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© 2001 Brian F. Schreurs
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Vortech's step 1 is a sort of catch-all for the various things that must be disconnected, altered, and removed to make the supercharger even fit. This step did not require any parts that were not included in the kit, nor did it need any specialized tools.

Disconnect the battery.

Remove the air intake system. Our car already had a cold air induction system so we didn't have the stock components, and anyway we'd already taken it apart as part of the fuel injector upgrade that we did in preparation for the supercharger. So you're pretty much on your own here.

One thing we can warn you about is that the air inlet temperature sensor is a little tricky to get out, after being heat-fused to the intake bellows. It unscrews and a 1" wrench will get it right off.

The bellows connects to the throttle body with a normal hose clamp. Be sure to unplug the AIT sensor and the MAF sensor before trying to remove them.

A couple of the pulleys have to be changed. Once again, we've been here before; a long time ago we replaced our pulleys with a set of underdrive pulleys. These can't be used with the supercharger, so we had to remove them just like you will with your stock ones.

'Course, just yanking on the bolts will only cause the engine to turn over. In order to remove the bolts holding the water pump pulley and the crankshaft pulley, have an assistant use a breaker bar and a 15/16" socket on the alternator nut -- that'll keep anything from spinning around. The eight bolts (four per pulley) are all 1/2".

Once the bolts are loose, remove the belt. To do this, stick a 3/8"-drive socket wrench into the opening on the front of the belt tensioner, and pull the tensioner back. Then the belt will just slip off. With the belt off, it's a simple matter to remove the bolts holding the two pulleys and take them off the car.

There's a lot to look at in this picture. The alternator and tensioner are gone, as are the overflow tank and relay box; the heater hose has been removed but the tube has not yet been cut (look just above the thermostat housing); and the coolant temperature sensor is unplugged. The entire accessory bracket, with smog pump attached, is coming out next.

The alternator will have to be moved too, so now's as good a time as any to get it out of the way. It's held on with a 1/2" bolt, a 10mm bolt, and a 15mm bolt, just to keep it interesting. The wire terminal is also 10mm. Then it just lifts out.

Remove the plastic cover over the radiator. Vortech recommends using a Lisle door upholstery remover tool, but we've had it apart so many times that it pretty much just pops off nowadays -- in fact, ours finally broke. You can get new pins at Lowe's if you break some.

There's a relay box next to the radiator recovery tank. A huge electrical connector plugs into it; easy to see if you look. The Vortech instructions advise you to remove the relay box, which is quite unnecessary. The bracket that the box mounts to will be coming out anyway, so simply unplug the box. It has three plugs, including the big one.

Remove the bracket now. It's just going to get in the way. It's held on by two 8mm bolts; the relay's wire harness has its own 5mm bolt. Unplug the radiator overflow tube, and lift the assembly out. While you have it out, think about draining it and cleaning it. It's skanky.

Drain enough coolant to get the water level below the heater hoses -- about a gallon's worth. We went one further and drained all the coolant, figuring this was a good time to swap the lower radiator hose and refresh the antifreeze.

Remove the upper radiator hose at a minimum (it has some evil Ford hose clamps that are best thrown out and replaced with worm drive clamps, if you value your sanity) and think strongly about removing the lower. After all, they're cheap, and failure is catastrophic.

In the lower intake manifold, near the top of the water pump housing, there's a coolant temperature sensor. It's going to be in the way. On our car, it eventually went back where it came from (we hear it might have to be moved on some cars), but during the installation it interferes.

Remove the rubber heater hose located on the passenger-side of the water pump. It connects to a steel tube that crosses the engine next to the passenger-side valve cover.

Remove the distributor cover, if your car still has it (ours doesn't), and remove the passenger-side spark plug wires. They get in the way during future steps. Be sure to make a diagram of the firing order if you don't know it by heart.

From this viewpoint, the hose on the right is the one that has to come out.

That steel coolant tube, the one that runs along the valve cover for the length of the engine, needs to be cut. Seems like a dumb thing to cut, but Vortech isn't lying: it gets in the way. Hack off about 3-1/4" from the front end of the tube, which basically is everything ahead of the forward-most mounting bracket. A small hacksaw did the trick for us. You might wanna file off any burrs when you're done.

Remove the heater hose that goes from this tube to the firewall. Of the two heater hoses in that back corner, it's the driver-side one. Yes, it's hard to get at. This is one spot where having the intake disassembled (from the fuel injectors) really pays off.

Back to the engine. Although the belt tensioner doesn't look like it's in the way of anything, it's actually concealing a bolt to remove the large bracket underneath. The tensioner easily comes off by undoing the Torx T-50 bolt in its center.

There are a couple of hoses on the back of the A.I.R. (smog) pump. They pull off.

The huge alternator/smog bracket comes off as a unit with the smog pump. It's held on by two 1/2" bolts; the lower one is longer. There is an 11/16" bolt where the tensioner used to be.

Getting the smog pump off the bracket can be frustrating.

On the bench (or on the floor, as it was for us), remove the smog pump from the bracket. There's only one 1/2" bolt holding it on, but -- ha ha! -- you have to remove the smog pump pulley to get at it. The pulley is held on by three 8mm bolts. All in all, it's not a lot of fun, especially considering the very limited leverage available. A vise would be a huge help, but if you don't have one (like us) then you can try standing on it. The smog pump has to be reused, but the big bracket is a souvenir.

And for the last portion of Step 1 (did you forget that this was ALL part of Vortech's Step 1?), there's a spot on the passenger-side inner fender where an air conditioning line runs from the front of the engine bay to the firewall. It follows the frame rail. Undo the bracket that holds the line to the inner fender, and gently move the hose outboard.

Now you're ready to move on to Step 2, fabricating the oil feed line!