600 Horsepower in Four Hours – ProCharger’s 2011 5-Liter Mustang Kit Install

So what’s better than a car that comes with over 400 horsepower from the factory?  How about one that you can convert to over 600 horsepower in about four hours?  No smoke and mirrors here folks, these are real numbers that anyone is able to achieve.  I will stop speaking in tongues and get to the point.  We just finished installing ProCharger’s brand new 2011 Mustang GT 5-liter kit and we picked up an astonishing 164 rear wheel horsepower with the aforementioned seven pounds of boost.  Best part of all, you don’t have to cut a single thing to get the kit to fit properly.  Read on and we will give you the full scoop.

Unless you have been living in a cave somewhere, you have seen that the 2011 Mustang GT 5-liter has galloped to the front of the muscle car pack.  It is the fastest 0-60 mph, quickest to the quarter mile, and best handling muscle car out of the big three… and it’s even the least expensive.  At 412 horsepower stock, it is pound-for-pound the best Mustang ever produced.

“ProCharger and Mustang go hand-in-hand,” Jeff Lacina of ProCharger remarked. “We started in late 1993 during the height of the 5.0 craze.  A key to modern supercharging is fuel injection.  The Mustang was the modern performance vehicle at the time, the compression ratio was ideal for forced induction, and the rest was history from a ProCharger standpoint.”

New meets old: Jonathan Cole's ProCharged 5-Liter Fox Body Mustang and Raceskinz owner Mike Smith's 2011 ProCharged 5-Liter Mustang

A Moment with Jeff Lacina – From Drawings to a Completed Kit – How ProCharger Built the 2011 System

We are very fortune that Ford is committed to the SEMA technology transfer program,” explained Lacina.  “When they re-did the body in 2010, that posed a problem for us with the design of the front fascia in relation to the intercooler.  With the release of the 2011 5-liter, we knew that there was going to be more changes that we would have to adapt to.  We received the new data files from Ford on the redesigned engine back in February so we could figure out what we needed to do with the brackets.  What we didn’t know was the environment in which the engine sat in – where the radiator was, surrounding accessories, etc.

“We were able to get a California Special 2011 Mustang in early June and then ProCharger purchased a company-owned 5-liter as well.  We were pleased that our concept designs for the brackets were VERY close, which helped us develop the kit even faster. One of the biggest challenges was the intercooler lines.  Ford changed the location of some of their air conditioning lines in a way that made us design the system to place the piping on the left side of the car to where it enters the engine bay.  By the middle of June we had both cars in the shop with the engineers working on them.  We had a supercharger on the car and making boost in under three weeks.”

An Overview of the ProCharger 2011 5-liter High Output Mustang Kit

One of the biggest worries for new car owners is having to hack up their brand new car to make a lot of power.  ProCharger has gone to great lengths with their new 5 liter kit to unsure you don’t have to do any of that…and that includes fitting the air-to-air intercooler. This kit is designed to fit perfectly under the stock hood without cutting anything, including the 5.0 engine cover.  The other great feature is the dedicated supercharger drive system that keeps the stock belt system untouched and the ProCharger crank pulley adapter is a direct bolt on affair.

The kit comes with everything you see here, including a full color, easy to follow instruction manual

The supercharger unit ProCharger selected is their patented and proven P-1SC-1, which is a self contained unit that does not require any external oiling. The version of the P-1SC-1 we went with is their helical gear set upgrade.  This option significantly reduces the supercharger’s noise level for a truly stealth install.  Though if you prefer the traditional centrifugal supercharger whine, ProCharger offers that as well. “This is the first entry of our 2011 Mustang lineup,” continued Lacina.  “This High Output system is simply the introduction for what we have planned.”

The air is delivered through a molded intake pipe, compressed and forced through ProCharger’s front mount intercooler.  The driving air cools the air charge through the front-mount intercooler as it makes its way into the throttle body.  Supplied fuel injectors and an SCT tuner ensures that the additional fuel is added into the mix for spot on air/fuel ratio numbers.  Though if you want to manage your own fuel system, ProCharger also offers a tuner kit.

This particular P-1SC-1 system we’re installing will deliver 7 pounds of boost with the current dedicated 8 rib drive pulley selection, though there’s also a D-1SC upgrade, or if you are looking for big power, the bracket system can support up to a F1-A supercharger with the ability to make over 1000 horsepower!

Baseline Dyno Numbers and Installation Highlights

The first order of business was to get the 2011 5-liter strapped onto the dyno.  The Mustang is a SEMA-show-car-to-be and had a mere 10 miles on the odometer – nothing like a proper trashing on the dyno for its first use!  It was 1 o’clock by the time it was strapped down and the air temperature was already over 100 degrees outside.  We weren’t expecting magical numbers in the heat, though the Mustang still performed well by making 359 horsepower and 347 lb/ft of torque to the rear wheels.

