[neckbonekat]

Originally posted by FryRice:

No, Im not the technical wizard and this post is NOT the bible, but I feel like I have some good info to share for guys who are where many of us were at one point and were'nt really sure where to begin.[/quote][quote=Fryrice]

I have seen a lot of guys who are new to the performance game ask many of the same questions over and over again. Nothing wrong with that, we have all been there trust me.

You work hard like many of us, and you want your cash to pay off in HP upgrades. You certainly dont want to waste that cash on mod's that look pretty and gain shitty (nice huh). So here are some important pointers when you are considering what to spend that hard earned cash on. This post describes a scenario in a modern modular motor (and pushrod in most cases)....

Debunking the CAI (cold air intake) hype....

First off, what is the purpose of a CAI? A CAI is supposed to cool the inlet charge or allow cooler/more air into the combustion chamber. The cooler the air, the denser the oxygen, therefore you theoretically have more oxygen in the same amount of space compared to warmer air in the same space. Its simple, more air/fuel mixture equals more power right? Cooler air makes more power right? Yes and no...Says the manufactuers.

When they claim 10-15 hp gains with their CAI, where do you think they do the tests? In the desert where cold air would really be a benefit to your motor? Nope. In a controlled enviroment with the right enviromental conditions so they can give you big numbers under the absolute best conditions. Guys when your car is sucking in 95 degree heat, its not gonna create 60 degree air. Its like the small print you read at the bottom of a weight loss commercial. When they say "you can lose 20 pounds in 4 weeks", dont you notice the small print at the bottom of the screen? It says,results may vary blah blah. You get the point.

Is a CAI useless? Nope. But is it the RIGHT investment for your first mod? Not in my opinion, and the opinions of people who have been chasing big HP numbers for years. Read on.

1) A nice cold air intake system certainly looks better that the factory intake, but are a waste of money as a FIRST or second mod. Its like a hot chick that wont give up that ass, SHE LOOKS GOOD BUT WHATS THE POINT? The factory air intake is actually capable of handling significant air flow. A K&N filter is a good choice because is will flow better than the factory paper cone. Thats its only purpose.

2) For an average name brand CAI you may spend around $150 new. Now ask yourself, how much air are you moving? You have factory cams and heads (PI in a best case scenario) and a restrictive factory exhaust. Are you making so much airflow that the factory engineered intake just cannot handle your massive HP? No.

3) So you may be asking, "Well if a CAI is better at creating cooler/denser air as said earlier, then how come its not a good investment?" It's not a bad investment, Its just not a good FIRST investment. You need a plan of attack when looking for sizeable HP gains, and you cant build big HP from the Autozone shelves. Unfortunately, HP costs money.

"Ok OK I get it. "Im not moving tons of air, therefore I dont really need to cool what air I'm moving now. So whats the plan of attack?

OK, it breaks down like this among guys in the know:

GEARS -- The biggest vote getter in terms of first mod's is usually gears. A gear change is possibly the most difficult thing you can do on your car. Not because its so mind boggling confusing, but because the room for error is extremely minimal. Pay a pro if you cant find someone experienced to walk you through it. You can generally get a set of Ford Racing gears installed along with Royal Purple differential fluid for around $400. Anything higher than that is maybe too high, $450 tops.

Your Stang probably came with 3.27 gear ratio in late model modular Stangs. Thats fine for factory performance and fuel economy and your factory tire size, but they do not optimize the potential of the factory power. Picking the right gears for your car can result in a very nice gain in performance. Not more HP, but better utilization of the factory power.

What gears should you get? First off lets explain what a gear ratio is. A gear ratio is the number of teeth on the ring divided by the number of teeth on the pinion. It's like this: If there are 41 teeth on the ring and 11 on the piston the gear ratio is 3.73 (technically its 3.7272727272 repeatedly but its rounded up to 3.73). Just divide 41 by 11 on a calculator on you will see. Things like a larger tire size or automatic tranny dictate what gear ratio works best for your car.

Example: If you upgrade your tire size, you need a higher gear ratio. Why? Because the larger tire takes longer to rotate, so basically the more teeth you have, the faster your tranny will rotate the rear tires, resulting in faster speeds. On the other side of that, if you keep the factory tires and upgrade your gears, you will see a big jump in performance as far a getty-up movement. Now you might say, "in that case Ill go with a real high ratio". Logical thinking, but incorrect in most cases. The higher the gear ratio, the more heat you create in the differential, which COUlD cause fluid breakdown. So there is a fine balance of what you desire and what you really need. Bigger isn't always better.

