Dyno'd my stang

CobraIILover said:

Many people are under the common misconception that nitrous adds power. Nitrous does not add power. The FUEL is what adds the power. The nitrous is just extra oxygen. You need the fuel there too. .

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always remember your fire triangle.......and your fire extinquisher

Change your cam. Ford's factory cams are limp. And that holds truth throughout all the fords, including the Big Blocks. For some reason, ford never really ran any kind of an aggressive cam, like dare I say *cough* *cough* Chevrolet. (A bad word)

My suggestion would be a cam swap. You need more cam, Henry just didn't supply enough!
You can gain alot of power with a longer duration cam especially on the exhaust side because of the narra-ass exhaust port. Naturally more lift would help too. On your stock or equivlent valve springs you more or less have to stay .500 or less lift at the valve, otherwise you'll make a train wreck outta your valvetrain. You can possibly squeeek by on .512 but it's pushing it. Even if you decide to change the springs & retainers to jump to a really aggressive cam, there's a limit. With any stock head (stock, meaning non-ported) it's best to stay in the .500 range, an also for streetability.

My bro's Mav is pushing out about 265hp @ 5000 w/306 ftlbs of Tq @ 3500 rpms. His car weighs about 2800lbs (about the same as ours) and it's a tire flaming machine! (3.25 rear gears) It's for the most part all stock '66 289 block with '68 302 crank and '68 289 heads (58cc chambers, no porting) with 351W valves, PAW #11326 SSI cam and matching springs. Performer Intake and 650 Holley and stock Mustang Hi-Po Manifolds. Thaaaas right....no headers! I'd say with headers, I'd expect close to 300 hp.

That's a combo I've been using on other guys' engines I've been building.
For one buddy i installed the Edelbrock 'performer' cam in his '67 Cougar and i was a bit disappointed. It had to really work at it to spin the hydes and could barely get out of its own way. I stuffed in the 11326 cam and what a difference! The performer cam is now a coat rack at his house.

Just my insight, hope this helps you out in your quest for mo-powa...

I noticed you mentioned '79' specs. You got a 2bbl on that thing?? If it's a 79 block, you're already ahead of the game provided what pistons the builder used. The 79 block is a 'short deck' block. Knowing that, you probably have '78-'79 heads (bolt down rocker arms) which are turds with the huge 69cc combustion chambers. --- Loose the heads...

Ok that's good! That particular manifold is probably also choking the engine a bit on the higher rpm scale. I bet it'll build great torque, but the passages are not that much bigger, if any, than the old '65-'66 4bbl cast iron intake.

A step up would be a nice Weiand Action Plus or *cough**cough* Edelpuke Performer. if you want to get an Edelbrock, see if you can score and older (say 4+ years old) intake. The intakes they cast nowadays just don't have the quality they use to. (very porus casting, lack of accessory bosses, excess flashing, and a bit thinner cast)

IMO Weiand or better yet, offenhauser (kinda spendy) would be my choice. I've seen these Performer Plus intakes -off brand- and I'm very inpressed with their castings. Very heavy duty and well made. I have yet to install one.

Just my dime less 8 cents.

fastmustangII said:

edelbrocks no good? thats what i wanted

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I have one of the older Performer Plus intake on mine, so far no complaints. That and the 4 barrel really woke it up before I took it off the road- can't wait to see how it runs on a completely fresh block with the new cam and ported heads.

Yeah the older Perfomer intakes are alright. Those would be the ones to get. (easily identified by the rear water crossover, 6- 3/8" bosses -4 water passage, 2 vacuum- and the throttle bracket bosses are BOTH casted into the intake, no cheapo adapter plate needed, also most were casted as Performer 289's)

But if you want a brand new Edelbrock, so be it. I just think the moeny is better spend in a better casted intake, and it does sadden me to see Edelbrock cheap-charlie their products like that.

