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Cheap Horsepower

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exdeath said:
There is a difference between saying or wanting to do something vs. actually doing it and having the money to do it. You're going to find more Cobras and Supras with cheap and easy mods like pulleys and boost controllers owning the streets than you are $6000 F bodies with more in mods and engine reworking than the car is worth. Only the few who want a fast car money no object and have a passion for F bodies are going to have built up 500+ HP cars (I'm talking a real built up car, not just a stock car with a 300 shot bolted on with a pair of dice next to the arming switch). Where the hell are you getting a blower for $500?

The average someone looking for cheap speed in the first place is unlikely to stretch their wallet beyond wheels, window tint, a spoiler, a K&N, catback, and a retune. $2000 + tearing down an engine doing heads/cam is a bit beyond someone looking to spend $50 on a K&N and $400 on some Flowmasters. Sadly that's how it is, there is no such thing as cheap speed.
Click to expand...

Must just be the circles of people I know, but I don't know of a single fbody owner with only "some flowmasters" that's looking for speed. People buy the fbody for the platform and the price. It's a great starting point, same as a foxbody. Cobra is great too, no doubt a nice percentage of fbody owners would switch over if one was being given to them. I just wouldn't classify a cobra as "cheap speed" once you factor the car price into it vs the competitors.

This car ran 9s with a stock LQ9 longblock (364ci/6.0L) on a homemade turbo kit using a PT88 turbo. http://www.need2speed.com/vb_forums/showthread.php?t=57869 It was done for very very cheap money as a temporary solution until the owner could afford a forged shortblock which he later went to (370ci) and ran 8s.

Again, I personally know a guy with a 96 cobra with an 03-04 "stock longblock" with a KB2.8 that's also ran into the 9s. I'd like to see a cost analysis done on both cars (the 99 turbo f-car above and this one, including all parts and vehicle cost) but I'm still betting the f-car being quicker, and cheaper.
 
exdeath said:
Cheap is a relative term and is completely in context with your goals. $10,000 on a forged crate engine + $5,000 turbo kit dropped in a $4,000 F-/Fox body is *cheaper* than many MANY cars, and cheaper than most new cars sold today, and will run circles around just about anything.

While we're on the topic, my father just picked up a unassembled 454 long block complete with roller cam and rockers for $600. 🙂
Click to expand...

I agree BUT nearly $20k is a lot of money to damn near ANYONE and last time my math was checked, $7500 was less than $20,000 so i'd still pick a $5k car and a ~$2500 turbo kit and be done with it.

TwinsenTacquito said:
Now let's go over how it really works.

~Guy1 buys Camaro at 300 horse for $1,000
~Guy1 says he's gonna work on it
~Guy1 just drives 300 horse Camaro around for 5 years, pays $400 in parts

~Guy2 buys Civic at 80 horse for $1,000 with a horribly rotted unibody
~Guy2 buys aluminum wing for Civic, says the upforce helps him get traction
~Guy2 refuses to race Guy1
~Guy1 gets the number of the girl that Guy2 was on a date with

~Guy1 does a donut for no reason
Click to expand...
ok, this is the post of the year in the garage, thanks for the lolz!
BudAshes said:
I'm looking to put 400 hp in a chrystler minivan. Will I have to add anything besides a spoiler?
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turbovan FTMFW
 
melchoir said:
Must just be the circles of people I know, but I don't know of a single fbody owner with only "some flowmasters" that's looking for speed. People buy the fbody for the platform and the price. It's a great starting point, same as a foxbody. Cobra is great too, no doubt a nice percentage of fbody owners would switch over if one was being given to them. I just wouldn't classify a cobra as "cheap speed" once you factor the car price into it vs the competitors.

This car ran 9s with a stock LQ9 longblock (364ci/6.0L) on a homemade turbo kit using a PT88 turbo. http://www.need2speed.com/vb_forums/showthread.php?t=57869 It was done for very very cheap money as a temporary solution until the owner could afford a forged shortblock which he later went to (370ci) and ran 8s.

Again, I personally know a guy with a 96 cobra with an 03-04 "stock longblock" with a KB2.8 that's also ran into the 9s. I'd like to see a cost analysis done on both cars (the 99 turbo f-car above and this one, including all parts and vehicle cost) but I'm still betting the f-car being quicker, and cheaper.
Click to expand...

The 'terminator' cobras have lost there venom in a long line of 'LSx' series engines and all the cheap power adders available when it comes to bang for buck.

Hell I am willing to bet 9 times out of ten a Z06 C5 can be had for less money than an original 2003 Cobra and spank it outright in anything but a quarter mile if the Cobra owner just turned up boost.

Not saying it's a bad car, but I think the OP has blinders on since it's his crown jewel.
 
alkemyst said:
The 'terminator' cobras have lost there venom in a long line of 'LSx' series engines and all the cheap power adders available when it comes to bang for buck.

Hell I am willing to bet 9 times out of ten a Z06 C5 can be had for less money than an original 2003 Cobra and spank it outright in anything but a quarter mile if the Cobra owner just turned up boost.

Not saying it's a bad car, but I think the OP has blinders on since it's his crown jewel.
Click to expand...

Paging exdeath
 
Hey guys, sorry to bump an old thread, but I understand the issue with the valves, ohvs/pushrods, SOHCs and DOHCs. I thought that ohv = sohc when it's a completely different animal. Makes sense.
 
jlee said:
Only 292hp out of a 302 without new heads? I'm surprised - thought they'd do much better than that.

