Hci or vortech or any other ideas

95Five0 · Jun 15, 2026

95 gt. Extremely clean . 45k original miles . Dont want to butcher this car but I need some more power. Car has 3:73 rear end , full exhaust cia, smog and egr delete . A lot of people I talk to says put a vortech on it and call it good. My thing is even tho the car has low miles im still putting a supercharger on 31 year old engine components . Not sure if they would handle it. Id like to spend around 6k
Anderson has a votech kit that comes with everything I need to bolt on and get it running .
On the other hand I could probably pull off a trickflow top end kit for around the same price . Looking to make 300whp or more . I've also looked into on3 kits but seems like it has some fitment problems . Any ideas or experience with that kind of budget would be great.

96blak54 · Jun 16, 2026

The supercharger is your best option retaining the cars originality, not butchering it up. Worst case would be new fuel tank, pumps, and fuel lines. The simplicity throwing on a mild supercharger is almost plug and play. Im sure others that know will chime in

ttocs · Jun 17, 2026

the only problem I see with any of these ideas is the tune. It is getting harder to find people to tune the stock ecu and not many are ready to invest for a new ecu the way most shops want.

95Five0 · Jun 17, 2026

This is very true. Was hoping Ted Jenkins had a tune that woukd get me by which ever way I decided to go atleast untill im ready to invest into somthing more

ttocs · Jun 17, 2026

The thing about the mail in tunes on ours is that they are making a best guess based on previous cars they have worked on. In a perfect world all the parts would be EXACTLY the same and everything would run the same, and we would all have big titty wives that had a hot dinner and a bj waiting every night with no complaints. In the real world small differences in parts or sensor readings can throw things off a lot and then there is always the change in pressure/temps that will always be different, and your wife gets mad when you put the toilet paper on wrong and can't remember how to spell bj now after saying "I do". With our ecu if you have a problem with the tune you will need to take it out, send the chip back and hope he can make a better guess this time. Ted has a great record so don't get me wrong I am not talking crap about him(I will about bama chips from personal exp) but with out seeing live data and how the motor reacts he has to take your word on what it is or is not doing and make adjustments from there and it can be the blind leading the blind then. It is easy to make some small mods on a basic motor to help it run better but when you start getting into the heads or boost that makes tuning blind a little harder.

shovel · Jun 17, 2026

95Five0 said:
Looking to make 300whp or more .

From experience with several SN95 Mustangs & with building a wide variety of other vehicles the most effective approach is to address the specific area of deficiency rather than try to achieve some particular number or metric.
What if you get 300whp but you didn't actually make the car drive better in the process? It's impossible to compare horsepower in a modern car that isolates you from the road, governs itself down to ensure maximum smoothness and extended transmission clutch life with "lifetime fluid", etc. vs a 30 year old car that weighs hundreds of pounds less and doesn't blunt any of the edges.

The huge bottlenecks on these stock GT's are the intake manifold, the midpipe and the heads pretty much in that order... once those are addressed then there are other bottlenecks but you can't go wrong starting with those. 94/95 Cobra intake manifolds are abundant on ebay, in fact I'm about to put mine up for sale in a minute. Those are pretty much an on/off switch for your 4000-6000rpm range relative to a stock GT manifold. Aluminum heads save you more than 50 pounds of weight over the front wheels and the increased air flow over E7's even with the stock cam is substantial, you might discover you don't even need to spend the money on a cam (and timing assembly, and removing the radiator, etc...) .

My recommendation is start with a Cobra manifold, high perf midpipe if you don't have one already & replace your ECU with something modern that runs speed density (holley, megasquirt, aces, pimpx, whatever.. just don't bother messing with your stock ECU in 2026 it's ridiculous) . That alone will make your current performance threshold unrecognizable and it's stuff you would need anyway if you wind up going farther. You might find out the car's a lot of fun to drive just with that, or you can put some heads on it and either a cam or a set of high ratio rockers (much less work, most of the same benefit). You'll end up spending half or less of your budget so you can spend more money on gas making memories.

