A lone EGT gauge monitors temps on the dyno and down the track. Running in Overdrive, we saw 1,600 degrees without nitrous and a cool 1,200 degrees when on the go-juice.
When we asked Messina why his Ford has lived through a stock transmission and converter when others have failed, his answer was simple. Tuning. He said that Innovative's program tunes the transmission as well as the engine to match the new stronger power curve. Another thing we noticed was that Messina's truck has a very broad powerband. Although the peak power is less than might be expected, the truck makes over 400 rear wheel horsepower from 2,600 rpm all the way up to the 4,000-rpm redline. For getting down the dragstrip quickly, sometimes a greater average power number throughout the power curve can give you better performance on the track than a big power spike in one place would. At the end of the day, we left the dyno with a new respect for Ford 5R110 transmissions, and proof that a few well-engineered parts can lead to some pretty impressive numbers.
The Billet Garage custom nitrous system was pieced together with parts from Edelbrock, NOS, and Pro-Precision, and features the coolest bottle bracket we have ever seen. | 
For the dyno runs, a bottle heater was used to keep bottle pressure at approximately 1,000 psi. | 
For activation, a full-throttle microswitch is mounted underneath the throttle pedal. This ensures the nitrous will only work under full-throttle conditions when there is plenty of boost and fuel available. |
A purge switch is also used by Messina, more for consistency's sake to make sure there is no air in the nitrous line. | 
On the dyno at DC Performance, the truck made 441 rear wheel horsepower, or almost double the stock rating of 237. | 
Messina's power curves are more "power table-tops" than anything else. With readings within 15% of the peak power throughout most of the rpm range, Messina's truck proves you don't need huge dyno numbers to go fast. This truck proves that peak numbers on a dyno are great for bragging rights, but they don't mean squat on the race track. |