My 4.6L will be freshly rebuilt and blown (AED) next week with ported heads, forged pistons, etc. I assume I need to break in the new motor before I dyno tune it. Once it's broke in, I want to upgrade the fuel/air systems. Here's my thoughts, please correct me if need be:

1) Assume it takes about 2-3000 miles to break in.

2) Replace stock fuel pump with a 190LPH model. I'm assuming this will be big enough without potentially requiring upgrades to the wiring.

3) Replace stock injectors with a matched set of 32lb. Why does everybody go with 42lb? What's the deal with impedance? Why are some variable (11-18ohm)?

4) Replace stock MAF with a 90mm MAF. Is this really necessary?

Oh yeah, I'm also going to install the Outlaw CAI as soon as they release their new oil-less filter.

 

Well you will need some sort of tune to even drive the car around to break it in.

I always fill all fluids, pull the fuel pump fuse and hit the key once or twice to get the oil pump going. You should really use a real oil pressure gauge but if one isn't available then just make sure while you hit the key for thoes one or two seconds that you are seeing the oil pressure gauge rise. If all is good put the fuse in and start it up. Let it idle for about 15 min keeping an eye out for any smoke, leaking fluids, drop in oil pressure etc. Provided everything checks out after the 15 min of idle, then get in and run it from idle to about 3K, then back to idle, back up to 3K for about 10 min.

Let it cool, change the oil. Take it easy for about 500 miles, change the oil again. Have a Blast with the new motor.

I would suggest getting a fine mesh filter that you can put over the drain plug on the first two oil changes that will allow you to see any metal particles in the oil, with a new motor some will be expected but if you see alot the first time, or more on the 500mi. change than the first it could signal a problem. Also just a suggestion but I have a tool that cuts the oil filter open and I do it each oil change just to see what it collects.

As for the MAF, injectors, and fuel pump, you will need all of these items installed and working before you start driving the truck. I would run 42lb injecctors and get a 255lph pump instead of the 190lph. It might be overkill to some but you could look at it as added room to grow and or a bit of extra insurance. If you are running a built 4.6 I don't see why you keep the boost down, I would be running anywhere from 12-16psi min. which would need the 42's and 255. You don't want to buy the 190 and 39's then when you strap it to a dyno find out that you are running out of fuel and have to do it all over again.

On a side note since you are doing all of this work, you might want to consider the following much overlooked aspect. The fuel lines themselves. I would upgrade all of the fuel lines and the fuel rails if it was me, I would also swap from an OEM fuel filter to a re-useable element with alot better flowing capacity.

 

Tune!? I hope I don't need it right off the bat. The kit claims to run on a stock system with no tune. Have I made too many mods to allow that?

I appreciate your advice. It makes sense to put the higher capacity parts in the first time, instead of wasting time and money to redo it later.

I'm really hoping to get by with the stock stuff at first until I know it's all put together right and running well.

 

Not too familiar with AED but I have had a decent amount of experience with 4.6's in general.

I can tell you this unless you are only running 1-2psi you WILL need a tune of some sort to compensate for the supercharger. Look at most any s/c kit from Paxton, Vortech, Pro Charger, Kenne Bell, etc.. ALL of them come with some sort of chip that will add the additional fuel for the start up and to hold you over until you put it on a dyno.

Stock 19lb injectors will be maxxed out and will not be able to supply enough fuel to a supercharged motor.

Stock maf will probably peg out way before you hit redline.

Like I said this is just my advice but I think if you try to run a built supercharged motor on stock spec parts i.e. injectors, tune, etc. you are setting yourself up to do it all over again. I see it leaning out and blowing the motor within 500 miles.

 

The kit comes with a FMU that is supposed to take care of fuel issues. I know it's not a good long term solution, but hope it does it's job for awhile at least. I will be adding the larger injectors, MAF, and fuel pump soon.

Thanks for feedback and good info!

