S197 GT

Here we go:

First thing I did was raise the front end of the car.

I went back to the trunk and unplugged the Fuel Pump Control Module connector.



Then I turned on the car to let it idle until it had died. I then cranked the engine for a few seconds to release the fuel injector supply manifold pressure.

Disconnected the battery.



Removed the radiator cover.



Removed the front bumper.



Removed the impact absorber and the radiator side shields.

Then I loosened the petcock on the radiator to drain the fluid. Taking off the cap first.




This is where I leave it for the night.

I'll start right back off taking off the JLT and the Boss Mani tomorrow night.

Until then...

S197 GT

Tonight was great! Got exactly where I wanted to be by Saturday.

Took about 2 hours to get to the timing cover grinding.

First thing I did was remove the JLT Carbon Fiber (shameless plug) intake.



I removed the throttle body electrical connector, purge valve and complete tube connecting below the brake booster (you wanna lift up on this clip), and both PCV lines.

I disconnected the supply line to the fuel rail, and both heater hoses. I used the windshield wipers to hold the heater hoses out of the way.



I removed the support brackets for the heater hoses and then I removed the steel section of the brake booster vacuum line from the joint near the rear of the intake manifold.



I removed the 3/8" coolant hose from the tank to the engine.







(to be continued)

S197 GT

I removed the (2) harness retainers on the back of my Boss Manifold. The stock intake manifold uses (4).

I removed both fuel rail insulators and disconnected all (8) fuel injector connectors. I removed the (4) bolts that run through the fuel rails, and the (6) bolts through the intake manifold (these do not come all the way out).

The intake manifold is ready to be removed.





I lifted the intake manifold off of the engine and placed it to the side with injectors and fuel rail intact.

I cleaned the exposed surfaces of the intake ports and used painters tape to keep debris out.

Notice the knock sensors in the valley. These will be rotated later in the install.





I removed the coolant tank and then used a 16mm socket to rotate the Front End Accessory Drive Tensioner counter-clockwise in order to release enough tension to remove the belt.

I removed the (4) bolts securing the water pump pulley to the engine.

I cut the AC belt and removed the upper radiator hose.









I removed the (2) bolts securing the electric fan and shroud and then unclipped the harness from the fan.

I removed the electric fan and shroud.





(to be continued)

S197 GT

I unclipped the electrical harness clips along the top of the passenger side of the front timing cover to make room for the surgery I'll be performing tomorrow!









I made some rough markings for where I'll be cutting and grinding tomorrow.











Here's how the car sits until tomorrow.



Tomorrow night I need to go buy a few tools, and I'll be right back at it. Ready to conduct surgery on my timing cover.

S197 GT

We started off by drinking several beers standing over the engine compartment bull****ting for a while.

I had stopped at the thrift store and bought a bunch of sheets to cover the engine.





I used a Dremel to take care of the grinding.







This is a very slow process, but it is easy work. I think a Dremel will ultimately be the cleanest way to take care of the timing cover grinding.

I got all of the complete bosses grinder down, along with all of the ribs. The ribs were very easy to do. All I have left is the half cut boss to finish.

We went through about 30 cutting wheels, so plan accordingly if you are going to do this yourself.

Unfortunately, the timing cover was all I got done between last night and today.

I went out and partied last night until 5AM, so I was dragging my feet a bit this morning.

Here's how the grinding looks now. I still wanna clean it up a bit more.















I'm heading out to a comedy show here in a few minutes. Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle, Chris Tucker, Jo Koy, and a few more comics will be there. It should be a hell of a time. So I'm done for the day.

I'll pick up tomorrow where I left off, and I'll see if I can finish the grinding and clean it up a bit.

My intake is on backorder, and my tuner is out on vacation, so I'm in no rush right now.

I'll likely push the estimated completion date to next weekend.

(to be continued)

S197 GT

More grinding tonight...

Had to remove (2) water pump bolts to get more room.







Went back and smoothed out the bosses.

S197 GT

Finally done with the timing cover grinding!!!

It wasn't that bad at all.

I used the following;

Dremel 4000
Dremel Reinforced Cut-Off Wheels 426
Straight Edge with mm readout
Sharpie Markers

I realized that my best way of doing it is first measuring out the 20mm mark on the semi-cut boss. I put a rough mark on the remaining bosses and ribs. There are no measurements to use, so you just have to use your judgement based on the drawings.

The (2) leftmost bosses are easy to get to and really don't require any special notes to follow. The semi-cut boss will require you to remove (2) bolts on the water pump and also the cross section where the upper radiator hose meets the engine. I cut several "slices" into the boss in order to chip away at it leaving room for my Dremel. Once I had a decent amount of material removed, I ended up using the cut-off wheel in a grinding fashion. I turned it 45* and used a side to side motion to bring the surface down even and flush. It works quickly too! Much faster than cutting away at it.