Forty-five minutes later we were off the dyno and Nick Schmidt, Calibrations Engineer for ProCharger, started wrenching on the Mustang. The first order of business was to remove the front bumper to make way for the intercooler. We have to give Ford a big pat on the back for their great front bumper design - accessing all the bolts are very easy and it takes less than 10 minutes to remove.

Ditching the stock Cold Air Intake is a necessity for the install. First, remove the engine cover to gain easier access to the throttle body clamp. After that is taken care of, unplug the stock MAF, PCV line, and the long line that connects back at the firewall. In case you did not know, that long line is specifically to carry the grumble sound of the intake into the cabin to accentuate the sound. There is one bolt that holds the lower part of the airbox on.

There are two bolts that hold the coolant overflow tank to the top of the radiator. After those are out, flop the overflow tank onto the top of the engine with all the hoses attached to get it out of the way. Lastly the electric fan shroud and wiring harness needs to come out with a few simple bolts.

ProCharger supplies a longer crank pulley bolt to use with their crank pulley adaptor that drives the blower on its own belt. The crank pulley locks into the Mustang's three-spoke design crank pulley via a cam lock system that holds the pulley in place as you tighten the bolts.

The intercooler was designed specifically for the 2011 Mustang. It bolts to the hood latch and then includes two L-brackets and hardware to tie the lower part of the intercooler to the bumper. The MAF is relocated to a blow thru setup in the top of the intercooler, which ProCharger has had great success with and also boasts a cleaner installation.

All the intercooler piping runs through the opening to the right of the driver's side headlight. One of the pipes has an additional pipe for ProChargers blow off valve and air filter. The valve mounts right under the driver's side headlight.

The beefy, polished blower bracket mounts onto the engine with four bolts and according stand offs to center the bracket properly. The bracket then uses seven bolts to attach to the supercharger, though the pulley for the supercharger must be removed first. The bracket uses an integrated tensioner that needs to be loosed all the way before installing the belt.

The fuel rail is held on by 4 bolts and a fuel line. The injectors are then clipped into the fuel rails. The larger injectors that come with the kit are slightly smaller, though this is not a problem. ProCharger includes four shorter stand-offs (that reside under the four bolts that hold the rail to the manifold) that places the fuel rail in the correct place.

One of the last things to install is the preformed air intake. Though this Mustang was not equipped with a strut tower brace, the kit is designed to clear one. Since the P-1SC-1 is a self-contained supercharger, all that was left was to fill it to the proper line with the included oil. ProCharger includes a remote drain valve on a stainless braided line so you can empty the oil from the bottom of the car.

It took us a little under four hours to install the kit, which stuck true to its word and did not require any cutting. Granted ProCharger's Calibration Engineer, Nick Schmidt did install it so it was done as efficiently as possible, we still had plenty of stop-time for photos and video.

Installing the Tune and Dynoing the Mustang

Before we could start the Mustang we installed the SCT Flash tune. ProCharger develops their own tunes in house and works with SCT to make sure that it can be properly installed to the vehicle's ECU. Simply follow the prompts on screen to install the tune.


We were absolutely stunned by the power gains. Even on the first pull we were over 500 RWHP. By the second pull the vehicle's factory wide-band oxygen sensor and made the corresponding changes it needed to make and we blasted off a 523 RWHP pull in the 100 degree heat. Picking up 165 horsepower with 7 pounds of boost left us satisfied to say the least.


We couldn’t be more pleased with how the Mustang drove on the street.  At idle, the helical gear set would still radiate just enough blower whine, but under acceleration, the sound virtually disappeared.  The stock exhaust growled louder than a stock vehicle, but not enough for the untrained ear to know.  Also, only one of the intercooler pipes is  visible when looking at the front end. Off throttle you can hear the blow off valve trailing the un-needed air from its valve. Cruising through city streets under normal load the Mustang drove like it did completely stock.  All in all, 165 horsepower from seven pounds of boost hitched with a short install time and no cutting made the ProCharger High Output kit almost too good to believe.

Stay tuned as we have a complete installation and dyno video coming soon!

About the author

Mark Gearhart

In 1995 Mark started photographing drag races at his once local track, Bradenton Motorsports Park. He became hooked and shot virtually every series at the track until 2007 until he moved to California and began working as a writer for Power Automedia. He was the founding editor for its first online magazines, and transitioned into the role of editorial director role in 2014. Retiring from the company in 2016, Mark continues to expand his career as a car builder, automotive enthusiast, and freelance journalist to provide featured content and technical expertise.
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