In my opinion a large part of the charm these older pony cars offer is in their simplicity and comparatively light weight. You'd have to spend Dark Horse money to show horizontal SN95 taillights to a Dark Horse at which point just buy that car and save yourself all the busted knuckles or all the phone calls to the shop if you pay someone. If you start throwing weight and complexity at the car to hit some particular dyno number I think it makes the car worse and you won't enjoy driving it as much.

95Five0 · Jun 17, 2026

Wow thanks. I was looking at sve heads too
.if i could make those work with a stock cam then I would be way under budget. Mixed reviews on those tho

95opal · Jun 18, 2026

Slap a vortech on it and youll be leaps ahead of any budget HCI you throw at it. 10# of boost will get you what your looking for.

RossA81 · Jun 18, 2026

The Vortech will quickly snowball and you'll be drilling holes and wiring things(FMU, BTM, boost gauge, etc) .... if it were me I would be tempted to put some decent aluminum heads on it(American made) and an OE 94/95 intake. Keep the stock cam, get some 1.7 RR to get a little more lift out of it. It would run really smooth with the stock cam and make great power. It would also be super reliable.

Ross

95Five0 · Jun 18, 2026

I would love the easier job of bolting on a supercharger but my gut tells be i should be replacing these old components before I stuff a bunch more air down these old heads . If anyone has a supercharger on a stock engine please chime in and ease my mind

GTamas · Jun 18, 2026

RossA81 said:
The Vortech will quickly snowball and you'll be drilling holes and wiring things(FMU, BTM, boost gauge, etc) .... if it were me I would be tempted to put some decent aluminum heads on it(American made) and an OE 94/95 intake. Keep the stock cam, get some 1.7 RR to get a little more lift out of it. It would run really smooth with the stock cam and make great power. It would also be super reliable.

Ross

Would this setup be able to run with the factory ECU and tune, or a new tune (and in that case a new modern ECU) would be needed?

shovel · Jun 18, 2026

I wouldn't characterize installing a supercharger as easier..

by far the easiest job (that makes a difference) is a big midpipe, followed by high ratio rockers, followed by headers, followed by a Cobra intake manifold. Those are all just take off the old part, put on the new part. You'd have to slightly sand the corner of 4 of your high ratio rockers to fit them under the stock valve covers, which means I guess that voids the warranty. Heads or a cam are a bit more work but they're ultimately still take off old part, put on new part.

For a supercharger you need to run oil lines, relocate your TFI module, change out your coolant hoses to avoid the belt, install the fuel management unit in your fuel line, do a whole lot of plumbing..

You'll just get different results from any of these things. A supercharger on your stock top end is going to have the same torque curve as your stock top end; fat until 4k and then naptime. With an automatic that's not bad, with a manual it's a little underwhelming because you're always hunting for the power band. A good breathing NA makes less peak torque but keeps pulling to redline.

Of course you can combine those things but as soon as the word budget gets thrown around it's genuinely hard to make a case for spending good used S550 money on a car that will still be slower and worse in almost every other way than a S550.

I don't care what path you take with your car, and everyone values different outcomes. Probably a good idea to figure out why you own a 30+ year old pony car in the first place, what it does now that you like, what it doesn't do now that you wish it did & how much that's worth to you.

Remember that everything truly costs more than you think it will. If you take the intake manifold off you need a coolant change and an oil change and gaskets, and possibly new bolts. If you install new heads you need a coolant change and an oil change and more gaskets and new head bolts or studs and probably a different spark plug, and you might need new longer or shorter pushrods and/or rocker shims. If you want to take advantage of literally any of this in the modern era you really are going to need an aftermarket EFI controller, which means a bunch of wiring. If you're making enough extra horspower to matter you're going to need new injectors.

duh09 · Jun 18, 2026

V3 Vortech will be self-lubricated, no need to run oil lines. A tune isn't really required if you're running the full Vortech setup with the FMU and Boost-a-Pump - it's ancient tech in 2026 but works to boost fuel pressure with boost so should keep things kosher from AFR standpoint. Modern ECU has a tons of other benefits, but isn't an absolute requirement. Vortech kit on a stock motor should be 300whp all day long.