I accomplished the task of grinding the front cover with just a Dremel!

S197 GT

Got a decent amount of work done last night. Most of the time was spent trying to decipher the **** instruction manual.

Luckily for you guys, I'll break it down.

The kit comes with some very nice extension harnesses so that there is very little splicing.

First up is the throttle position sensor. TPS.



You need to unwrap the electrical tape from the TPS and rotate the harness so that the wires are all straight.

Next you want to open up the loom to give you room to work.

You wanna disconnect the "connector" on the TPS harness. This is the red piece that is inside the harness. You do this by gently prying on it with a thin pick.



Once you remove the red connector, you can pry of the back of the harness with the same pick to release the back portion of the harness.

This will have affectively opened up the harness and enabled you to cleanly remove the wires from the harness.

You take the small pick and insert it into the slot above each wire retainer. Gently lift with the pick and the wires will pull right out.



Now that you've exposed all of the wires, you need to grab the TPS harness extension which is included in the kit. Find the TPS connector on the new extension.



Depress the locking tab and separate the male and female ends of the harness.

What you need to do is replace the old TPS harness connector with the new one from the extension.

Follow the same steps, remove the red connector from the inside of the new harness.



Pry off the back of the new harness. Slide the new back piece onto the exposed TPS wires being sure to note the proper wire configuration. Slide each wire into the back of the harness and you will feel it lock into place.



Slide the back of the harness up to the harness itself and snap it all together. You've just finished swapping the harness connectors on the TPS.



Tape up the loom and exposed wires and the feed the extended harness along the passenger side coil cover and along the back of the valley towards the rear of the driver's side head and use zip ties to secure the harness.

Next up is the purge valve.



This is a similar process, you remove the red connector inside of the Purge Valve harness. Slide the pick into the slots above the wire retainers and pull the (2) wires out. Be sure to note their orientation.

Take the new extension harness for the purge valve that is included with the Whipple kit. This is where it's slightly different. There is nothing to take apart on this harness.

Depress the locking tab to disconnect the harnesses. Take the female section of the harness and you'll notice (2) holes. Slide the exposed wires from the factory Purge Valve harness into this new harness. They will lock right into place.

Now you can connect the new extension to the existing harness and route them along the TPS extension towards the rear of the driver's side head. Be sure to zip tie them as well.

(to be continued)

S197 GT

Next up is the Intercooler Pump wiring.

There is a stud next to the underhood fusebox. You need to remove the nut and harness from the stud.

You need to install the relay from the Intercooler Pump Wiring Harness onto the exposed stud. You want to install the fuse previously removed onto the same stud.

We had to drill the hole a bit on the relay to get it to fit on the stud.



There is a red wire attached to the Intercooler Pump Wiring Harness. You'll need to route the red wire to the positive post at the back of the fuse box.





You then take the other bundle of wires and route them forward around the front of the fusebox and along the factory lamp harness.

Remove the bolt securing the factory grounds behind the passenger side headlight and secure the factory grounds along with the grounding eyelet from the Intercooler Pump Wiring Harness.



Route the single wire with (2) connectors along the factory engine harness to the rear of the passenger side head.

Connect these connectors inline with the passenger side radio capacitor.





These are hard to see and even harder to get too. Just keep feeling around for the 2 connectors, and you'll find them low behind the passenger side head.

I unplugged the (3) PCM connectors to get to the bottom most 70 pin connector.



I removed the front connector.



Then I removed the wire support on the back of the connector.



I then took the supplied Air Charge Temp sensor loom which has the ACT sensor on one end and (2) wires on the other end. 1 wire has a pin crimped on it, while the other has a blunt end.

I pulled pin C-56 from the PCM harness.

The blunt ended wire from the ACT sensor loom needs to be spliced with the wire from pin C-56.

I happened to solder mine and use hear shrink.

The wire from the ACT sensor loom with the pin will slide into the empty slot of C-36.



(to be continued)

S197 GT

When I went to reinsert the soldered together connection for pin C-56, the pin broke off.

I'm searching everywhere to get this pin, but I'm not getting any luck.

Here's the pin.





Since the pin broke, I just left the PCM harnesses disconnected and I moved on.

Next I extended the Mass Air Flow Wiring. I did the exact same thing as for the TPS and for the Purge Valve.

The kit comes with a MAF extender harness, and you just swap out the OEM harness for the one provided in the kit.

The only thing to note is that the new connector has (6) pins, but the MAF only uses (4) wires. For this, you only use pins 2-5 and leave both 1 and 6 empty.



Make sure the wires are all locked in the new harness and that the colors match on both side of the connection.

