i have a 98 cobra with an SHM 5.0 stroker kit and SHM stage 1 cams.
The stock motor threw a rod and broke several other things after approx. 166,000 miles. Damn good motor. puttin around 280hp to the ground to the day it died. so, time for rebuild comes...
I went with SHM because of the name it carried, and they had a hell of a deal on a stroker kit. on sale for 2100 bucks, manley rods and flat top pistons and a forged steel crank. Chris, the salesman informed me that the kit was balanced. (HA! my happy fat *ss it was balanced) anyhow, i also bought a set of SHM stage 1 cams, as i was informed these cams would be perfect for the setup i was going for (streetable n/a). meanwhile, a local shop did some stage 1 head porting to my stock cobra heads. said he 'opened them up a lot'.
as the machine shop got the parts from SHM, i was told it would take a lot of heavy metal added in order to balance the kit. a lot of heavy material was transferred from my wallet in order to do so. the kit was balanced, installed, and everything was fine. i just got the car dyno tuned today, and it put down 320 rwhp and 311 ft-lb of torque. the curves are broad.
while these numbers are nice compared to the 280 of before, consider this... that previous number did not include the long tube headers that i have added since then.
so is it really possible that long tube headers, stage one head porting and cams, and a stroker kit are only good for 40 rwhp after a tune? or is something drastically wrong?
lemme know what you think, suggestions to fix the power problem, maybe there isnt a problem at all, SHM bashing (i will never buy from SHM again) or whatever...