Horsepower!

1,000 (-ish) HP, 342CI, Turbocharged Ford

We say 1,000-ish because Ted is just finishing up the small details needed to get his Mustang back on the road. With a good dyno tune using a wideband O2 sensor, he's confident this 302 stroker will make a conservative 900 hp at the wheels and is actually hoping for just a tick more than 1,000. "Other people with similar combinations are making that much power, so it is feasible," he says. What is this display of wretched excess going to be driving, you ask? Possibly a 10.5 Outlaw car? Nope, this is going in what Ted calls his fast street car--a '90 Mustang coupe. "There is no rollcage, there are no gauges, the body is stock, and it still has the Pony wheels." However, SoCal residents, consider yourselves warned: Don't be so quick to dismiss the next vanilla-white, Fox-body Mustang next to you at a light. With this huge turbo, water/meth injection, and a trans brake–equipped C4, Ted's deceptive Pony could kick your ass before you know what hit you.

The Shop

Ted was the owner of Ted's Speed Center, a long-running speed shop in Palmdale. It closed several years ago, but he now owns Ted's Carb Service, one of the few places you can still go to for a carb rebuild. Call him at 661/948-2340.

1 Transmission

All this boosted power is harnessed by a Mike's Transmission Ultimate C4 equipped with a transbrake and a manual valvebody. The torque converter is a 9-inch unit from Performance Torque Converters in Mussel Shoals, Alabama. Ted says the stall speed is pretty low for its size and was built that way on purpose so he can comfortably cruise around town. When he gets on it, however, it will flash to about 4,500 rpm.

2 Turbo

When your turbocharger is just slightly smaller than a basketball, people know you mean business. Fortunately, Ted can hide it under the plain-looking hood, so the casual bystander is none the wiser. This is an 88 mm BorgWarner turbocharger, and Ted's friend, Mike Stafford, helped plumb it in using headers and an intercooler bought on eBay.

3 Block

Ted's owned this car since 2003, and it had a 347 (0.030-over 302 with a stroker crank) when he bought it. He blew up that engine a couple of years ago after "getting greedy" one night with too much boost from his previous power-adder, a Vortech S-trim supercharger. "I turned the boost up to 16 psi and had so much fun driving it that night I sucked the water/meth tank dry and broke a piston." Though he could have rebuilt that engine, he decided to start fresh with a Ford Racing 302 R block. Bob Lambeck machined and assembled it with an Eagle crank, Eagle H-beam rods, Ross pistons, an Isky hydraulic roller cam, Victor, Jr. heads, and Cometic head gaskets, with ARP studs throughout. The stock valve covers hide Scorpion roller rocker arms, custom-made Manton pushrods, and titanium spring retainers. The cam specs are good but not huge: 238/248 degrees duration, 0.540/ 0.570 lift, and a 112-degree LSA. We heard the engine run, and it sounds deceptively mild.

4 Ignition

What looks like a stock Ford distributor is really an MSD unit with a Ford Blue cap. The other MSD components in the picture are a Digital 6 ignition box and a Boost Timing Master, which allows Ted to manually adjust the timing from the driver seat.

5 Intake and Fuel

The turbo force-feeds an 850-cfm Holley modified for a blow-through application by Carburetor Solutions Unlimited in Fontana, California. The intake manifold is an Edelbrock Victor, Jr. Ted uses an Aeromotive pump and regulator to keep the carburetor full of fuel. While he's running it on 112-octane race gas right now, he will ultimately be burning 91-octane pump gas with a big assist from a Snow Performance Stage 3 water/methanol injection system. Ted tells us the combination of 91-octane and water/meth will yield the equivalent of 120-octane. Turn up the boost!