Silly little 2.3? A full-house race version will make over 200 horsepower...of course its all over 7000 rpm!
I scanned an old ('79 or '80) article from Hot Rod magazine on building a hipo 2.3L engine. I'll post a link as soon as I can dig it out. The engine was built in stages with the hottest stage making 225 HP at 7500 rpm. Of course that was a full race engine with no torque under 3500 rpm. The great thing was that in Stage 2 they raised the HP from the stock 90 to about 150 and still had a very streetable engine.
150 HP in a 2800 lb car with a low set of gears would move along pretty well.
What you probably need most to go with your improved carb and cam is a full-length header and high flow exhaust. Your mixture is probably too rich with that carb unless you've done some tuning. The header might help lean it out a bit.
A higher compression ratio would help too, but would be a lot more work. The HR article called for a 45 thousanths cut on the head for the Stage 3 engine! I believe they had well over 11-to-1 at that point.
Of course the biggest improvement would be a higher flowing head...a DOHC head would be best. With Ford owning Cosworth at one point, its ironic that the Vega ended up with a Cosworth DOHC head and the MII didn't. There is a company making a late-model aluminum head with much better flow for about $1200, and there are few guys adapting a Volvo DOHC head to the 2.3L, but it looks like a lot of work.
I want to try my hand at the 150 HP version...about the only thing I'm lacking is the cam. I picked up the Holley 390 cfm 4bbl and Offenhouser dual plane 4bbl intake a few years ago.
The ultimate carb setup is a pair of Weber 2bbl sidedrafts...
I scanned an old ('79 or '80) article from Hot Rod magazine on building a hipo 2.3L engine. I'll post a link as soon as I can dig it out. The engine was built in stages with the hottest stage making 225 HP at 7500 rpm. Of course that was a full race engine with no torque under 3500 rpm. The great thing was that in Stage 2 they raised the HP from the stock 90 to about 150 and still had a very streetable engine.
150 HP in a 2800 lb car with a low set of gears would move along pretty well.
What you probably need most to go with your improved carb and cam is a full-length header and high flow exhaust. Your mixture is probably too rich with that carb unless you've done some tuning. The header might help lean it out a bit.
A higher compression ratio would help too, but would be a lot more work. The HR article called for a 45 thousanths cut on the head for the Stage 3 engine! I believe they had well over 11-to-1 at that point.
Of course the biggest improvement would be a higher flowing head...a DOHC head would be best. With Ford owning Cosworth at one point, its ironic that the Vega ended up with a Cosworth DOHC head and the MII didn't. There is a company making a late-model aluminum head with much better flow for about $1200, and there are few guys adapting a Volvo DOHC head to the 2.3L, but it looks like a lot of work.
I want to try my hand at the 150 HP version...about the only thing I'm lacking is the cam. I picked up the Holley 390 cfm 4bbl and Offenhouser dual plane 4bbl intake a few years ago.
The ultimate carb setup is a pair of Weber 2bbl sidedrafts...