Need more power cheap

[tmaxxman]

WHAT CAN I DO TO MY 2.9L TO GET SOME MORE POWER WITHOUT THE LOAN FROM THE BANK LOL LOL LOL


THANK FOR THE HELP

 

[Daven]

I have a 1989 ranger and just asked about this myself. I've ended up with the simpler things that really cost close to nothing, if that.

First, if you dont need your a/c, cut the belt or take it out to take some of the stress off the engine and gaining some power that the belt takes up. Get an electric fan to take away another belt taking that farther. Any belt on the engine is a power hog

Then there is cold air intake that is simple and cheap to do. It even makes your engine sound a bit cooler because you can hear kind of a rumble type of sound from the front. I put mine on when i still had the stock exhaust and it was sweet because you only heard it when you put alot of gas on and when idling it was still quiet.

Upgrading the exhaust adds some power. Depending on what you want it to sound like, there are many different ways to do it. And if you just want to go cheap you can go with a cheap one like a glasspack. I just threw on a glasspack that my friend had lieing around and now it sounds really loud and beasty. I am going to upgrade it more later when i have the money, probably to dual exhaust cat back or something idk lol.

I also am going to be doing little stuff to my truck like getting good spark plugs. probably the Bosch Platinum ones. They are a little more expensive (i think like around 60 for the 6), but i have been told they would help a bit because they run hotter or soemthing. More juice to the gas i guess

I dont really know much about upgrading vehicles, but i figured this could help you a bit getting started. This is just stuff i have been told around this forum in my posts. I have a post in this forum, the exhaust one, and also the forced induction one to see if i could put in a turbo without the 2 grand pricetag Hope this helped

 

[tmaxxman]

thanks i got just about all of that done already but the fan

 

[Daven]

Ya i checked at partsource in town here and it looks like it would cost about 100-150 bucks new. but idk i just quickly asked lol

 

[Big Jim M]

Sorry Daven!!

I have a 1989 ranger and just asked about this myself. I've ended up with the simpler things that really cost close to nothing, if that.

First, if you dont need your a/c, cut the belt or take it out to take some of the stress off the engine and gaining some power that the belt takes up. Get an electric fan to take away another belt taking that farther. Any belt on the engine is a power hog

Then there is cold air intake that is simple and cheap to do. It even makes your engine sound a bit cooler because you can hear kind of a rumble type of sound from the front. I put mine on when i still had the stock exhaust and it was sweet because you only heard it when you put alot of gas on and when idling it was still quiet.

Upgrading the exhaust adds some power. Depending on what you want it to sound like, there are many different ways to do it. And if you just want to go cheap you can go with a cheap one like a glasspack. I just threw on a glasspack that my friend had lieing around and now it sounds really loud and beasty. I am going to upgrade it more later when i have the money, probably to dual exhaust cat back or something idk lol.

I also am going to be doing little stuff to my truck like getting good spark plugs. probably the Bosch Platinum ones. They are a little more expensive (i think like around 60 for the 6), but i have been told they would help a bit because they run hotter or soemthing. More juice to the gas i guess

I dont really know much about upgrading vehicles, but i figured this could help you a bit getting started. This is just stuff i have been told around this forum in my posts. I have a post in this forum, the exhaust one, and also the forced induction one to see if i could put in a turbo without the 2 grand pricetag Hope this helped

The ONLY truth in Davian's post is where he wrote "I dont really know much about upgrading vehicles"... Everything else should be ignored!

"Good spark plugs" Are the ones that come in the engine when NEW! All the rest are simply TRYING to make the engine run as good as they do. ONLY the factory plugs have been tested for many MILLIONS of miles and have PROVED to be the best! All a different plug can do is run WORSE... or possibly the SAME but none can be BETTER!
Big JIm

 

[strvger]

i'm with Big Jim and his post. all of those mods put together won't give you 5 hp on a 20+ year old truck. you'll notice the louder noise it makes, but not the minimal hp gain for all those things... imho.

if your engine is putting out all the power it can, the only thing you can do is re-gear to make the most of that power. if you have 3.45 or 3.73 and running larger tires than stock, try going to 4.10's or, even better, 4.56's. check your axle codes in the tech library here, then decide what you want to use your rbv for and re-gear appropriately. 4.10 for dd stuff, 4.56 if you haul heavy loads, tow a fair amount, or off road some.

just my $.02.

 

[jhammel85]

i'm with Big Jim and his post. all of those mods put together won't give you 5 hp on a 20+ year old truck. you'll notice the louder noise it makes, but not the minimal hp gain for all those things... imho.

if your engine is putting out all the power it can, the only thing you can do is re-gear to make the most of that power. if you have 3.45 or 3.73 and running larger tires than stock, try going to 4.10's or, even better, 4.56's. check your axle codes in the tech library here, then decide what you want to use your rbv for and re-gear appropriately. 4.10 for dd stuff, 4.56 if you haul heavy loads, tow a fair amount, or off road some.

just my $.02.

Sorry but I've also gotta agree with both of these guys. Your truck already has a cold air from the factory and pulling a belt on a free wheeling A/C compressor is pointless.

Unless of course you pull the entire A/C system like I did.

 

[rickf92592]

Used nitreous system?

