Two-Valve Mustang Buildup - Double Stuff

Tag : titanium block

Horse Sense: Not only does Patriot Performance offer Stage II and III portedversions of the Romeo and Windsor Two-Valve heads, but bare andassembled versions of its own 185cc small-block heads for 5.0 and351W engines are also available.
After bouncing around Gulf Coast Dyno in Sarasota, Florida, we tooka moment to lament that we'd been so caught up in keeping with theS197 mania while not forgetting our Fox roots that we really hadn'tdone much 4.6 Two-Valve stuff lately. So we asked Ray Walker ifhe'd be up for playing around with a Two-Valve combo. Naturally hewas, and he even had a white '01 GT sitting in the corner of theshop. Our idea was to throw the book at a Two-Valve and build apowerful, streetable combination.
It's tough to reel Ray into building something mild, as his mindinstantly thinks of pegging the boost gauge. So we compromised atbuilding an off-the-shelf combination and topping it off with asingle-turbo kit. It seemed simple enough. We'd bolt it alltogether, make big power, and everything would be cool-andultimately it was.
We should have put stouter springs in our ported heads to work withthe boost. Of course, when you boost an engine, the increasedcylinder pressure makes it harder to open the valves. Since boostrises with rpm, it only makes it harder on the valvesprings at highrpm. Hey, we all make mistakes and overlook the small stuff fromtime to time, but we're man enough to admit it. Besides, we stillmanaged to more than double the Two-Valve's output. The car issuper-streetable, plenty fast, and should be bulletproof since itcan't rev to the moon.
Besides, as Ray put it, "400 rwhp is enough to run mid-11s with agood driver and a five-speed." Most people would be plenty happywith that kind of power, but if you're jaded like us, throw in moreaggressive valvesprings and have even more fun.