Same logic applies to a automatic tranny versus a manual. So to save you time, I'll just give away the answer to your question. What's the best gears for an automatic? MOST guys who know their stuff will say something like 4:10 gears because of the fact that you lose HP from the time its made in the motor to the time it actually reaches the rear tires a.k.a parasitic loss. Thats in a automatic. So its beneficial to have more teeth for a auto. A manual? 3:73. You dont need as many teeth because a manual doesnt lose as much power along the drivetrain as a automatic does. You will really feel a big difference with gears.

OK, lets jump to what you really wanna know- Horsepower and the best way to get it! This topic could be typed for days and still could not be explained in its entirety, so lets go over the short version.

First of all, I dont care if you have a supercharged 460 big block making 600 HP under your hood. If you cant get that air out the back of tha car, your killing your performance, which brings us to?

EXHAUST -- Now which exhaust is a LONG and opionated debate. Some x-pipes sound great while others sound like hell with certain mufflers blah blah blah. Thats just really a matter of taste, but what I can tell you is that when your ride left the factory, it left with multiple cats (up to 6) fuggin up your flow. So yes,you should definately upgrade your exhaust. Headers are a big job, so you may wanna start with the mufflers and mid-pipe and go from there like most people do. If you choose a O/R-pipe, your car will be louder and illegal in most states, but the odds are slim that you will get caught by the fuzz anyways. So thats on you. You can also choose high flow cats which may or may not pass emissions tests. So basically, a nice 2.5 system is the typical way to go, and you have to experiment with what set-up you want.

Now we get to the good stuff. Making real power....

You can buy a CAI, a 70mm TB, plenum and every other bolt-on you can think of for under your hood, and you still are not gonna get the gains you could if you save that money for something like a more agressive cam profile and tune or a good port job. Why? Because those parts dont "make" HP, not in the conventional sense. They are good investments eventually. They are mainly a support system for the more expensive parts to put it bluntly. As said before, HP aint cheap.

CAMS --- What does a cam do? When the cam spins, its lobes (egg shaped grooves on it) open and close the intake and exhaust valves along with the motion of the piston, rocker arms and the valve springs close them. Soon after you have air/fuel mixing together, the spark plugs are igniting the mixture and boom, you have internal combustion. Thousands of controlled explosions per minute. I wont get into TDC, pistons, stroke and all that other stuff here. Thats the short version.

So you may be wondering then, what does a aftermarket cam set-up do for me? Its like this. There is NO PERFECT CAM PROFILE. Thats why you have SOHC, DOHC etc., but thats another story Some cams are good at low RPM's while some do better at higher RPM's or somewhere inbetween. So somewhere you have to make a compromise.

The reason a more aggressive (bigger) cam profile is better at making more HP is simple. The bigger the lobes, the longer (duration) the valves stay open and the wider (lift) they open, allowing more oppurtunity for air/fuel mixture and that is what HP is all about. More air/fuel. The factory cams are designed for many different purposes in mind, and big HP is hardly one of them. Manufacturers have to meet lots of different federal guidlines when it comes to fuel mileage, reliability and of course price, so they design parts to accomplish this and leave the hot rodding up to you most of the time, but when they do build a beast of a sports cars with a forged bottom end and blower, it usually outta the average guys price range.

When properly tuned and installed a good cam profile can net you anywhere from 35-50 HP in some cases. It all depends on the profile and what other mod's you have. So as you can see, cam's are the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to modular motors. Talk to any good cam company about your needs, or post it here.

CYLINDER HEADS --- When it comes to cylinder heads, us modular guys kinda got the shaft (no pun intended) compared to the push rod crowd. The PI heads and their different variations are basically the best available. FRPP has high performace versions however,and they are expensive. The most common method of improving the heads is porting. Thats when you modify the intake/exhaust ports on the heads using a air flow bench (you dont have one unless your awesome). This increases gas flow. Incase you havent noticed "flow" is a very common word all in this post. The science of porting is a long one, so Im gonna skip all that. Basically, you take your heads to a shop and ask for a port job. There are different stages of port jobs, so you need to pick what you can afford and what you want to accomplish.

SUPERCHARGER --- If you have maxed out the modular motor as far as N/A mod's go, you are probably making some nice power, and you may be done, but as soon as some F-Body does a number on you at the track or stoplight, your gonna want more.

Unfortunately for modular motors, even with all the upgrades discussed here, you will still fall way short of SERIOUS HP. If you make 350hp N/A, you da man, but your only choice for major power is forced induction a.k.a. a blower/supercharger.

