]

Update Days 5-6-7:

Well the Flex-a-lite fans, JLT CAI, and PA Performance 170 amp alternator came in a few days ago. I must admit I have been kind of lazy and dragging my feet on this project. hehe. Yesterday I didn't do much to the truck and finally today I got motivated in the later afternoon and really kicked ass till now. I got quite a bit of custom stuff done in such a short period of time.

The Fans are going in ok. I still want to fab a bracket to firmly mount them onto but they are placed and aren't going anywhere.

The alternator arrived. I was very happy till I seen that it has a totally different plug than our stock Explorer alternator regulator. One more thing to order and wait on.

I did try a few test fit serp belts to give me a better idea of what length I will need. So far it is looking like a 119" belt will do just about fine.

I dove into the electrical the other day. Things went really well, especially considering that I hate electrical work. I had to modify/lengthen the TPS, IAC, ECT and MAFS/IATS harnesses. The TPS & IAC harnesses I had to add about 6" to. I also had to add about 6" to the ECT harness to allow it to crossover to the passenger side. Being that the stock MAS system places the IATS in the MAS itself I had to relocate it after boost in the KB manifold. Simple procedure of cutting the two outside wires doing some fancy connector work along with some very sexxy soldering and it was done pretty quick and looks factory too, well maybe a little shinier.

Now onto the big stuff. I got about 90% done on the instercooler setup today. I am quite surprised I made it this far in such a short amount of time being that I took the front end off the truck to do it. All the IC overflow tank and pump are mounted in a totally different location and with different mounts. The IC radiator itself was a tight but pretty much perfect fit under the bumper. I had to "clearance" a few things, but once done it all fit really well. Part of the bumper mounting bracket had to be cut off to allow IC hose passage through the area. Overall it is getting to be a very very tight fit with everything in the engine bay now. The CAI is squeezed in there just barely. If it were literally 1/4" longer I would not have been able to use it. I thought about relocating the radiator overflow and cruise control module to the rear about 2-3" to give things more room but surprisingly it all fit in there ok. When I swap the built engine & tranny in there I will reconfigure stuff and fab my own heat shield box and pull air from the bumper and fenderwell. It will get some hot air into the intake as is, but it will be just fine for the power level I plan to be at.

Things left to do:

Alternator wiring
Fan wiring
IC pump wiring
KB BAP wiring
Fab fan brackets

Here are a few pictures...

 

[BeauJ]

Man it is coming together nicely. A lot quicker than I thought too. I'm going turbo/built lower and plan on at least 600 rwhp DD, so we'll have to meet up

What size heat exchanger came with the intercooler kit?

 

[rocket 5979]

Man it is coming together nicely. A lot quicker than I thought too. I'm going turbo/built lower and plan on at least 600 rwhp DD, so we'll have to meet up

What size heat exchanger came with the intercooler kit?

We will have to meet up. I might have a "little" shot of the giggle-gas on it too by then. After the juice 600rwhp will definately be on the loew side of my range, mauwuawuawuawa... That is of course at least another 4-8 months off though.

Oh the IC is about 2" x 6" x 36" or so. I have enough room, I am toying with the idea of tossing two little fnas up in there too to keep it really cool. I also have room for a supercooler too, which might find its way into the passenger side area right behind the cruise control module.

 

[BeauJ]

Add an ice resevior to really cool it down. I'm buying one and a fluidyne head exchanger (2 times bigger than my stock) in the summer. The resevior holds 6 gallons of coolant and has a door for stocking it with ice

 

[rocket 5979]

Add an ice resevior to really cool it down. I'm buying one and a fluidyne head exchanger (2 times bigger than my stock) in the summer. The resevior holds 6 gallons of coolant and has a door for stocking it with ice

Thats what the Supercooler I referred to was.

 

[CDW6212R]

Looking fine Robert, keep it up.

 

[rocket 5979]

Oh, it is running BTW. Here is the video. http://media.putfile.com/Kenne-Bell-Explorer-9-psi

I had to use my other MAS for now till I retune the trans function for the 90 mm BA2800 MAS.

 

[huskyfan23]

Awesome! So when can we expect dyno and track results? Is it a lot more fun to drive?

 

[rocket 5979]

Awesome! So when can we expect dyno and track results? Is it a lot more fun to drive?

Dyno results should be in within the next few weeks. Track results will be in when Spring comes.

 

[james t]

Awesome.

So, how does it drive?

 

[terdrocket]

I love that whine. It even looks pretty.


Have Fun.

 

[BeauJ]

Can't wait to see it on the track. Wait till you pulley it for more boost too. A guy close to me has a Kenne Bell Lightning with 15#s and at idle it just screams in the cold air.

 

[TarHeel085]

sweet!! arent you worried about pegging that MAF and injector combo? but i guess at 9lbs thats not a worry. im not criticizing, but why not go with a 255lph inline or in tank unit, cause i see sometimes that the focus pumps dont last to long! its gunna be sick when your done! hell you coulda just bought an 03-04 cobra motor for that much

 

[BeauJ]

That MAF won't peg out until 825 hp, and the injectors are good up to 475. The focus pumps won't work. He could use a Lightning/Cobra set up with twin 255 pumps

 

[rocket 5979]

That MAF won't peg out until 825 hp, and the injectors are good up to 475. The focus pumps won't work. He could use a Lightning/Cobra set up with twin 255 pumps

Yeah that MAS and injectors are only a temp setup till I change out my shortblock and tranny. Then my 60 lb/hr injectors will be going in there when I pulley for 18 psi. The blue Pro-M MAS is just for testing for right now anyways. I will probably go with a dual pump setup with modified FPDM from Earl's Automotive.

 

[FROADER]

It sounds kinda slow...

 

[rocket 5979]

It sounds kinda slow...

Putputputputputput.........vroom vroom.....putpputputputput.......

 

[rocket 5979]

I got the Explorer off the dyno the other day. With a moderately aggressive tune it made just a tad under 400rwhp and well over 400rwtq. Wish I had that dyno graph! Then as per my request, the tuner backed the timing off and fattened the a/f so I wouldn't chance the tranny exploding. With the real conservative tune it still put down 358rwhp / 361 rwtq.

Here is the dynograph from the conservative tune. Videos will be soon to follow when I can actually get someone to be my cameraman. Enjoy.