I was reading through one of my old 'stang books and saw again "The 10 minute tune up." Most of you already know this info, but I'm gonna throw it out there incase someone had'nt heard. These are a few easy mods to get a little more power out of an otherwise stock 87-93 5.0.
The first order of buisness is to remove the air silencer located in the inner fender just ahead of the Mustang's air filter. Designed to reduce induction noise, it costs a few horsepower and can just be yanked off. While in there, most 5.0 enthusiasts replace the stock paper air filter with a less restrictive aftermarket part such as the one from K&N Engineering. These two changes alone are usually good for 7 to 10 horsepower.
The next step is to reset the base inital timing from its factory setting of 10 degrees before top dead center (BTDC) to between 13 and 16 degrees. This doesn't necessarily pick up horsepower, but it dramatically improves bottom end torque. (In fact many cars were delivered with their timing retarded to about 5 or 6 degrees, which truely hampered performance.)
The last trick is used only when racing, and thats the installation of a shorter-than-stock accessory drive belt (70 2/3 inches (179.4cm) in length), you can bypass certain power-robbing accessories and thus free up some horsepower. These tricks will usually result in a noticable seat-of-the-pants improvement while improving your quarter-mile (402.3) time by three- or four- tenths.
The first order of buisness is to remove the air silencer located in the inner fender just ahead of the Mustang's air filter. Designed to reduce induction noise, it costs a few horsepower and can just be yanked off. While in there, most 5.0 enthusiasts replace the stock paper air filter with a less restrictive aftermarket part such as the one from K&N Engineering. These two changes alone are usually good for 7 to 10 horsepower.
The next step is to reset the base inital timing from its factory setting of 10 degrees before top dead center (BTDC) to between 13 and 16 degrees. This doesn't necessarily pick up horsepower, but it dramatically improves bottom end torque. (In fact many cars were delivered with their timing retarded to about 5 or 6 degrees, which truely hampered performance.)
The last trick is used only when racing, and thats the installation of a shorter-than-stock accessory drive belt (70 2/3 inches (179.4cm) in length), you can bypass certain power-robbing accessories and thus free up some horsepower. These tricks will usually result in a noticable seat-of-the-pants improvement while improving your quarter-mile (402.3) time by three- or four- tenths.
