[OHC230]

Just for the hell of it last week, I decided to put my ported Esslinger head on on my Mustang, just to see what it would do. I have my Merkur taken apart for maintenance, so I pulled the head off and stuck it on the Stang.

As soon as I was done with the swap, I could tell that the stock injectors were not going to cover this and that I had some serious fuel mapping to do. After a week of messing with this thing and some different injectors, I decided to do a dyno pull at my friends shop. He is not sure about the dyno calibrations, but my intuition and seat of the pants feel, gave me the impression that the numbers are correct. With the A-237 cam installed we saw 236 RWHP @6250 RPM and 251 lb ft of torque!!!@4600 RPM

My poor AL4D! I can't believe that POS is still working!

I am going to destroy my car with this power level, but MAN! it sure is fun. I don't know why, but I drove this thing to work today and made a few enemies along the way. My apologies to the guy in the late model Camaro down in Fremont who I cut off today sorry, but there was no way you were going to pass me, he really did try, but this car really moves with this head installed. it feels like it has 400 HP

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[free2.3]

cool what compression are you running? you gotta love bing faster that v8s haha. You still got an A4LD!!!!! Haha those things dont hold up to stock engines and you almost tripled your power. Im surprised your bands aint roasted by now.

[v606er]

I like the text colors you use. They make the story more exciting!

[Nitrous-Junky]

OHC230, How much did that head set you back? What injectors are you running?

[OHC230]

Im surprised your bands aint roasted by now.

Yeah I know, this isn't going to last too long. I never intended to keep this thing like this, I was more interested in what the results would look like. If anyone ever doubted weather the Esslinger head really works, we have our answer. I guess so.

I calculated the compression at 11.3:1, which is a little high with this cam, I poured a can of 104+ octane booster in the tank. Cranking compression is 240 lbs. Waaay too high for a street engine. Throttle response is ridiculous though. The sad open differential in this thing, just lets the right tire go up in a haze of smoke.

OHC230, How much did that head set you back?

I don't remember what the total bill was, but I think I spent a little over $2500 for everything, including the Esslinger turbo cam. I bought the head for my Merkur, not my Mustang. The Merkur is a 2.7L and for that project, I went all out. Took me a few years to collect all of the parts on that project.


What injectors are you running?

I have the old stock, brown top injectors out of my Merkur, stuck in there for now. they are 36 lb PPH I believe.

[Nitrous-Junky]

Did you do anything special to run the Turbo Merkur injectors? I am looking for Hi-Performance replacements for my factory injectors

[blaten22]

Rofl I'd Like to know if you could make this streetable and what mpg you'd get lol. Nice work man. Makes me more excited to get mine rolling. I have a T-5 tranny and that would be killer with some 3.73's in the rear end and a t-lok of some kind. Did it spark knock at all? Retard any timing?

[OHC230]

Did you do anything special to run the Turbo Merkur injectors?

I run an EEC tuner in my car, so yes I had to change the fuel trims to make the injectors work.

I'd Like to know if you could make this streetable and what mpg you'd get lol.

Emissions legal streetable, or drives nice on the street streetable? It drives just as nicely as any other vehicle. The way I have been driving it, it is getting about 11 MPG, but if I were to drive at normal speeds it should pull MPG in the 20's.

Did it spark knock at all? Retard any timing?

No audiable detonation, but I wasn't going to take any chances, which is why I used octane booster. I have a dash mounted MSD spark timing control, so I can adjust the timing while driving. When we had the car on the dyno, we were playing around with this a bit and settled on 15 degrees initial advance. I never got around to recording the total advance.

Like I stated earlier, I was just really curious about this head and the affects it would have on performance in a N/A engine.

I think this thing could easily pick up another 30-40 HP, with just a cam change, but I am limiting the RPM, for fear of breaking a piston skirt.

[blaten22]

Was refering to the MPG part of it. Man i could just imagine if you had a t-5 behind it

[OHC230]

Correction on the dyno #'s

I have an update on the dyno numbers from my last run. It seems that the calibration was off a bit on the first run. I am still not disappointed with the results though. It seems that we are closer to 205-210 HP at the flywheel, but I tell you, that doesn't change the fact that this car is an absolute blast to drive. I drove it again last night and was able to beat a 5.0L Mustang onto the freeway merge lane. I could tell he was pushing it hard by the sound of his engine revving and the rude gesture that he gave me when he finally caught up to me. I am really tempted at this point; to buy some pistons and rods for this, maybe add a 100 HP shot of Nitrous.

Blaten, you are right, I guess I need to swap the trans first.

[blaten22]

Did they set for spark knock on 93 octane or are you still running 104 as a precaution?

[lcorriveau3]

I'd like to say that this is a cool thread. It is interesting to hear about 4 cyl and 6 cyl run strong on the street and track.

[OHC230]

Did they set for spark knock on 93 octane or are you still running 104 as a precaution?

