I'm proud owner 99 Cougar with a Vortech s/c kit. I too was pretty disappointed with the initial performance, especially below 3k rpm. I purchased the kit for added performance. The s/c is not as powerful as the turbo but when it gets going man it's fun as hell to drive. If you launch it right you can beat if not hang with most of the cars on the road today. I recently had to take off my heavy 19" chrome wheeels and put back on my stock 16"'s. I never realized how much the weight of wheels have on performance, it's like a whole new car. My cougar is so much more fun to drive now that I'm haven't even put my 19"'s back on yet. Again yeah the s/c isn't as fast as the turbo kits but its tons better than stock. I've had 10,000 miles of pure driving pleasure, and hopefully I'll have 30,000 more. Later
Courtney