I Think I Figured Out Why My Car Is Slow!!

Okay, you guys have heard me whine forever about how my car is slower than **** and ever since I put on my intake it has lost tons of bottom end. Well, I was sitting at work yesterday underneath a cougar XR7 and it hit me. I have a trickflow intake on top of a pair of ported GT40's. I think I am flowing tons of air for this little motor and the power is were my rpms never go. I was thinking about putting my stock manifold back on and seeing if that would put the bottom end back together. What do you guys think? with the cam and everything, wouldn't this make sense? I bet this thing would come alive if I had forced induction, but I just don't have anything. Do you think I should slap the stocker back on there?
 
Flowing too much air for the 302? I'm flowing more and get more power. There is no such thing as too much air. As long as you have the fuel there to burn with it and keep a steady a/f ratio. Where do you think the rpms are? The trickflow intake is advertised for idle-5500. With my trickflow kit I make the best power from 3000-5500.
 
I have no power below 2500, it pulls way beyond 5500 and will wrap up easily. Its in the top of 2nd and 3rd gear where my car just sits there and revs up but doesn't go anywhere. Ill have it mashed to the floor and it barely moves, in 3rd gear at around 3500, I bet my girlfriends V6 pulls harder.

As far as gearing goes, the 3.55's are hard enough on my gas mileage... but it might be something to think about. wouldn't 4.10's be a little much for interstate cruising?
 
mackey said:
Flowing too much air for the 302? I'm flowing more and get more power. There is no such thing as too much air. As long as you have the fuel there to burn with it and keep a steady a/f ratio. Where do you think the rpms are? The trickflow intake is advertised for idle-5500. With my trickflow kit I make the best power from 3000-5500.

but I mean my power could be nice at around 6000 rpms, but I never see that, I don't rev that high. I could get the power down in the lower rpms by restricting the airflow a little is what I am trying to say. Like the concept behind having a super victor intake or something, unless are in the 7000rpm range, then you aint goin nowhere fast. Do you think that could be it?
 
I think your combo is fine but Im not too happy about the Isky cam....65mm TB is fine for the combo (UP TO 450hp) if anything it would help low end torque......is your timing set wrong?? Some times non-ABC style cams require excessive timing..I would check the cam card. You should have loads more power than that . Dont go changing intakes it wont help.
 
crunchie12268 said:
Okay, you guys have heard me whine forever about how my car is slower than **** and ever since I put on my intake it has lost tons of bottom end. Well, I was sitting at work yesterday underneath a cougar XR7 and it hit me. I have a trickflow intake on top of a pair of ported GT40's. I think I am flowing tons of air for this little motor and the power is were my rpms never go. I was thinking about putting my stock manifold back on and seeing if that would put the bottom end back together. What do you guys think? with the cam and everything, wouldn't this make sense? I bet this thing would come alive if I had forced induction, but I just don't have anything. Do you think I should slap the stocker back on there?


I had a trick flow street heat on a stock pair of heads... The bottom end was just fine.. Switching back to stock manifold will do nothing but choke off your top end.
 
Its to small a cam to have no power below 3000rpm and pulling way past 5500rpm. This size a cam should start 1500-2000 and be all done by 5200-5500. I would suspect retarded cam timing. This tends to make a cam "act" bigger than it is. Was the cam degreed when installed?
I usually install my cams 2degrees advanced to allow for chain stretch, but this sounds like a little more than just chain stetch.
 
your set up is a long time proven combo, except maybe the cam choice. but as i look at your set up im wondreing if you have an air fuel problem instead. id say your fuel pressure should be between 40-42psi. and it definetly wouldnt hurt to make sure all your pins on your mass air are reading the correct voltage. my freind had very similar problems and i got on pro-flow's web site and they have a ton of tech- trouble shooting pages. it turned out my friends prob was because of low output signal from one pin to the ECU. good luck
 
I'm going to blame the lack of power on a installation problem with the intake (timing or missed or broken connection) or if it is timed with your cam install...the cam is killing yeah...did you degree it in? A may not be matched to well to your car...
 
no I didn't degree the cam, I put on a new timing chain and just lined up the holes. I have been wondering if the timing from the distributor is off a little, because I don't have that umph like I use too, that is why I brought it all the way up to 15. I have double checked it over and over again, because I thought at one point in time it maybe be 180 out, but I didn't think so.

I will check the pro m website to check what the voltage should be. And I am running about 37-38psi with vaccuum off with vaccuum on it goes down to 32-33psi (it could be the other way around)

I was also thinking that maybe my timing could be off due to my wobbling balancer, and I coud've bent the timing pointer while installing. I am putting on my new balancer today, I will re check it.