I do all of my own programming with the EEC tuner and I'm still running the 104 additive. The A-237 cam that I have in the car, was re-ground with an extra .020" lift, but the intake closing event on the cam is very close to the original A-237 specs. Of course the intake closing event on a cam, dictates what the effective compression stroke length looks like, so the later the intake valve closes, the less chance it has to compress the mixture.

The reason I bring this up, is to point out that changing the cam, to one which has a later intake closing event, would reduce the compression stroke length and lower the dynamic pressure within the engine, making it possible to run a lower octane fuel. The trade off would be a loss of low speed torque and lower engine vacuum and all the trouble that comes with that.

I honestly did not expect to see a 25 HP gain, by changing to the Esslinger head and 205 HP is unheard of for this combination. This shouldn’t have worked this well in theory if at all, but these results are driven from high dynamic cylinder pressures. I guess if one were to add water injection (very feasible) you could have your cake and eat it too with this combination.

I can only think of one 4 cylinder car engine that compares to this and that’s the 87' Porsche 944 S motor.
They had extremely high cranking compression and their specific output of 190 HP from 2.5 liters showed this. Nay-sayers should keep this in mind. These were emission controlled motors too, as is mine.

I don't think I've reached the power limit with this yet, I have a few more tricks I want to try.

[blaten22]

I don't think I've reached the power limit with this yet, I have a few more tricks I want to try

Sounds awesome, look foward to reading up on it. Running on 104 all the time is probally some money though.

[OHC230]

Running on 104 all the time is probally some money though

Yeah, I'm feeling it. I think the water injection thing, is looking like the answer.

[TaterTodd]

OHC,

I had a thought last night, and yes it hurt, The 87-93 V-8's were rated at 225 hp. and the 2.3's were rated at 88 hp. Now is that Hp rating at an engine dyno or was it the rwhp? Now here's the thought, if the 225 was at the engine dyno you lose what 15% (guessing at the %) at the rear wheels. Your old hp at 181 just might have been right where the V-8's are at the rear wheels. Or am I completely off track? The second part of that thought was if you added a turbo you just might be near the 300 mark at least over 250 hp. Tune it for 91 octane and that would be one mean as heck little 2.3 ....

[OHC230]

Todd, I have built and tuned a number of 5.0 Mustang engines over the years. The HP varies a bit on most engines and it has been my experience that the 5.0 varies quite a bit as well. A lot of guys get on the chassis dyno expecting amazing results and are often disappointed by what they see. I have tested stock 5.0 mustangs and seen numbers between 165-215 HP at the rear wheels. What I take away from this is: there is a lot of HP variation due to all sorts of conditions. Every once in a while you come across an engine that....just for no apparent reason, outperforms all of the rest. Think about how many variables there are: there's temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, fuel quality engine tune and so on.....

My HP numbers are really good but they are corrected for flywheel output. It doesn't seem to matter though, my car is definitely quicker than any 5.0 mustang I have raced. Of course out here in Cali, the Enviro-Nazi's make it next to impossible to modify your car, so there are a lot of stock or near stock 5.0's running around.

Yeah I could take the motor out of my Merkur and drop it in the Mustang and I could have 500 HP at the rear wheels, but I am happy with the Mustang just like it is. I keep finding little ways of improving it and for me, that's kind of the fun of it.

Right now I am working on ways to make my car lighter. I picked up some Hollow SN 95 sway bars from the wrecking yard the other day, they are quite a bit lighter than the original solid ones.

[TaterTodd]

live in Florida ... we can do anything we want to our cars .. You should see some of the junk driving on the streets over here. I love Cali. Been there many times for business and pleasure but I always loved coming back to someplace that has a lot less vehicle restrictions.

As for the variations in horse power in the 5.0's, I knew there would be some. After Ford added MAS air on the 90's they never adjusted the hp levels. It was always said that the 90-93 Mustangs had less hp because of this. I've read in some magazines the hp in the 90's went as low as 205 because of the MAS air. Whether or not any of this is true I don't know.

[92Notch]

Wow, that's amazing HP out of that engine! Nice job! I wouldn't wanna race you in my 5.0, that's for sure. After you lighten it up as much as you can, it'll really be quick.

[OHC230]

I always loved coming back to someplace that has a lot less vehicle restrictions.

I'll bet. It is a real pain trying to deal with the Cal air resource board. They consider anything you do to you car "Tampering" How the hell could it be tampering if you own it?

What really gets me is that they "CARB" doesn't even care if you modify your car and it runs cleaner, they don't want you to touch it. I bought 2 very expensive California converters for my car tuned the hell out of it so it runs clean in normal driving modes and it now runs as clean as a brand new Honda, but it is still technically illegal in Cali. That is just idiocy!

After you lighten it up as much as you can, it'll really be quick

People are really surprised at just how much this amount of power does for this car, it is really fun to drive. If Ford had built Mustangs from the factory this way, they would have sold out of these cars.