[MustangLife11]

Ok so i am fairly new to mustangs bought my 93 2.3 lx not too long ago. car runs great no issues. but i have been craving more power but who isnt. anyways i have been reading alot of forums about what to do and what not to do but i need some solid advice. some say throw a ranger header on it and others say its pointless this car is my daily driver and i dont have thousands to spend. all advice is welcome i am also a do it yourself person have fixed all problems that came up with the car already even tho they have been minor.

Thanks in advance to everyone


93 2.3 lx mustang

[Smokestang88]

if you ever get a CAI for yours dont get the ebay short ram cold air intake... i got one on mine and its nice but it seems to suck hot air from the radiator on my car when its hot out... im gunna get some 3" mandrel bent pipe and weld one up that will go through the firewall and go to an opening behind the front bumper and hopefully it will suck some colder air..

[BrianF]

i thinks that any piece of advice that we can give you depends on your goals with the car...

[Mikel89us]

Just look through these forums and you will find all the information you need. There are mods from cheap to extreme, and easy to difficult. You can find what ever yo want to know. If you find something that is not here that you need to know, you will find help.

[Cobraman1024]

I've only had my '93 2.3L LX for about 8 months now and I'm pretty extensive with the stuff I've done.
First thing was the A4LD to T5 conversion. Bumped highway gas mileage up from 22mpg to 30mpg. Also, since the car was an automatic to begin with, it came from the factory with 3.73 gears. They work even better with a T5.
Next was the black interior conversion from the black/gray two tone. I replaced the headliner by doing it myself with material from Hancock Fabrics for $16.
My car already had a straight pipe in place of the catalytic converter section.
I also added the Ranger header but mine actually came from its brother, the Mazda B2300.
Gutted the air induction tube between the maf and throttle body.
Next up will be the 5-lug conversion with rearwheel disc brakes replacing the drums and an 8.8 rearend replacing the 7.5 rearend. Eventually Cobra brakes will replace the four-wheel disc little stuff.

[MustangLife11]

Thanks for the advice i will be trying some things out and keeping my progress up to date. As for my goals with the car i would like to get it in between 150 and 200 horse power but leaning more towards 150. I will be getting the header and cai within the next 2 weeks.

[BrianF]

well if you are looking for 150hp , you´ll need to improve the flow of your engine, you can do this by removing the air silencer from the intake and installing a K&N stock style filter and gutting the stock air box, adding a header ( not the ranger header , this header its almost the same as the stock exhaust heade style manifold) , and installing a good muffler with no cats and increising your pipe to 2.5", you´ll need a larger cam too to ad more flow to your engine, so now your engine will breath enought to produce more power, you´ll need larger injectors too because you will need more gas to produce more power.

I think that all of this mod are enought to produce 150hp, maybe more im not so sure.

[MustangLife11]

Thanks brianf i will keep these in mind. So my next question is if i start modding things like my injectors and cam will i need to replace my stock computer.

[BrianF]

i think that the stock injectors are 14lb/h , im not very sure but once i read that you can install 19lb/h injectors with the stock computer , and you can change your cam for a stage 1 cam without any problem, yo can mild the head a little too =)

[ReverendDexter]

Cobraman, what are you doing with your 2.3 that needs big brakes?

[MustangLife11]

Thats great i didnt know that the stock computer could manage that kind of change. thanks again to everyone who has posted. I appreciate it and keep it coming i cant wait to start the mods and see the results.

[OHC230]

In order to make 150 HP, your car will need some 24 lb per hour fuel injectors.

Generally, 19bl. Injectors will only deliver enough fuel for about 125-130 HP. A rough method for calculating for fuel injector size is this;

Estimated HP X Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (which is close to .50) divided by
The number of fuel injectors you have (4) times the maximum duty cycle available from your computer .80 in this case.

In order to run larger than 19lb injectors, you will need some kind of tuning device to adjust the injector pulse width, so that the engine does not run excessively rich. There is a bit of a learning curve involved with fuel injection tuning and if are interested in improving the performance of your car, I suggest that you do somoe reading on the topic.

What many refer to on these and other forums as a Stage 1 cam, is a cam designed for Ford in the 1980’s (offered by several manufactures) which features a roller profile and .420” of valve lift and a split duration for intake and exhaust events. The installation of this particular cam does not necessitate tuning of the stock ECU in most cases. It is most effectively used by carefully and methodically adjusting its position, utilizing an index able cam sprocket.

At this power level, a small tube header (available through Racer Walsh) would be your best bet, coupled with the, afore mentioned 2.5” exhaust. The factory Ranger header has far too many impediments for this level of power.

As previously mentioned, the stock air box with a K&N filter, with the baffles removed from the intake muffler, is more than adequate for any street driven 2.3 and shows up consistently on dyno pulls, to be superior to the aftermarket cone/tube style intakes.

These modifications won’t guarantee you 150HP without some increases in port flow, but you will definitely notice an increase in performance over the stock engine, without much penalty in mileage.

OHC.

[ReverendDexter]

One thing I'd like to add here is look at the flipside of power: less weight.

Any weight you can pull out of your car is going to be beneficial, not just for acceleration, but for braking, handling, fuel economy, and tire wear. Just remember that unpsrung weight is worse than sprung, and moving weight is worse than static (e.g. light-weight wheels are a lot more effective of a weight reduction than removing your back seat).

