New here, have a couple questions

98GT4Speed

New Member
Jan 8, 2007
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Hello everyone, new member here, hoping this place is a little more active than the corral. My girlfriend and I purchased a '98 GT automatic last August and it's been sitting bone stock for awhile since winter set in. Since our other car is an LS1 Firebird and is my main car, she wants more performance out of HER daily driver so I don't leave her behind too badly at the dragstrip, lol. I've read up quite a bit on modifications so I know what's worthwhile and what's not for the most part. I'd still appreciate some more knowledge however, as the Ford mod motors are new to me. I've come from a primarily GM based background, but I've owned a few fox bodies before. We're trying to mod this car for a very small expenditure, which seems close to impossible. It's not an engine that responds well to basic mods, apparently! Here's what I have purchased so far: Trick Flow plenum, ported it myself ($100 from Summit), Professional Products 75MM TB (got it for $85 new on eBay), $25 eBay CAI (same looks as the BBK but for a LOT less money - we did it mainly as an appearance mod), Summit Off-Road H-Pipe ($130), BBK MIL Eliminators ($60), PI intake ($30 from a friend) and a Steeda timing adjuster ($40 on eBay). Next up are Steeda underdrive pulleys, 4.10 gears, a 3800 stall converter, J-Mod, and a pair of Comp XE262 cams. What kind of times do you think we'll get with all of these mods installed? Stock it has ran [email protected]. At first we're probably going to hold off on the cams because we need some cash to buy some parts for the Firebird, but I figured the other stuff should drop a good bit of time off the ET. What do you think? I'd appreciate some more low buck mod ideas. Thanks!
 
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while the heads are off with the cam install grab a set of ported PI heads. this will increase your compression, incrrease overall power, and with some added long tube headers you can get closer to 300 to the floor. the stock heads really REALLY need to come off... there have been disputes of talented NPI guys that do their own porting and outdo PI guys... shrug, its long debated.. however the bottom line is that if you aer not going to get a blower then the increased CR will be nice.

Torinalth
 
Well, as far as I know you don't have to remove the heads to do a cam swap and we don't plan on it. That's way too far into the engine for what we want to do. Cams are it for internal mods.
 
I've heard a lot of people say the majority of the gain on an NPI car is from the cams, not the heads. I figure if we end up keeping the car we're going to end up putting a blower on it anyway, so we're going to want lower compression. Completely skipping the PI cams and going to a pair of Comp 262's should give as much of a gain as swapping for PI heads and PI cams, I would think. Our Firebird is the major mod car in this household, so I don't want to drop a lot of money into this Stang. Low buck is the key here.
 
I would skip the head work as well.

The power comes from the PI cams and PI intake, not necessarily the heads. Even though you would pick up a few more horsepower with the heads, the install price+parts cost are a major factor.