Need just a LITTLE bit more power

[Whiskey11]

I'm not an engine buy (no shit right?) but I think I would find yourself an engine builder you can put your trust in and begin bugging him for questions. A part of me thinks that if you play with the intake, heads and cam you should hit your goals without too much raping of the mid range but to gain the peak power you are going to lose some down low and that is the nature of the beast.

If I were in your shoes I would start with ported heads with larger valves and stiffer springs and see what happens when you rev the piss out of the motor. I realize fully that the 3V heads flow pretty good numbers but there has to be gain there.

From there I think I would look into the cams and see if you can't find a cam that does what you need it to do.

Last would be the intake manifold. Mainly because this is guaranteed to hit the down low pretty hard and trade it for the top end. Cams will do it too...

Short of that, I would look into the bottom end of the motor and go higher compression and a little more stroke to keep the torques going.

 

[dontlifttoshift]

... and I would prefer not to start building the engine internally. At that point, I might as well do a LSX swap and toss in a restrictor and save weight.

Fixed!

I would think a cam swap is the easy button in this case. That right cams should make more power everywhere. You may need a custom grind to acheive your specific goals.

 

[frank s]

In the Olden Days I heard about tuning the intake for horsepower and the exhaust for torque. Probably no direct transfer to modern engines, but smaller-diameter and longer exhaust systems might reduce some of the loss from high-hp mods.

 

[ArizonaGT]

Stroker kit??

 

[NoTicket]

This may sound like a ridiculous idea... But I may as well throw it out there. You are looking at adding roughly 10% more power. Do you think you could reach this goal by upgrading the heads and running a meth injection system with a more aggressive tune (maybe more aggressive pump and injectors)?

I realize meth injection is a pita (and possibly banned, I haven't looked) but just thought I would throw it out there.

 

[Pentalab]

Road coursing with a supercharger no bueno, dat heat soak.

No it won't. Heat soak comes when you park it for 20 mins..then fire it back up. The aluminum manifold will be cooked from the eng block. Usually no big deal once the car is moving again. Iat's will drop like a rock.

You can make 420 rwhp from a M90..with just 6 psi boost..and oem pulley. But you will need the bigger TB, real cai, LT's and a 93/94 tune + 1 piece DS. For a road course setup... 100% distilled water + water wetter in the he/ic/pump /de-gas loop works superb.

5-7 psi boost on any of the many TVS-2300 blowers or a whipple isn't going to cause heat issues on a 4.6 L 3 V.

For your NA application.... you could try 100+ octane race gas...then advance the timing a bunch. Then have a tune for the street with 91/93 octane..and a 2nd tune for 100+ octane. It would be a cheap and easy way to get a bit more hp..with just race gas + tune.

If you want to spend more $$... you could stroke it..and also crank up the CR to like 11:1 or 12:1 or even higher.
Race gas... if allowed..+ a new tune might get you part way to your goal....and be cost effective.

Every other option will cost big $$.

E85 might be another option. It's 105-107 octane as is..and has excellent cooling properties.

 

[DevGittinJr]

IMO FRPP tb, stage 3 ported heads and Hot Rod Cams for sure. Possibly the FRPP intake mani.

With these mods (except heads), I'm at 338rwhp/314rwtq (crappy AM tune). Stage 3 heads should add about 17hp/5tq to this.

The first dyno run was with cams, shorties, and cmdp, and the second was with the addition of im, tb, udp's, and lt's. The extra mods got me 35hp/10tq. You can see that the additional hp/tq is mostly up top with little if any loss down low. The tq curve is a bit more broad/ flat, and I suspect the heads will do more of the same.

 

[sheizasosay]

That reminds me, the FRPP are made by Livernois. Livernois had some bad mojo with their heads. Back@itagain and Stanggirl06 and then another all had the same problem: over-zealous CNC machining of the heads. That was on Allfordmustangs a while back. I think two companies came up that were considered to have produced a better product: Fox Lake heads and RGR. Those people that had the livernois heads ate A LOT of money. Yum yum yum.

 

[jayel579]

Dave, I haven't read the SI rule set in a while. What is the minimum weight with driver for class? Can you cut any more weight out of the car? Even though you got it pretty light as it sits right now...

