mods on a 4 cyl

I had the same dilema with my 4 banger. I started with a T5 upgrade and ditched the slush-o-matic. The A4LD is a peice of crap anyway. I eventually went turbo with a T/C motor. I got about 2 grand tied up in the whole thing, with 8.8 rear and all and it is a blast to drive........... not only that but stock five point slows hate me!!! Build a little sleeper out of it and have some fun. You won't have a fortune in it if you look around and talk to people that mess with these things. If interested E-mail me and I can give you a bunch of sources! (alanritter@sbcglobal.net)

The problem is that our old n/a 2.3L just doesn't respond to bolt-ons. On my '90 Mustang (at one point) I had a long tube header, one of the stock cats, cusom exhaust, cold air intake, underdrive pulleys, and some little minor things (like regapped spark plugs, a hotter coil, better wires etc), and the car definitely revved better than when it was stock but it felt like all that might have gained me less than 10 hp. Kinda sucks. If you did all that same stuff to a 5.0 you'd gain more than 25 hp (hell underdrive pulleys on a 5.0 are usually worth at least 10)

At best, with bolt ons, you can drop from 19.0's to 18.0's.

The biggest problem these motors has is the head I believe. If you don't port and polish it then nothing else will help it much. I'm really not sure there is much porting you could do on a twin plug head but who knows. I think buff milled his head and it helped a lot with the added compression along with the other things he did.