Images courtesy of Sweitzer Performance

It’s no secret that alternative fuel types like E85 greatly benefit both naturally aspirated and forced induction applications–but just how considerable? The folks at Sweitzer Performance out of Temecula, California, set out to perform an apples-to-apples comparison on a customer’s Paxton Novi 2200 supercharged 2013 Mustang GT in an effort to find out just how much merit there is in a boosted street car application.

The car owner Tristin, entered Sweitzer Performance with a prescription for a full fuel system upgrade; using components from JPC Racing, Fore Innovations and Injector Dynamics. Prior to the upgrade, Tristin’s Mustang was rocking the aforementioned Paxton centrifugal supercharger, as well as an off-road X-pipe and a custom axle-back exhaust system. Underneath the supercharger setup rests a built short-block from MMR, which is capable of supporting more than 1,000 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Upgrading to a set of ID1000 fuel injectors–along with a JPC Racing twin fuel pump setup and a Fore Innovations’ fuel regulator–allowed the folks at Sweitzer Performance to convert the car to use E85 fuel. Using this type of fuel allowed for more additional timing, as well as a new tuning calibration, to achieve the gains we’ve detailed below.

The Coyote in question wears its Paxton Novi 2200 supercharger front and center on the passenger side of the engine bay. Earlier Novi 2200 iterations for the 4.6-liter three-valve are mounted on the driver’s side.

“The car originally came in for a full fuel system upgrade, a smaller pulley upgrade, and an 8-rib conversion,” Lee Sweitzer, one of the main technicians at Sweitzer Performance told us.

“Vortech is currently in the process of making an 8-rib conversion for us, but we still had Tristin scheduled for dyno time this week; so we asked him to bring the car in so we could install the fuel system in preparation of the anticipated power increase. We put the new complete fuel system in it, and we converted it to use E85 fuel.”

Before installing the new fuel system components, Sweitzer said that the Paxton-blown Coyote put down 541 horsepower and 441 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. Post installation, the car was dyno tuned for more additional timing, thanks to the cooler intake charge of E85 fuel.

The combined changes netted more than 91 horsepower and 46 lb-ft of torque when all was said and done.

“After converting to E85, we made more than 631 horsepower and 487 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels,” Sweitzer explained. “No additional boost was needed–just a different fuel type and some additional timing. The new tune was built from scratch, as the parameters for gasoline are totally different. In a boosted application like this Paxton blown Coyote, you can expect some pretty respectable horsepower gains from utilizing an alcohol-based fuel like E85. For a street car, this fuel really does bridge the gap between pump gas and race fuel. It’s availability is abundant in Southern California,” he concluded.

Stick around for our next segment, where we follow the folks at Sweitzer Performance as they continue to add additional horsepower to this Paxton Novi 2200 blown Coyote Mustang!