But if you decide to go to an older one, look for a Performer 289 and steer clear of the SP2P. It's a got small passageways and actually great for a mild daily driver to build torque. But it'd choke an engine trying to make more serious hp.

Another fav. Edelbrock of mine is the Torker 289. i had one on my II before I put the tunel ram on. Loved it! But being a single plane, not an ideal street manifold. A MUCH better intake than the more common and to date, Torker II.

I still run the torker 289 and i love it. The performer is a great intake but Danos right their quality has gone to crap.

For your info FastmustangII i put a performer 289 a 600 0-1850 holley, headers and a 3.55 gear on my stock motor way back in the 80s and it turned consistent 9.1s in the 1/8th mile. thats with the choked out smog heads and all. While thats not a rocket.... it is in line with a bone stock gt and wont set you back but a few hundred bucks. Be a good place to start.

I love my weiand stealth, and its obligatory hole in the hood

What the **$ are you guys talking about??? Edelbrock has 4 performer intakes for a carburated 302.

Edelbrock Lesson:

2121 P/N Performer 289 (for 260-289-302) It is non EGR.
21211 P/N Same but shiney
3721 P/N Performer 302 4v with EGR use P/N 8053 EGR plate. (if you were puting it on 302 with a four barrel you could re-use your original EGR plate.
3723 P/N Performer 302 2v same, but comes with an adapter plate to use a 2 barrel carb and a EGR Valve.

Class is dismissed

Northern J II said:

What the **$ are you guys talking about??? Edelbrock has 4 performer intakes for a carburated 302.

Edelbrock Lesson:

2121 P/N Performer 289 (for 260-289-302) It is non EGR.
21211 P/N Same but shiney
3721 P/N Performer 302 4v with EGR use P/N 8053 EGR plate. (if you were puting it on 302 with a four barrel you could re-use your original EGR plate.
3723 P/N Performer 302 2v same, but comes with an adapter plate to use a 2 barrel carb and a EGR Valve.

Class is dismissed

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Right... I knew that. Here's the deal-

The 3721 and 3723 are almost a waste of money. There isn't much difference between an alumn 5.0 HO intake and the Edelbrock other than the inflated cost. You can find a used Ho 4bbl for less than 1/2 the cost. Besides most people want to swap intakes to get RID of the EGR (unless state mandated of course) And to add- Holley back in the day mads an EGR intake which had a dummy boss for the EGR valve, that way it'd be 'present' for inspection but wouldn't actually be functioning. (i happen to have a streetmaster singleplane for a 351W with that EGR dummy boss)
The 2121, like I was saying earlier is a substandard waste of aluminum. BUT- it will work, I just feel the valus enowadays is in another brand other than Edlebrocks. (I love the older Edelbrock stuff, the new stuff is just a dissappointment)
The since the 2121 is what it is, I guess you could call the 21211 a polished turd.

Just one man's view....

fastmustangII said:

no it has a 4 barrel edebrock 600, the manifold was from the 85 HO

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Your engine is almost EXACTLY like mine even the dyno #'s are similar I dynoed at 149hp and 240lb-ft of tq, and 160hp and 240lb-ft of tq on the 2nd run I just put a weiand stealth intake and a speed pro cam with .218 and .224 @.050 and .468 lift also some 3:55's and it made a world of difference but I still think I am not getting full potential out of the cam because I think the heads are from an 85 or earlier and I have a feeling that they suck. http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0307_ford/index.html I am trying to do this combo all I need are those heads.

>I guess you could call the 21211 a polished turd

It sure does look nice on top of my engine though I don't know much about the performance aspect of the Edelbrock intakes... however when I gasket matched my ports on the 21211, which I just bought a few months ago, I found the thickness of the walls to be plenty sufficient. I bought the intake I got because of its short height... then I got it polished because I thought I'd be decadent with this rebuild. Of course I still couldn't manage to shell out 1100 for aluminum heads... I don't guess I'll ever have anything that exotic(sigh).

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