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

"SoundGuyDave" That is a pretty good size header 1-7/8" full tube with no mention of cams or ported heads. Needing 35-40RWHP you will need ported heads and we would grind you a camshaft that would suit your type of racing. Those headers will work better with some more air going thru that thing.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

"sheizasosay" just to clarify. CnC 3V Livernois heads are NOT the same as Ford Racing heads. If we are the source of any vendors product said products are built to the specifications of that client. If we happen to offer a similar product in our own lineup they would not be built with the same specifications as our stuff, this is across the board.

 

[sheizasosay]

http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76451

Back@itagain is a friend of mine. I know that he never got compensated. Matter of fact, I asked him right before I posted this.

 

[05yellowgt]

I wonder what just getting a set of good heads and milling them down to up the compression would do for you, while keeping the stock cams? You'd keep pretty much the same power curve and just get a bump from the higher compression and better flowing heads. I'm not sure I have ever seen a test of ported heads with stock cams on a 3v, so this is just a total gut feeling thing.

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Jeez, guys! After asking for 35-45HP, the suggestions are ranging from a blower, a stroker kit, and heads/cams/intake? Seriously?

Livernois: 1.75" is 1-3/4, not 1-7/8, but that said, I understand where you're coming from.

Jayel: AI (not SI) minimum weight is 2700lbs, but if I go down in weight to hit my current power levels, I'll wind up taking it in the shorts on the bigger straights due to the S197 having the same aero properties as a brick.

It's starting to sound like I really need to talk to an engine builder and see what they think. If it turns out to be heads/cams/manifold, then I'll just say screw it, and drop a Coyote in. (FWIW, Dontlift, not only is the LSX illegal in a Ford chassis, but it would cause me to break out in hives...) Just on a cost basis, heads/cams/intake will cost nearly what a Coyote kit would, and would leave me pretty well maxed out, where there is room to grow with the newer 5.0. If we're talking a stroker kit on top of heads/cam/intake, then that would be equivalent in cost to the Coyote, PLUS the BossR1 trans.

What I might just do, pending the discussions with a builder, would be to investigate a set of custom cams, and just see what I can get out of those. I'm willing to throw a grand or so at it (cams and tuning), but I just can't see investing $5K-7K into the top end of a 4.6L.

 

[AlbertD]

I think the coyote swap idea is right on. Plenty of power in stock form and ability to upgrade later if need be.

You may get close to your power figures with a custom cam, but I'm somewhat skeptical that you will be within the ranges you posted.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

You will have more $ into a Coyote swap than you think at the end of the road. To do it the correct way anyhow. Unless someone just about gives you a wrecked car to pillage.
A camshaft alone will only net you 20-25hp n/a flywheel. It needs to be head, cam, header. Preferably a step header to help that torque and get through those corners. Combo, Combo, Combo.

 

[jayel579]

Jeez, guys! After asking for 35-45HP, the suggestions are ranging from a blower, a stroker kit, and heads/cams/intake? Seriously?

Most of these guys don't understand what you are trying to accomplish.

Jayel: AI (not SI) minimum weight is 2700lbs, but if I go down in weight to hit my current power levels, I'll wind up taking it in the shorts on the bigger straights due to the S197 having the same aero properties as a brick.

Might want to give Rehagen a call, they ran that "Cammer" 5.0 motor which is a massaged over 4.6. Coyote is the easy power solution with the restricter, I rode in one at the Glen two weeks ago and man do those things pull!! That motor really shutdown any development work with the 4.6 motor. But either way I don't think this venture will be on the low end of cost for you.

 

[dontlifttoshift]

(FWIW, Dontlift, not only is the LSX illegal in a Ford chassis, but it would cause me to break out in hives...)

So 4.6s are really that bad? Swapping 4 cams gets you 25 horsepower??? That sucks. Since you bleed Ford blue, coyote swap wins.

 

[NoTicket]

Technically the 4.6L only has 2 cams...

 

[kcbrown]

The Coyote swap sounds good in principle, and it certainly gives you way more room to grow, but I expect it's going to be a lot more involved and expensive than you're expecting. At a minimum, I'd think you'd be replacing the following in addition to the longblock:

• Exhaust system: headers, H/X-pipe, etc.
• Intake: manifold, CAI, etc.)
• Fuel system: fuel rails, injectors, fuel pump, etc.
• Radiator (depends on what you've already got)
• ECU (depends on whether or not the one you have is compatible)

If you've already factored all that into your pricing structure, then it's all good.

It certainly will be a kick in the pants if you do it, though!