 

The problem comes from not having any feel, experience and tech knowledge of these kinds of changes.
You can bank on the following.
19 lb injectors are good for 290 HP.
Using an FMU that rasies the fuel rail pressure to the 60 to 70 psi range will force the 19s to flow up to about 24 lbs.
A look at FI charts will tell you that 24 lbs can support close to 360 hp.
The next item is how much boost are you going to settle at.
This determines the approx final HP you will have to fuel and support for.
If you run say 7 psi boost and figure about 18 hp per pound that's 7 x 18 = 126 hp worth of boost.
If the stock engine is 230 hp + 126 hp= thats 356 hp.
Question is will your setup as recieved, fuel that much power.
Unless there are other mods made that contribute to the final flywheel hp and you run 6 or 7 psi boost, the stock injectors will handle the blower with a proper FMU boost ratio diaphram.
The last item is the fuel pump capacity. An 88 l/hr pump raised to 70 psi by the FMU will just flow enough fuel volume to support 7 psi boost and 19 lb injectors.
Addmittedly everything is at max but to go bigger beyond 24 for any other reason invites tuning and drivabilty problems.
If your going to 8 and above boost then the whole fuel system needs enlargement for injector and pump size as well as PCM tuning. This you cannot do unless the dyno facility has the ability to custom a tune and either apply it via a tuner or a plug in chip.
At 5 to 8 psi boost, a larger air meter is not really nessary.
The reason you see large injectors in N/A engine is that the fuel injection is all done at 40 psi fuel pressure instead of at high fuel pressures an FMU provides. 42 lb injectors are good for approx 600 hp +/- N/A but needs tuning the PCM to handle all that fuel capability at start up, idle and no boost cruising were the engine cannot use the capacity without a tune because the PCM doen not know the injectors are larger except by the richness the OX sensors detect.. If the PCM can't lean out enough, your fuel mileags goes to he** and you get codes set.
The N/A fueled, requires larger injectors and a tune to work with the air meter and provide the volume at the lower pressures.
The reason that too large an injector cause drivability problems are that at idle they should work at approx 10% min open time or there can be fuelling problems. At pulewidths less than 10% the fueling can become difficult to contol and leads to idle and low speed drivability problems.
At WOT. they should be working at approx 80 to 90% open pulewidths so there is a safety at the top rpm for some exrta fuel. To much capacity can't be handled properly.
Working injectors outside these ranges can bring on drivability problems and defeat the bigger is better position as well as enjoyment of the truck..
Bewhere of using an extra inline fuel pump and jacking the fuel pressure and volume too high. This can cause hi rpm missing conditions where the injectors can't close against the pressure and over fuels the engine.
There is a lot of engineering and knowledge that needs to be considered and not just a lot of chit-chat about I did this and I did that without baseline rules to compare with.
I run K.B.on a 5L at 6 psi with the engine all stock including the fuel pump, FMU with no tune needed and on speed density yet. This is an engineered setup so all areas are accounted for.
Be carefull and know what is going on before you attempt to make changes beyond the kit recomendations.
Injectors have limits, fuel pumps have limits and air meter calibrations need to match injector sizes etc.
Gas has to be 93 octane.
A positive displacement blower on any engine is a torque producer and you don't need 8psi and higher to enjoy the truck unless you have racing intentions and the rest of the driveline is rebuilt to handle the abuse.
You should not guess at any of this but learn and plan for the intended results.

 

Wow! Good read! Lot's of info to consider. I really think I will probably just leave it alone initially and watch how it does.

 

Bluegrass, I have read and reread your post more than several times. I keep getting more out of it and really appreciate it. Thanks.

I have come up with a couple of questions though. It appears that my kit includes a 190LPH fuel pump. For my meager needs, I think it will be plenty. With that in mind, I'm considering increasing injector size to 24lb or maybe a little more, and getting rid of the FMU, which I understand can create a serious lean condition if it fails.

I'm planning on a computer tune anyhow to remove the speed limiter. It seems that the 190LPH pump along with 24lb injectors could be easily included in the tune. Wouldn't this be a more reliable setup in the long run?

 

more reliable and more room to alter things later on bud.