There's nothing I would be worried about with the motor so long as you're not cranking the timing to the moon and running decent fuel in it. 45k miles means you've probably got some hard seals that are going to be leaky, but it's not like pistons have an expiration date on them.

ttocs · Jun 18, 2026

I gotta say the votech install manual was simple enough for me to do it for my first supercharger install. As he said V3 is self oiling and you do not need to move your tfi either and they have been making these for ever, I am not sure I know of a more reliable and proven system. I had one on my list for a long time but didn't want to pay the NIB price. It took a little time but I found a guy selling his system where he got it NIB, only took the supercharger itself out of the box to inspect before he put it all back, then wrecked the car the next week. I got a pretty much NIB kit with everything for a fair amount less than new, even used systems can be rebuilt if the price seems too cheap.

Wmac · Jun 19, 2026

Lots of good info here. Not a power adder guy, so no input there. But as for n/a, a good set of heads (TFI 11R or Enforcer 185), intake (systemax or performer rpm 2), 1.7 rockers and possibly upgraded maf and injectors should get you close to your goal. You may not even need a tune.

95Five0 · Jun 20, 2026

Thanks everyone . I think im going to start gathering parts slowly for a NA build. I may even keep stock cam like some of you said. As far as a tune goes I know eventually im going to have to upgrade to somthing like a terminater x but if for now If i could get away with no tune or maybe a mail in tune that would keep my budget down, that would be helpful . If I went terminator x I'd like to go with that kit from mf kustoms that uses your old harness . More money but seems to be plug and play makes for a easier install.

RossA81 · Jun 20, 2026

If you keep stock injectors and cam you should be ok without a tune.

Ross

ttocs · Jun 20, 2026

I was told the same till I got into the heads/cam with a trickflow kit and then it would not run with out one. Ran great after....

shovel · Jun 20, 2026

95Five0 said:
Thanks everyone . I think im going to start gathering parts slowly for a NA build. I may even keep stock cam like some of you said. As far as a tune goes I know eventually im going to have to upgrade to somthing like a terminater x but if for now If i could get away with no tune or maybe a mail in tune that would keep my budget down, that would be helpful . If I went terminator x I'd like to go with that kit from mf kustoms that uses your old harness . More money but seems to be plug and play makes for a easier install.

I used a PimpX which makes use of the existing harness and the PimpX itself was excellent, though on a SN95 it required me to repin the big ECU connector (move around 5 or so wires around to other pin locations) - I don't know if they have updated it or not. The repinning wasn't super difficult but the plastic connector is brittle so a couple of the clips broke and I had to take it on faith that they would still connect. I haven't looked into the MF Kustoms kit you mentioned; if it doesn't require repinning stuff that's even better.

The PimpX itself was excellent, no complaints about it. Converting to speed density (the standard for that EFI system) meant I could delete the MAF too, which is surely good for another 0.5 horsepower

A mail order tune requires a chip and if you're going to spend money on a chip and a mail order tune then you're just going to spend more money on an aftermarket EFI later so it's cheaper in the long run to just go for it up front.

Terrorist 5.0 · Jun 20, 2026

You stated you already have a 3.73 ring and pinion. Even a stock 5.0 should feel like enough with those gears. If I were you, listen to shovel. Exhaust, Cobra intake, roller rockers, and you will have increased your peak numbers some and significantly broadened your torque curve. If it’s a manual, add underdrive pullies to the list.

With 3.73’s already installed, you shouldn’t need much. You will just spin through first anyways, and possibly some of second with any more.