Gear Heads....

[fishguy_8]

Well my tank is all good and I have some spare change laying around and wanna sink a little of it into my car......problem is.....i know very little about cars so where can i go to bone up on fixin' up cars. More specificly a 1994 Thunderbird. 4.6L V8......i have pretty much all i can think of body wise on my car......sunroof, ground affects, new tips on my exhaust, spoiler. The only thing i'm missing i guess would be some new rims but i dunno if i should do that first or wait ti'll the end and have that be a finishing touch. Like i said i dont know what i wanna do but i'd definitely like to have an idea on what i can do. I'd like to up the H.P. a friend of mine was tellin me i could get a K&N air filter and that would push me up about 15h.p. but i'd like to go up a bit more than that. If you have any ideas shoot them out at me and if there are sites like this one where i could nose around and learn it myself i'd like that. and any sites that you know of that sell parts at a good price so i can get an idea of what stuff will run me. Thanks and i'll try to find a pic of my car on the net so you can get an idea of what I'm working with.
Jon
Ok so I cant find anything other than a regular tbird right now but I've got an after market spoiler and the ground affects are made my xenon if that helps any of you out for the body. Like i said its just a 94 LX Tbird (2door). thanks for the help.

[scubadude]

Well I realize you probably dont have alot of money to sink into it, so personally I would just tune it up. But if you want to go to the next stage of increasing HP there are a couple ways to go....Some cars have Hi-performance chips to add on to their computer modules...thats a thought. One of the first things that pops into my head for increased performance is exhaust headers. and things like replace the O2 sensor. clean injectors (or throttlebody, or carb) replace air and or fuel filter...set timing, which are all basically tuneup procedures. Other than getting into modifying the engine thats it.

[eses]

K&N Filter itself, while good, I doubt will give you 15HP.. and even if it does, it will give you little torque increase, which is what you notice far more than HP jumps.

I would do basically what scubadude suggests, get it in tune, then make the motor breath. Inexpensive stuff, like a air intake kit will give you a little more power, but more important will allow more air coming in when the engine needs it, (think future upgrades) , you can then think about maybe a cat-back exhaust system. You will get better flow, plus a noticable change in the exhaust note which will turn more heads than actual horsepower production (unfortunatly.) You could then add headers, which will help a lot. OR go crazy and have a new exhaust system strung.

But, the downside to making the motor breath is it will need more fuel, so you will then need to possibly upgrade your fuel system, different injectors, etc.

Since the 4.6L motor is a pretty common ford/mustang engine, I would find a similar mustang in the neighborhood that you know is a quick runner and find out what he's doing, or visit some of the mustang forums, you should get tons of good ideas on what to do.

If you want to get real crazy, I think some of the 4.6L came with a supercharger, you could look around in the junkyards for the original SC that might work on that motor .. if your compression will handle it.

But, there is no replacement for displacement, which is why I'm a firm believer in my 11:1 496. Nothing says "11 second ET" faster than a big block.

Check out summitracing.com, jegs.com, both carry a decent selection of Mustang parts..they might have something for the 4.6 ... I think most of their Mustang parts are geared towards the 5.0 though.

[drlowz]

For your gearhead answers come visit my site at www.unitedridaz.org and ask the pro's.


Dennis

[fishguy_8]

i just replaced the O2 sensors because my car for some reason just blows right through them. A friend of mine and his dad really liked my car so they bought a 94tbird and were going to try to immitate it basicly....same color, same ground affects, same spoiler if they could....but they wanted to get the supercharged engine....and they found out how much it'd cost for a new paint job and my ground affects so they stuck w/ what they got stock. i can run pretty close to his car but he blows me off the line....he runs a bit faster than i and im a bit older so i sometimes ease up so i don't hurt the car. i wondered about that K&N thing i thought it sounded a bit far fetched for a filter to kick it up to be noticeable if any at all. i'll be hitting all of those sites you guys shot off at me. basicly you guys hit it on the head i'm more or less looking to turn a few more heads and make it run a bit smoother. one other thing i was wondering about was when i take off sometimes i hear almost like a grind or a stutter kind of like when you go over a set of those things before stop signs reminding you to slow it down. i think its possibly a tranny problem but not sure. I've taken it to my mechanic but like i said it only happens once in a while and if he doesnt hear it he cant fix it i guess. usually happens between 1500 and 2000 rpm....most commonly happens going up hill. any ideas? probly nothing too awful because its been doing that since i got it. hardly have had a problem w/ it....except when i took a detour through a bean field.....lets not go there right now. keep shooting ideas out if you think of any. thanks
Jon