I think forced induction is self explanatory, but here is the easy version. The supercharger intake sucks in air and the supercharger crams massive amounts of air into the motor and creates whiplash power. Thats why you need bigger fuel injectors to introduce more fuel to the equation when you go the blower route. If you are going to get a roots style blower, thats another reason not to buy a TB, CAI plenum and anything else that sits on top of you motor. A roots style blower like a Kenne Bell eliminates all that.

Soooooooooo heres the summation of this little rant. As well as the popular order of modifications that make power! Not look pretty but make power!

1. GEARS --- If you dont plan on touching the motor, get gears. They are a nice value for the punch factor, and a good beginning to future mods. Just remember the laws of teeth talked about earlier.

2. EXHAUST --- Making gob's of HP is useless unless in can get out the back. A well set-up exhaust will help make some power by not restricting air-flow, and its just a matter of preference when it comes to sound.

3. CAMS --- These are without a doubt the best investment you can make when it comes to making signifcant HP N/A. Remember, you can spend $500-$600 on bolt-on and still not make as much as a good cam profile. Just remember, if you go with a Stage 2 or higher, you will need to upgrade you valve springs and get a good tune. Stage 1 is generally safe on your factory springs and tune. Check with the cam maker for details on that.

4. CYLINDER HEADS --- If you have a 96-98 GT and dont want to go through all the hassle of buying PI parts and everything, you can get your NPI heads ported, but I say go with the PI heads and intake plus whatever cam you want if you want to make real gains. A port job is a big bonus at around $700 or higher.

5. SUPERCHARGER --- This is the big one in everyway. Big power and big price tag. One note about these is that if you are gonna go boost crazy, you NEED to forge your bottom end or else your asking for trouble. Your factory components would do ok for a while, but the night your out on a date with a hot chick, trust me...the only rod getting blown will be in your engine, lmao.

OK guys, I hope this has helped you in your dreams for moderate to big power. I obviously didn't cover every ounce of technical data out there, but its broken down I think. As I said, I dont know everything but I know some things, so feel free to chime in. Just dont waste your money on Autozone stickers a neon CAI'S.

Remember 2 things:

1 ) HP isnt cheap!

2) If it looks pretty, it gains shitty!

As you can see I didn't write this, but I copied it and reposted it here because I think it answers alot of peoples questions. I don't think enough people saw it where it was. It definitly gave me more knowledge than I had before. I hope it helps.

[WAR-PARTY]

Never buy crap from Autozone, their brand Dura-crap is just that!

[acmillr]

I love that last part- "if it looks pretty, it gains shitty". How true.....

[Slicey]

now we have 3 threads on this

[neckbonekat]

Originally Posted by Slicey now we have 3 threads on this

True, but I bet in less than a week someone will start a new thread about these exact same topics. LOL

[Invictus]

"If it looks pretty it gains shitty"

Not true for accufab TB/plenum or JLT

[Slicey]

lol. true.

[ibanez570x]

All very well written... Goob job.....

[Timber]

Pretty darn good write up, but somewhere in between cams and superchargers there's NITROUS! Maybe nitrous comes after superchargers and that's in the unwritten Volume II. :wink

[GTsetGO]

mmmmmm, nitrous

[neckbonekat]

I don't think he mentioned nitrious because this is for beginers. Most people don't advise nitrious unless you have an idea of what you are doing and know the consequences of misuse. The average daily driver that just wants a little more get-up-and-go probably isn't looking at nitrious.

[MSTGGT00]

Haha excellent word to newbs. Too bad they don't read this stuff, they just post 59 times.

AKA ... the sticky which doesnt get read or used by noobs.

[mnrlgry99gt]

Originally Posted by MSTGGT00 Haha excellent word to newbs. Too bad they don't read this stuff, they just post 59 times. AKA ... the sticky which doesnt get read or used by noobs.

Just post "SEE STICKY" and then lock the thread.

[neckbonekat]

*BUMP*

[02steedagt]

can we make this a big ass sticky bulliten thingy. it should be on the home page of the site.

[neckbonekat]

I asked, but I guess they like thiers better.

[BWAL09]

Originally Posted by Invictus "If it looks pretty it gains shitty" Not true for accufab TB/plenum or JLT

and the polished kenne bell

[ChrisJ]

THere is already a sticky of this...

[ATLmustang]

what about the electric supercharger thats platinum plated

[02steedagt]

Originally Posted by ATLmustang what about the electric supercharger thats platinum plated

u talking about that $60 thing? that thing is bullshit.