Hey all, I've got a 289 I've been building and am putting into a 69 Mach 1. The car has a 4 speed and 4:11 detroit locker.

The motor is a 289 bored 0.060" over.

Bottom end: Forged steel crank turned 0.010" under. Stock rods with ARP extreme rated rod bolts. Forged pistons with 10.5:1 compression. Bottom end is NOT balanced. I put a good SFI approved summit harmonic balancer on it.

Top End: Dart Pro 1 195 cc aluminum heads/2.02/1.60 valves. Stock out of the box so far. Don't know if I should do any further porting or not.

Cam: Hydraulic Flat tappet 0.545" lift intake/ 0.540" lift exaust / 292 duration / 106 degree lobe seperation

Carb: Holley Racing HP (no choke horn) 750 double pumper.

Intake: Single plane older "Torker" edelbrock manifold with ports opened up to match the Dart Heads. Not sure what the RPM range of this manifold is but the runners are basically straight through and it's a fairly tall intake. the carb sits up pretty high. I think it's a high rpm manifold.

So is this motor good for 400 horsepower do you think? I'm not crazy about the bottom end being unbalanced and using stock rods so I've got my rev limiter set at 6,600 to be safe. I think it probably will make power past that point but I don't want to push it too hard plus the springs I had to use with this hydraulic cam most likely won't survive long past 7000 rpm. I eventually want to do a full mechanical roller cam with a bullet-proof bottom end and let this baby rip.

Thanks.

 

Do you have yellow seatbelts? If you do....then 400 easy

I believe that cam will sputter out right around 6k RPM and would need around a 2500k stall (if an auto)
The torker II is rated to 6k so would sputters out in mid 6k but I 'assume' that is the intake you are talking about

But I do not think you need to spin it even up to 6600 for peak power. The heads are obviously the variable and can make everything work better but I still see you having a major power drop off when you get deep into the 6k area.

 

haha, yeah and I've got some Jegs stickers on the traction bars too, those are good for 20 horsepower each I hear.

 

i am thinking closer to 325 hp. i am afraid you might have a stumble at launch with that single plane intake. the stock rods should be fine at 6500. good luck

 

I am not an expert on hp but do know the dyno is your friend in that area. There is a dyno at the mustang shop in my town and I enjoy talking to the guy who runs it for them. He is always telling me about guys who bring in their motors thinking they will make alot of hp only to be disappointed by the numbers. Yours might be the exception since you have done alot to it but I think a dyno is the best way to find out.

I have a 69 S code coupe with the 390 and want to get mine on the dyno one day soon. I am not tuning for high revs and HP though, I am after lots of torque with mine.

 

I'm not sure where my closest dyno is. I guess I'm not really worried about it enough to go find out I was just curious. Sounds like I don't have very much power. I just read these ads about 302 crate motors that have 9 to 1 compression and mid range cams that supposedly have like 345 horsepower. I mean I do have a few cubes less but you'd think my other parts would make up for that. Oh well I'm just going to burn the tires off and have fun, I guess it doesn't matter what horsepower I'm making.

 

that is the right idea... have fun with it and thats all that really matters. Course alot of us old car nuts like to mod for more hp and torque. Part of the fun of owning old cars is working on them to make them better. I don't care about high revs and max hp but I'd eventually like to be able to get the front wheels off the ground on my mustang off the line.

 

I found some information on my cam and intake. It's an OLD intake, it's called the "Torker 289". The advertised RPM range is 2500 to 6500 and they recommended porting out the runners for use on aftermarket heads.

I looked on comp cams website and found some cams very similar to mine and they are also in the 2500 to 6500 range, so that's sweet actually. Even if I'm not making gobs of power at least all the parts will be working together it appears.

Thanks for all the input..

 

320-350 would be my first guess. well in the 300 range, but nowhere near 400

 

Long way from 400 hp, the 289 wont make that much torque even with the good heads. Its a winder, needs rpm to make power. I would highly suggest pulling it back apart and getting it balanced. The difference can be huge, I have a Pontiac I put together without balancing, just added forged pistons and the thing shook so much the fuel would slosh around in the carb and made bubbles. Since you need the RPM to make the power, spend the $200 to get it balanced, it puts much less abuse on your bearings and hard parts.

To get 400hp from a 289 is going to require compression, and airflow, plus RPM. Like over 7000 rpm. If you make 330hp with it be very happy.