Once this is done, neatly tuck the MAF wires back into the wire loom and use electrical tape to seal the loom and complete the extension of the MAF.



Now things are in full swing!

Next up is reorienting the knock sensors. They are located in the middle of the valley between the heads.

Each knock sensor has a 90* plastic wiring retainer that will need to be discarded. Unclip the retainer and undo the electrical tape to remove them.

Loosen each bolt slightly and rotate each knock sensor towards their respective side. The driver's side knock sensor should rotate closer to the driver's side head, and vice versa.

Torque the bolts back down to 25Nm.



I then gapped my new Ford Racing 1-Step Cooled plugs down to .030".

I then swapped the plugs.

Pretty simple, pull out the coil covers, release the harnesses on each COP, remove the bolt securing each COP, pull out the COP to expose the plugs.

I'm at 10,000 miles, so my plugs cane out with no problem.



The order of the plugs in the pic above reads 5-8 on the left side going top to bottom, and 1-4 on the right side.

Here is my #8 plug.



I installed all of the plugs, the COPs, and the coil covers.

Next up was the Intercooler Low Temperature Radiator (Heat Exchanger).

I installed a rubber grommet into each of the (4) mounting tabs located at each corner.

I ran a sleeve through each grommet, and then ran a bolt through the sleeve and grommet into each corner's mounting bracket.

There is a little NVH insulator pad that is adhered to the front if the heat exchanger. Just measure 170mm from the top and 140mm from the right and adhere the NVH insulating pad to the heat exchanger.

Next we take the Fuel Charging Assembly (lower manifold) and attach a rubber hose from the PCV Purge Hose to the barb on the bottom of the Fuel Charging Assembly.

Next up is relocating the Purge Valve. The instruction manual I received is for the 2.3L kit which is slightly different.

In this case, the 2.3L utilizes a throttle body spacer as a part of it's inlet system and the Purge Valve is relocated to this throttle body spacer.

In my case, with the 2.9L, there is no throttle body spacer. The Crusher inlet runs from the back of the blower all the way around to the throttle body in one clean piece.



I've reached out to all my resources, but nobody seems to know where the purge valve gets relocated to.

I'm going to have to figure this out.

This is where I stopped for the day.

(to be continued)

S197 GT

Started off the night marking and drilling a 5/16" hole in the fan shroud to mount the Intercooler reservoir.



Then I clipped on a J-clip in the hole and mounted the fan shroud.

Then I mounted the Intercooler reservoir using hardware supplied in the kit.





Then I removed the (4) bolts/nuts on each corner of the radiator. The radiator will stay in place.



I mounted up the heat exchanger using the same (4) mounting points on the radiator.

I used (2) bolts supplied with the kit in the top corners, and reused the factory nuts on the bottom.



Not much room between the heat exchanger and the radiator.



Next I routed the intercooler pump hose from bottom of the intercooler reservoir and along the side frame and out the driver's side radiator shield/air inlet.

This picture has the INCORRECT orientation of the hose coming from the reservoir.



It should go underneath the radiator hose and routed like this.







(to be continued)

S197 GT

Then I mounted both radiator shields.



I removed the top inner (2) bolts from the bumper beam. I replaced them with longer replacements from the supplied hardware.



I then installed the intercooler pump bracket along the inside of the bumper beam by utilizing the bolts from the previous step and the studs just below. I used the (4) supplied nuts to secure the bracket to the bumper beam.

I then installed another NVH cushion on the back of the bumper beam measuring out 220mm from the driver's side bumper support bracket and 60mm in from the front of the bumper beam.

The intercooler pump mounts to the bracket with (2) supplied bolts. The pump sits perfectly between the NVH cushion installed in the last step and the NVH cushion installed on the heat exchanger earlier in the install process.

The hose from the intercooler reservoir goes to the side of the pump when installed. The other jose goes from the bottom of the pump up to the driver's side of the heat exchanger.





To finish it off I ran the wiring from the intercooler pump under the main harness, along the back of the passenger side headlight and down through the passenger side radiator shield. I ran it down to and along the intercooler pump bracket and plugged it into the pump.

The instructions said to use the clips from the harness to mount it to the bracket, but there were none. So I used zipties in the holes of the bracket to secure the harness.

The last step of the evening was mounting the bumper support foam back to the bumper beam using the factory Christmas trees.



Next up is MOUNTING THE BLOWER!!!!!

S197 GT

But I really wanna be sure the install portion does not get interrupted

S197 GT

Holy sh*t, I'm in the middle of a Whipple install

S197 GT

I will use all of these reserved posts

S197 GT

I promise

S197 GT

Maybe just a few more

2k7gtcs

I wanna reserve this space for

S197 GT

You know

S197 GT

Just in case