Heya Joe,
Lemme review what's in your thread so far:
On the dyno you're able to pull all the way to redline with your combo with no trouble but on the street you're running into pinging problems towards the top of your RPM range. In other words: Once everything is good and heat soaked then here comes the "ping ping ping". The long and short of it is that your intake air tempurature charge is too high. You're able to get away with it on the dyno with a cool down period between pulls and your tuner seems to be tuning you right to the ragged edge.
There are options for bringing your blower discharge tempurature and thus your intake tempurature down to a streetable levels.
In no particular order:
Intercooling: Using Vortec's air to water intercooler will certianly bring those temps down. It's what it's designed to do. The cost will be in your wallet and in the amount of boost that actually makes it to the intake. Expect to see a drop of 2 or 3 lbs of boost as a result of using an intercooler. If you're already at the upper limit of your blower's efficiency, then spinning the blower faster to make up for decrease is not an option.
Water/Methanol: This will also bring down your blower discharge tempuratures and thus your intake tempuratures. Done correctly, this has the portential of being a relatively inexpensinve solution to your problem (vs. an intercooler). Constant vigilance is require to ensure that this system is always working and kept filled. If your tuner has tune your combination to rely on this system then just a short period of time without it could spell the end your motor. You must tune the combination for use with the mixture you plan to use every day. There are several options when consdiering the solution you plan to inject. Straight water is great but cold weather is around the corner and straight water in the reservoir isn't much of an option for liquid with the potential to freeze.
DROP THE BOOST!: You're putting down 512 RWHP out a stock 2 bolt Ford power plant. Depending on the abdiatic effeciency of the blower, each lb of boost can be worth between 30 and 60 degrees in blower air discharge tempuratures. Dropping the boost will kill two birds with one stone. It will decrease your total intake tempurature AND bring your entire combination a hair closer to something more tolerable by the anemic stock engine block. Go fast goodies are great! They aren't worth a hill of beans when the block splits down the middle though. It's true that poor tuning and detonation is the number one killer of an engine block, but it's also true that sheer torsional force applied to the block in excess of what it's cabable of handling will also tear it up just the same. Cost for this mod??? Cheapest of all the above. You may end up loosing a bit of HP but you'd also loose at least some with the other options as well. Since you're at the peak of your blower's efficiency, turning up the boost to make up the loss from an intercooler is not an option.
One other thing that's worth mentioning is that if you're spinning that blower above what the manufacturer rates it for abdiatic efficiency then that 30 to 60 degrees per lb o fboost I mentioned above wil actually be HIGHER!
One other thing worthy of note is that you meantioned to me that your pinging problems are at or around 5000 RPM. Dropping to the boost a hair by going to the smaller pulley may not cost you what you think it will in terms of HP. Instead, it may allow you pull all the way to redline and just move that power you like so much a hair further up the the RPM range.
Have I left anything out?
I was under the impression that you needed a cooler for anything over 8lbs. of boost!!