Eh just replace the heads and put a supercharger on it, then.
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Ford Explorers with the 5.0 were rated at 290 HP.
 
alkemyst said:
I thought they had 290hp in the 4.6 days only.
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its basically the cobra engine. Hot Rod magazine had a hop up guide for 5.0 back in the mid 90's. Since using a truck engine in a car was an emissions nitemare, they said to use the parts from it on your 5.0. It used GT40 heads and what not.

it is possible I have the HP rating wrong, since its been so long.

I don't feel like going through my back issues to find the article.
 
TehMac said:
Hey guys, sorry to bump an old thread, but I understand the issue with the valves, ohvs/pushrods, SOHCs and DOHCs. I thought that ohv = sohc when it's a completely different animal. Makes sense.
Click to expand...


Let me blow your mind by telling you about my motorcycle's engine. It is a V-twin, OHV motor. You're thinking "ok that's simple enough..one small in-block cam and some pushrods yada yada." However, it actually has one cam for each individual valve. Needlessly complicated. Engineers in the 1950s put way too much thought into this crap.

Here is the bottom of the case opened with the cams shown:
loctite_060hob3-468x327.jpg
 
angry hampster said:
Let me blow your mind by telling you about my motorcycle's engine. It is a V-twin, OHV motor. You're thinking "ok that's simple enough..one small in-block cam and some pushrods yada yada." However, it actually has one cam for each individual valve. Needlessly complicated. Engineers in the 1950s put way too much thought into this crap.

Here is the bottom of the case opened with the cams shown:
loctite_060hob3-468x327.jpg
Click to expand...

...okay... what the hell were they thinking?
 
angry hampster said:
Let me blow your mind by telling you about my motorcycle's engine. It is a V-twin, OHV motor. You're thinking "ok that's simple enough..one small in-block cam and some pushrods yada yada." However, it actually has one cam for each individual valve. Needlessly complicated. Engineers in the 1950s put way too much thought into this crap.

Here is the bottom of the case opened with the cams shown:
loctite_060hob3-468x327.jpg
Click to expand...

Every engine with two valves per cylinder has one cam per valve. 😉

Now, having one camshaft per valve, on the other hand... 😛

It's actually not all that complicated though. In a typical OHV V engine, the pushrods run up the inside of the V with the camshaft sitting in the valley. This pushes the intake and carburetor into the space above the heads. A typical V engine also has more than 45-degrees of separation.

Because of design constrictions on motorcycles, the engine just becomes too tall if the carb is pushed up above the heads rather than nestling in between them, but because of the narrow 45-degree angle there's not enough room for both the pushrods and the carb to sit in the middle of the V, so the pushrods had to be moved to the side. Since having a central 4-lobe camshaft with side-mounted pushrods results in some rather wild angles for the pushrod/cam interaction, it's simply not suitable for higher RPM or higher performance.

The Big-Twin engines use a single camshaft (which is why the big twins have a distinctive "helical" pattern to their pushrod tubes), but the Sportster engines were originally designed to be more, well, sporty (as sporty as a Harley can be anyway) and, as such, were set up with 4 camshafts (each with a single cam) to allow the pushrods to meet the cams "head on" so to speak.

It's more a necessary reaction to packaging and styling constraints than an example of "way too much thought".

ZV
 
This looks cool:
http://www.barrygrant.com/bgfuel/default.aspx?page=63

Basically, a carburetor that is computer controlled. Sounds very cool, but I'd like to install a modified version of the fuel injection Shelby was experimenting with the 428 Cobra Jet.

Read about it here

And Chrysler had an electronic fuel injection system that looks pretty badass back in the 1950's

I'd love to recreate that not because it'd be any better, but because it would evoke the time period and just the style and performance mixture that modern cars no longer have.
 
Zenmervolt said:
Every engine with two valves per cylinder has one cam per valve. 😉

Now, having one camshaft per valve, on the other hand... 😛

It's actually not all that complicated though. In a typical OHV V engine, the pushrods run up the inside of the V with the camshaft sitting in the valley. This pushes the intake and carburetor into the space above the heads. A typical V engine also has more than 45-degrees of separation.

Because of design constrictions on motorcycles, the engine just becomes too tall if the carb is pushed up above the heads rather than nestling in between them, but because of the narrow 45-degree angle there's not enough room for both the pushrods and the carb to sit in the middle of the V, so the pushrods had to be moved to the side. Since having a central 4-lobe camshaft with side-mounted pushrods results in some rather wild angles for the pushrod/cam interaction, it's simply not suitable for higher RPM or higher performance.

The Big-Twin engines use a single camshaft (which is why the big twins have a distinctive "helical" pattern to their pushrod tubes), but the Sportster engines were originally designed to be more, well, sporty (as sporty as a Harley can be anyway) and, as such, were set up with 4 camshafts (each with a single cam) to allow the pushrods to meet the cams "head on" so to speak.

It's more a necessary reaction to packaging and styling constraints than an example of "way too much thought".

ZV
Click to expand...


Yeah I understand there were restrictions in physical size that largely limited them, but my god it's just ridiculous. 😀
 
angry hampster said:
Yeah I understand there were restrictions in physical size that largely limited them, but my god it's just ridiculous. 😀
Click to expand...

Eh, frankly gear-driven cams are my preference if at all possible; it's basically indestructible. No chains to stretch, no belts to break, it's maintenance free. 🙂

Does make it something of a bear to swap out for performance cams though. 😉

ZV
 
^ Hah 5 minute cam swap, leave the timing cover on and everything. Assuming you don't have to lower it to get the valve covers off or anything.
 
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