It is important to understand that the 400HP Whipple kit and HO 500HP kit are significantly different in terms of the installation.
The install time is about 40% longer for the HO kit. Therefore figure about 40% more in labor cost.
Ford Racing tech support stated about 10-12 hour mechanic install for the 400HP kit and 16-18 hour mechanic install for the 500 HP kit.
This is due to a couple major factors. The HO kit comes with the GT500 Dual fuel pump assembly that has an extra fuel pump module driver that requries the removal of the backseat and passenger side lower trim, removal of stock fuel pump, fuel pump harness modification, and running of an additional fuel pump harness from the trunk, along the passenger side interior trim, through the firewall, removal of the plastic front wheel well and passenger front wheel.
The next HO kit issue is the installation of the heat exchanger, mounting and wiring of bosch/ford lightning water pump, and installtion and plumbing for all pieces going from the reservioir to S/C to heat exchanger, to electric water pump.
The 400 HP kit does not require the added fuel pump or heat exchanger installation.
Next major consideration: The 400 HP kit (when installed by a Ford dealer only) will come with a warranty for the drivetrain. The installing dealer will call Ford Racing to register the part and installation into the ford database for reference and tracking. This only applies to the drivetrain (engine, trans, rear axle, driveshaft) warranty, not interior, or suspension, etc. The standard Ford warranty would still apply to non-drivetrain items.
There is very little markup in the superchargers for Whipple. If you buy from a Whipple dealer, then they have price controls. A whipple dealer is not allowed to sell to you below a certain price, it is part of their contracts.
A Ford Racing dealer that sells the whipple kits through the catalog dont have those price controls but also dont want to discount as said previously, there is minimal markup on superchargers.
Either way, the 3-4% credit card transaction fees alone mean almost $200 being spent on payment. Plus there is the cost of shipping which is about another $100-150 (150 lbs for HO kit split up into two boxes). The markup is only about 15% so you can do the math and see why a person has to make a living.
You can save money by buying out of state and not paying sales tax. But then you may have to have it shipped with above metioned costs.
The overall installation costs will vary depending on the labor rate of the shop you go to. A Ford dealer's/independent repair facility's retail labor rates are usually $80-100 per hour.
A speedshop like Brenspeed may offer package installed prices sometimes when the product is purchased from them. That may be ideal depending on the cost of sales tax.
Bottom line is be prepared to spend up to $7500-8,000 for polished HO kit fully installed.
Dyno-tune for Whipple/FRPP kit is totally un-necessary. I would recommend at the most, a simple 3-4 dyno runs to verify A/F and power readings to check on installtion. If ford is willing to warranty your whole drivetrain with the 400HP kit using the Whipple/Ford Engineered Tune then it is pretty safe and dependable.
There are only a handful of known "bad" tunes and to my knowledge those were a result of the cold air kit pro-cal tool being sent rather than the supercharger pro-cal tool (obviously a huge difference). The other issue that we have heard of involved the installer not installing/wiring the duel fuel pump drivers properly on an HO kit and the vehicle ran lean on the dyno. Hence I recommended that you run a few dyno runs or install a wideband a/f gauge into your car and look for about 11:1-11.5:1 at WOT. Sensor should be installed before the catalytic converter.
Hope this helps shed some light and save you some time shopping.
