Increasing your stangs per

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Feb 16, 2004 | 07:07 AM

TheGmKiller331

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Increasing your stangs per

This is an introduction to the first steps to take for increasing your 5.0L Mustang’s performance. Although this article is built around the fuel-injected 5.0 liter Mustang most of what’s here applies to other Mustangs and many other cars. 

Read all you can before you dive in. If you ask 50 people their opinions on what you should do you’ll get 50 different answers! There’s lots of information on the web and in Mustang magazines. Note that these specialty performance car magazines are not only there to help you enjoy the potential of your car more, but to sell their advertisers' parts. Look at the return on your investment before buying. Lots of parts suppliers are on the Web.

If you’re like most people you’ll want to jump in first with straight-line performance enhancements. If you do then later you’ll discover the weaknesses in the other areas of your car.

Philosophy
<BLOCKQUOTE>

This is a balanced approach, not just looking for the best quarter mile times, but a car that can turn and slow down too.

It won’t be necessary to rob a bank to afford these enhancements. 

Want a streetable, reliable, legal car.

This isn’t meant to be all-inclusive on how to buy a particular part, or even why you should do this instead of something else. It’s just meant to give you an idea of where to start researching.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BIG><BIG><A name="Chassis stiffening">Chassis stiffening</A></BIG></BIG>

Philosophy

If you want to accelerate hard or corner hard the Fox bodied chassis needs to have the flex taken out. If you have a convertible you should do this now whether you make any other changes to your car or not. When you corner hard and you car’s body flexes the tire contact patches change and your alignment is thrown off.

Tightening up

Subframe connectors. This is the single best thing you can do for you chassis. Get weld-on connectors, not bolt-on.

Strut tower brace. Get a three-point that bolts to the firewall, also.

G Load or K member brace. For bettr turn-in.

These three together make a good basis for future modifications.

<BIG><BIG><A name=Braking>Braking</A></BIG></BIG>

Philosophy

Any improvement you can afford to make is good. Most Fox bodied Mustangs have inadequate brakes. They fade too quickly in performance driving and lock up prematurely. 

Cheap braking improvements:
<BLOCKQUOTE>

Change your brake fluid. Put in a good quality fluid.

Put on new brake lines. Stainless steel if you want, but just new rubber ones will help.

Replace the front Ford pads with something better.

Replace the front calipers.

Repack the front wheel bearings while you're in there.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Next improvements:
<BLOCKQUOTE>

Upgrading the rear drums to discs. This is an expensive undertaking, but worthwhile for performance applications.

Upgrading the front brakes. If you go to the expense of putting discs in the rear think about upgrading the fronts also. About 80% of your braking is done with the fronts.

Install a brake bias valve to allow manual adjusting of the front-to-rear brake bias.

Get a better master cylinder.</BLOCKQUOTE>

Common mistake:
<BLOCKQUOTE>

Running racing pads on the street. This is a quick way to ruin your expensive rotors. And racing pads don't stop very well when cold. You could be surprised some winter morning.
Hard pads have to heat up before working their best, but they don't fade with repeated hard braking. Softer pads don't have to warm up much and are best for street conditions. Investigate and find the proper pads for your needs.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<BIG><BIG><A name="Straight line perance">Straight line performance</A></BIG></BIG>

Your engine makes power by pumping air. In general, the more air you can flow through the more horsepower. At some point you may have to improve the fuel and the ignition systems.

The basic rule is cubic inches equals more HP so if your displacement stays the same as you increase HP with modifications then something has to give. Modifications to increase HP usually moves that horsepower higher up in the RPM’s and you may be robbing torque. This is OK for the drag strip, but not so good for the street or road course. You can fix this by changing you rear gears to bring that power back down to where you want it.

Philosophy

First, work on increasing the flow of your intake and exhaust before getting into the engine. That is, look at the air intake, fuel intake and exhaust before worrying about cams and new cylinder heads. I don’t cover superchargers or nitrous because they can cause too much stress on an engine if not done correctly. There’s a lot of reading you need to do if you’re interested in one of these options.

More is not always better. Increasing one part too much will create a bottleneck elsewhere that can actually bog you down. Think of your engine as a complete system.

Once you go over about 300 HP you need to upgrade your fuel delivery and spark. Also, over 300 HP is where you’ll find other weak links like your tranny, driveshaft and rear-end so this is where it starts getting expensive as the stress levels on your engine increase.

Cheap horsepower gains:
<BLOCKQUOTE>

Tune up – good quality plugs, wires, cap, rotor

Clean injectors

Remove air silencer -- it's under the air box in the wheel-well

K&