Also, I'm flat shocked no one has mentioned gears yet. 2.3s came with 2.73s stock, there were optional 3.08s, and optional 3.27s in automatic cars. No matter what you have, a set of 3.73s (or 4.10s if you don't fear the gear) will give you a HUGE increase in acceleration with no added power needed

[OHC230]

The Reverend makes some very good points here, SN/95 Mustangs used hollow sway bars which are less than half the weight of the original bars and can be had for next to nothing from a wrecking yard. There are dozens of areas to reduce your vehicle weight. There is a thread here on the 4 cylinder forums covering weight saving, which might be worth looking for. The thread is packed full of weight saving ideas.

Most, if not all of the N/A 2.3L Mustangs, came factory equipped with 3.45 gear sets for manual transmission cars or 3.73 for cars with automatics . (Check the right side of your differential cover for a tag; the first 3 numbers denote the axle ratio on your Mustang) Since the 4 cylinder Mustangs use a 7.5" axle, same as the Ranger, you can easily find a 4.10 gear set from the wrecking yard, which will help acceleration quite a bit.

[ReverendDexter]

Originally Posted by OHC230 Most, if not all of the N/A 2.3L Mustangs, came factory equipped with 3.45 gear sets for manual transmission cars or 3.73 for cars with automatics

It's been a long time since I had my 2.3L... it doesn't seem like it had 3.73s in it, though and it was the craptastic A4LD.

[Cobraman1024]

Originally Posted by ReverendDexter Cobraman, what are you doing with your 2.3 that needs big brakes?

How you ever seen the way I drive?? I've gotta save my ass on insurance rates somehow

Seriously though, I'm planning a v8 conversion later on down the road.
This car is going to become what my '87 GT never had the chance to be.

[Cobraman1024]

Originally Posted by BrianF ...........adding a header (not the ranger header, this header its almost the same as the stock exhaust heade style manifold) .

I'm curious how you've come to this conclusion; it wasn't because of the results another member came up with when they compared the Ranger header to the longtube header with his various and extensive modifications was it?

It's too bad I didn't do a dyno comparison between the factory manifold and the ranger manifold with my very basic deviations from stock.

On another note, and I've said it before lol......I swapped out the factory manifold for the ranger header for two reasons;
1. It just plain looks nicer

2. The ranger header is 20lbs lighter than the factory manifold.

[OHC230]

Cobraman, because I was curious, I decided go out to my storage shed and grab a manifold and a Ranger header, so I could verify the weight of both. The 90’ manifold weighs in at 22.5 lbs and the Ranger header tips the scales at just a little less than 14 lbs.

So there’s 8 lbs of weight savings and yes that is a good thing, but in terms of performance, the iron manifold has been equal to or better in most if not all of the dyno tests I have made or seen and it performs slightly better on a flow bench as well. Port matching and enlarging the collector portion of the manifold yields even better results, giving a couple of extra HP on an otherwise stock engine. You can't really do that on the Ranger header.

From a scientific standpoint, this makes sense to me, since the manifold does a far better job of containing the heat energy from the exhaust stream and it also has equal length tubes unlike the ranger header’s pseudo pulse converter set up. Whoever designed the stock iron manifold knew what they were doing.

If you are happy with the Ranger header and it works for you, by all means use it. No 2 engines are exactly the same and who knows what might work for a particular engine combination.

[Cobraman1024]

Originally Posted by OHC230 Cobraman, because I was curious, I decided go out to my storage shed and grab a manifold and a Ranger header, so I could verify the weight of both. The 90’ manifold weighs in at 22.5 lbs and the Ranger header tips the scales at just a little less than 14 lbs. So there’s 8 lbs of weight savings and yes that is a good thing, but in terms of performance, the iron manifold has been equal to or better in most if not all of the dyno tests I have made or seen and it performs slightly better on a flow bench as well. Port matching and enlarging the collector portion of the manifold yields even better results, giving a couple of extra HP on an otherwise stock engine. You can't really do that on the Ranger header. From a scientific standpoint, this makes sense to me, since the manifold does a far better job of containing the heat energy from the exhaust stream and it also has equal length tubes unlike the ranger header’s pseudo pulse converter set up. Whoever designed the stock iron manifold knew what they were doing. If you are happy with the Ranger header and it works for you, by all means use it. No 2 engines are exactly the same and who knows what might work for a particular engine combination.

It sure felt like a whole lot more than a 8lb difference lol......someone started that vicious 20lb weight reduction rumor and I just went with it.
You're observations make sense from a scientific standpoint and all that stuff is probably true but I dropped the money on the crap so its in the car. I will tell ya one thing though; I do have a CEL for code 182 that wasn't there before I put in the Ranger header..........I've been through everything in the damn car that I've though could prossibly cause it and its still there. Maybe switching back to the boat anchor would get rid of it.

[OHC230]

Cobraman, we never did follow up on your lean mixture problem. Last time we discussed it, you had replaced O2 sensors, fuel pump and regulator? Y/N
Did you ever replace the injectors with new ones?


Unfortunately, the header is probably not causing the lean condition code.