 

[tmaxxman]

thanks guys i dont have a/c and i already got 410s in it

 

[tmaxxman]

so i gess i should just be happy lol lol lol lol

 

[Daven]

Lol i find it funny that i am being criticized for being the only one to try and help. Ive seen this topic before and left it, this time figured i would let him know what ive been told. First, im sooo sure that doing that stuff adds no power whatsoever. If it didnt, then why the hell would people even consider having them done? I know i have seen a bit of a change from just adding a small CAI i had laying around, cutting the a/c belt, and changing a muffler. Your obviously not seeing the point to this. Small things add up, and when your on a budjet, you cant always afford to put in a V8, or supercharge the engine you have.

 

[wrecking-crew]

How are you determining the power increases? Seat dynos aren't accurate. The CAI might add a bit but not much.

Example: (From a street performance class at UTI) We ran a '04 Stang GT. The K&N intake we put on did not increase power much, about 6-10hp over stock if I remember correctly.
I have also heard alot about "performance upgrades" from people. We have too many kids at the school also saying adding the "muffler"(fart can) gets them more power, they have 20k under the hood, which is all style mods, and a performance kit for a Civic to beat Stangs is a CAI and "exhaust system"(watermellon launchers). I see where you are coming from, but old school techniques like taking off the a/c or putting on a glasspack just doesn't help much, if anything at all. Rating a cars power by sound and feel doesn't tell you if you made an improvement.

 

[Daven]

How are you determining the power increases? Seat dynos aren't accurate. The CAI might add a bit but not much.

Example: (From a street performance class at UTI) We ran a '04 Stang GT. The K&N intake we put on did not increase power much, about 6-10hp over stock if I remember correctly.
I have also heard alot about "performance upgrades" from people. We have too many kids at the school also saying adding the "muffler"(fart can) gets them more power, they have 20k under the hood, which is all style mods, and a performance kit for a Civic to beat Stangs is a CAI and "exhaust system"(watermellon launchers). I see where you are coming from, but old school techniques like taking off the a/c or putting on a glasspack just doesn't help much, if anything at all. Rating a cars power by sound and feel doesn't tell you if you made an improvement.

I know it doesnt do much, i never said it was going to add like 100 HP or something. I said a bunch of little things add up. It wont make ur vehicle a beast just from doing it, but i know from experience that they add a bit of power ad if anything i have found they tend to make the engine more responsive too. You cant honestly say that doing all of these little things will do nothing, maybe compared to ur 20 pound turbos and supercharged v8s...

 

[Big Jim M]

Perhaps he can't!

I know it doesn't do much, I never said it was going to add like 100 HP or something. I said a bunch of little things add up. It wont make your vehicle a beast just from doing it, but I know from experience that they add a bit of power ad if anything I have found they tend to make the engine more responsive too. You cant honestly say that doing all of these little things will do nothing, maybe compared to your 20 pound turbos and supercharged v8s...

But I CAN! All you got from your efforts was NOISE! Guys work on their vehicles and install cai or glasspac and then they drive it for the first time and the thing makes NOISE form BOTH ends! After all the work and money spent them guys instantly think, or even say outloud, OMG! It worked! Wow! Listen to all the power that modding gave me!
So now the guy tells all his friends how much POWER them modifications gave his ride! The NOISE and the pride of doing SOMETHING himself is all it takes to get bad information out among us..
When in actual fact the thing may even be SLOWER than it was before! All they got was NOISE!

How do guys get off thinking the engineers at Ford couldn't quiet down the intake and exhaust without taking HP out of the vehicle? A PRIME example are K&N filters! I've seen hundreds of race vehicles wearing a K&N badge, when in fact the filter they wear is a STOCK FILTER! RACE engines are far too VALUABLE to risk a K&N filter on.. Yet I see guys every day raise their hood just to show-off their cai and K&N filter..

Just because it is for sale in a brightly colored box doesn't mean it will HELP anything! THINK about the mechanics of what it really does and you WON'T put then silly things on your ride.
Big Jim

 

[Daven]

But I CAN! All you got from your efforts was NOISE! Guys work on their vehicles and install cai or glasspac and then they drive it for the first time and the thing makes NOISE form BOTH ends! After all the work and money spent them guys instantly think, or even say outloud, OMG! It worked! Wow! Listen to all the power that modding gave me!
So now the guy tells all his friends how much POWER them modifications gave his ride! The NOISE and the pride of doing SOMETHING himself is all it takes to get bad information out among us..
When in actual fact the thing may even be SLOWER than it was before! All they got was NOISE!

How do guys get off thinking the engineers at Ford couldn't quiet down the intake and exhaust without taking HP out of the vehicle? A PRIME example are K&N filters! I've seen hundreds of race vehicles wearing a K&N badge, when in fact the filter they wear is a STOCK FILTER! RACE engines are far too VALUABLE to risk a K&N filter on.. Yet I see guys every day raise their hood just to show-off their cai and K&N filter..

Just because it is for sale in a brightly colored box doesn't mean it will HELP anything! THINK about the mechanics of what it really does and you WON'T put then silly things on your ride.
Big Jim

Did i say anything about the sound? No. I may have mentions that it sounds better, but i never said it made my truck into some 300 HP beast. Stop critisizing people on doing little things. CAI adds a bit more power. You know it too, unless no1 would consider paying the money to do it. A added bonus is that it adds more noise, which ive never heard anyone complain about their truck sounding better after a mod... :/