 

Glad you asked that question. I didn't touch upon it to prvent info overload.
The use of an FMU is a convient way for a marketer to sell a blower setup that can be installed by the average knowledgable do it yourselfer and get it to run in a reasonable manner with the least problems as long as the instructions are followed.
The results are sufficient and usually error on the rich side of fueling under full power to be safe, but may not result in all the max power that could be achived.
Doing the job with larger injectors, larger fuel pump and a dyno tune can result in the most power out of the blower use. However, once the setup is tuned, any changes in blower boost, motor eguipment, cams etc make retuning the only option to gain the benifits of the changes without danger.
With FMU, some changes can be done to increase power as long as the fueling is kept up with and doesnot result in a lean motor, over advanced ignition and anything that could cause problems in that manner. This even involves changes in the air meter trasfer curve and/or size.
Specificly, 24 lb injectors at 40 psi will fuel about 335 hp at a BSFC OF .55 for super charging (somewhat HP more for N/A application).
Pump sizing goes like this; 115 l/hr should be able to feed 24 lb injectors at 40 psi and a 335 hp blower level +/-, so you should be quite safe using your 190 unit that is capable to supporting well over 500 hp with larger injectors.
42 lb injectors need a 200+ l/hr pump volume to take advantage of there top hp capability.
You see the importance of injector and pump matching as well as air meter calibrations.
You bought a kit based on FMU operation and now want to change over to full PCM control with supporting fuel system. That's fine and gets better drivabilty and more power overall but requires going about it from a different perspective.
These are the differences you need to know about.
Suggest you contact TP and talk it over. They have a lot of experience with these setups and can dial you in almost right on the first time except for possible data logging to get the best overall out of your setup.
This info is general so, specific setups and combinations need to be addressed as such.
Lastly, you are bound to hear someone say FMU is an ancient form of fuel control. Indeed it is simple and not as precision compaired to PCM control but it still works ok and can be dialed in on a dyno better as far as fueling is concerned. Working with FMU boost ratios and injector sizes up to the point the OEM air meter output peaks from airflow, is the limit before deeper changes are manditory to keep up with power demands.
There are many Ford motors that alter the fuel pump speed when WOT power is called. This does two things; conviently reduces fueling at lower loads for drivabilty and supplies more fuel on power demand.
There are after market fuel pump controllers that do the same thing for regular fuel pumps in responce to blower boost pressure and make more fuel volume available under hi power demands where ordinarly the pump could not keep up.
I am not defending either way of running a blower but only to bring info that can be understood about the different ways, needs and means of going about it.
Bottom line is the total fueling has to be within limits across the load range and the hardware needs to be sized and controlled to achive this.
Going beyond these limits for the sake of growth just makes things harder to accomplish and tune for.
Do it right the first time, enjoy, then when it comes time to step up the power, you do it right again and is all works. Otherwise you can get into hassles and not enjoy the results.

 

More great info!

What I'm gathering from this is that I should be just fine for now, except that the speed limiter will kick in around 90mph or so (because I regeared to 4.10). I'll be able to live with that for a while.

I could be wrong, but I really don't think I'm gonna push for major power, as I already have plenty of other hobbies to keep me happy, and I need to eek mileage out of this thing. So when the time comes, I'll talk to Troyer Performance, and do a tune, along with probably 30lb injectors, and maybe some free flowing cats.

Thanks for the education!

 

Billyw,
I've been reading through all the messages and replies, and I have to ask. If you are spending the money to install the blower and all, why not go ahead and upgrade all parts that deal with fueling and all? Also, I have an 04' 5.4L. The first thing I didn't like about it was how it cuts out at 95 MPH. I bought the Edge Programmer, and you can set your speed limiter, as well as other settings. Why not spend a few 100 bucks on a programmer for your ride? Until you do so, all you're going to have is a truck that can go from 0-90 really fast and then a honda civic can drive by and wave at you??? Like I said, just a curious question though.

 

he has to get a tune anyways to make his engine run reliably from the start, so that should be taken care of.