Scotty, I need more power

[Spanky 10]

Just bought a 69 with 302 2V. Its a number matching low mileage car. I want more power w/o swapping out the motor. What can I do over the winter, Im in NY and bored, to increase power. I dont want to get crazy with a rebuild, at least not now. But want more HP. Any advice. Thanks

[Swags63 13]

The short answer is in my opinion is intake, carb, headers, ignition, then rocker arms, heads, and a cam these all can be done without pulling the engine. The best way I have found to start a project like what your talking about is to give yourself a budget. When you figure your dollar amount then shop for the best part you can buy with in it. When doing a upgrade try to think long term, for example if your going to buy an intake now and do a rebuild later make sure it will do the job later. There is a pretty good article in this months (March 2010) on what they call a garage built stroker. They built a 347 for a reasonable amount of money.

[69390 10]

if you want to start small, you could always go for a new intake and 4 barrel carb. Then add headers and a good free flowing dual exhaust system since those mods go hand in hand. Won't turn it into a rocket but will be a noticable difference and not too expensive. Past that, it is just up to your budget. I'd recommend a good electronic ignition as the next step since all those mods are very easy to do yourself except for the exhaust which might require a shop but isn't too expensive.

[Pakrat 1,043]

Agreed with the above, the basic engine wakeup package for Ford is pretty much carb/intake/Cam and exhaust, this tends to be more of a seat of your pants thing than huge HP # gaines BTW. You have to be able to exhale as well as you inhale or it is counter productive. For the first 3 on the list if you don't want to do a customized set up and worry about compatability like say Weind Stealth intake with Holley 600 4V carb and comp cams etc (what I have on my 302) then you can go to a company like edelbrock and get a whole package from them guaranteed to work well together. Exhaust is open territory and based a lot for most on the finished sound or equipment restrictions. I run full length headers with a 2.5" full stainless Magnaflow exhaust, should be the last I ever have to buy. Now that you have more gas and more air the next logical step is to improve spark via pertronix or simillar electronic conversion (or a whole new dizzy if you feel the need) with a better coil, plugs, wires etc... Once you are at this stage if you still feel you want/need more you can start to look at various heads. My car being a cruiser doesn't require the most I can get from it and with the low mileage original engine still I don't want to stress it out anyway so as opposed to spending big bucks on aluminum heads I have the old school upgrade which is using 351W heads. Some day I may pull and store it to go with a stroker 351 but for now it is a huge improvement over stock and more than enough to keep the smile from ear to ear. After that you'll want to look at your gears and steep them up a little, again a little more of a seat of the pants thing than real power but it's all about perception if you aren't trying to improve 1/4 mi times.

[MikeStang 247]

I would suggest the same as all the afore mentioned mods, but when it comes to the ignition system, if you decide to replace the distributor and go with electronic ignition, send the NEW distributor to a professional and have them tune it on a Sun machine, that has by far been the best bang for the buck of all the little things I have done to all my cars.....Example.....My 77Trans Am with 455 ran fine started and idled well, with no problems and ran consistant 13.00 to 12.90's on 8.5-1 compression, small cam, 3.23 gears, and TH 350 tranny with a nice converter, and weighing in at 4000lbs. I sent my distributor to a fellow I know and he called and said it needed a few things done to it, so I spent 75 bucks and let him work his magic....He said it should pick the car up a bit, and it did...picked it up to the tune of 3 tenths, car now runs 12.70's and I didnt do anything but have the distrubutor recurved...it also idles a bit smoother, and just feels like it performs better at every RPM. We used the same guy to do my friends 393 powered 69 MAch 1, and it picked the car up just about the same amount, and cured some of the dieseling issues we were having, along with a few other little symptoms the car was having....So in conclusion have some one recurve your dist. Sorry for the long winded post.

Mike

[Spanky 10]

Thanks for all the great info. It's been 20 years since I worked on a car, so I will ask silly questions. Just to clarify, the exhaust manifold will bolt up to the engine and the headers, and I can choose to run full headers that will connect mufflers directly to engine, bypassing a manifold? And what is the advantage of this set up? Thanks

[02Lightning 10]

The full length headers will replace the cast exhaust manifolds. Think of your motor as an air pump, the object is to get the air into and out of the motor as easily and quickly as possible. By replacing your exhaust manifolds with headers and dual exhaust (or just mufflers as you stated) you would be unrestricting the exhaust air flow thus making more power.

[Fordrevhead 29]

Ignition is a great bang for the buck performance for sure. Plus if you later rebuild the engine you can buy a cam/intake/head package and not be stuck with another intake and carb that you swapped out for more performance.

 

If you go the Pertronix conversion route, here's a good article:

 

http://www.mustangmonthly.com/howto/173_0310_pertronix_ignitor_ignition/index.html

[Handegard 10]

I've got to at least say it, if you've got the kind of Mustang where numbers matching matters, why not just keep it stock?

 

 

Aside from that detour, why not build yourself a nice little 351 or a stroker, and then store your current numbers matching engine? That way, with a afternoons work you can go back to numbers matching, and in the meantime you won't have to worry about wearing your original motor?