150 hp from a na 2.3?

set7565 said:

I have a 90 lx na 2.3, and I was wondering if I could get it between 130-150 hp. I would want to stay naturally aspirated(no turbo, or nitrous), and I was wondeing what needed to be done. It's basically stock, with a K&N and a custom 2.5" exhaust with a summit racing muffler. Please, any input would be helpful.

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This summer when I have the money I am going to pull my head off, get it shaved, get a roller cam put in it, have it ported and polished, and perhaps put slightly larger valves in it. I'm also gonna run an air induction with a K&N filter, and sometime within the next month I am putting on a new 2.5" exhaust with a Ranger header, haven't decided on the muffler yet, and resonator tips. From all that I am hoping to get between 135 - 150hp. Also, you could put in some Ford Racing 9mm ignition wires and maybe a few more new ignition components. This wont boost your hp, just maybe imporove throttle responsiveness and you may notice a bit of a performance increase at higher rpm's. I believe 91-93 where the only years when they put roller cams in, so that is something you could upgrade to. As well as all the other head work. If you wanted to get into the big bucks then you could pull your block apart as well and put in some performance parts in there such as high compression pistons, nicer crank etc. You could have your cylinders bored out and Im sure there is other stuff you can do to your block as well. If you did all that then you may be looking a little closer to 160-180hp. Hope this helps, let us know how things work out.

bore it, stroke it, port it and pipe it.

If my dyno was acurate, I am making around 130 at the fly. To bad the automatic won't let me prove that....
Anyway, my combination is pretty basic. Milled the head a little, cammed it, full 2.5" exhaust with pacesetter header, CAI, and lots of mods that arn't doing anything... like the turbo computer/injectors, cam gear, gutted upper (didn't know I was going back NA )and general stuff.
I bet with some porting, a real cam (none of this ranger roller crap), a descent exhaust,milling it a little, and cheap CAI, you could get 150 flywheel hp. That should take you deep into the 17's, and maybe a 16 if you can drive.

set7565 said:

What is CAI, and with a new cam would the computer reconfigure itself, or would I need to install a performance chip?

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CAI= Cold air induction.
do you have an 87-90? If so, you need to keep the cam choice mild. Anything with less than 220* @.050 should be fine.

All this time I never noticed you ran a 2.5" exhaust Buff Did you see an improvement when you went to this set up are did you do it all at once? I've always wondered it the 2.3L N/A with mild would gain from doing this.

Before I swapped to the 2.5", I had a single 2" with no cat, and ultra flo muffler, and a long tube header. I didn't notice any lose of low end torque, but saw some mild gains at high rpms. If I had started out with a stock exhaust, with factory cats, no header, factory muffler, ect, it would have been very noticible, but even so, I probably gained ~3-5hp.

bhuff30 said:

Before I swapped to the 2.5", I had a single 2" with no cat, and ultra flo muffler, and a long tube header. I didn't notice any lose of low end torque, but saw some mild gains at high rpms. If I had started out with a stock exhaust, with factory cats, no header, factory muffler, ect, it would have been very noticible, but even so, I probably gained ~3-5hp.

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Not bad 3-5 hp on a N/A four banger is a lot in my book

Now was it the same header or was one a peacestter and the other a ranger etc?

the long tube was on there the whole time.

I believe most of your SCCA ITB Mustangs are in the 150hp area. All they can do is air induction, exhaust is free, port match the heads, and shave the head. Of course they swap heads, and cams around from different years and mess around with bottem end tolerances. But it is possible by doing some homework.

I asked pretty much the same question on corral.net and we got a pretty good discussion going. Go over there and look at 2.3 forum, you should see it. Basically your biggest problem with the 2.3 is poor induction and poor compression. These are the junkyard mods that I'm working on:

2-1/4" custom exhaust with Flowmaster 40 Series muffler and LX 5.0 tailpipe. 2-1/2" is reportedly too large for your goals and will sacrifice torque with the loss of exhaust velocity.

5.0 airbox and 3" PVC intake pipe with rubber reducer elbows at airbox and TB.

2.3 Ranger factory stainless steel shorty header.

2.3 Ranger and 91-93 Mustang roller cam.

Advance timing to somewhere around 15-20 degrees base.

DON'T fool around with the intake. It is perfectly adequate for that power and making it too big N/A will kill torque right where you need it. If you want to take it farther you should do something about the compression by milling the head or stroking the motor. Maybe more powerful ignition.