Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

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Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

October 19, 2004, 11:18:29 PM

I just received a 1987 xr-7 from my father. I'm not too keen on cars but I'm also not totally lost. I would like to know what are some quick inexpensive upgrades I could do for quick power (which exhaust system to buy, spark plugs etc) and what i can do (hopefully inexpensive) to get my 150hp motor in the 300hp range. Also, where can you get a turbo for these motors and all parts necessary for it to work? Thanks in advance for the reply!

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #1 – October 19, 2004, 11:21:02 PM

how much of a budget are you on...ie, how cheep and why 300 hp? 300 brake hp or 300 rw hp? just curious.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #2 – October 20, 2004, 01:51:09 AM

I take it you're looking for quick upgrades now as well as long-term plans to get up to 300 horses? I'm guessing if you want 300 to the wheels you're going to need some sort of forced induction (i.e. - turbo, as you said).

Quick upgrades or tricks include the air silencer removal, bumped timing, and a couple others I can't think of.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #3 – October 20, 2004, 02:55:25 AM

Free up the exhaust system.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #4 – October 20, 2004, 03:00:33 AM

Yeah, there's one. I put 2.5" dual exhaust on my car all the way back for $350.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #5 – October 20, 2004, 06:29:07 AM

Yes that's exactly what I'm looking for, both short and longterm. 300 bhp would be fine. As far as exhausts go, should I get flowmasters or another brand? Would a 3inch pipes be feasable with this motor? How much of an hp jump would this give me? 10-20hp? And as far as the turbo goes, My father gave me one but the manifold part of it is all rusty, i'd have to thoroughly clean it etc, so i was thinking of just using the turbo and getting another manifold for it, but of course, I don't know what other parts i would have to get in order to get it operational on the car, I'm going to be doing this all by myself. I'm wondering if I have to get custom parts so it will fit or whatever. If I'm pointed in the right direction, I'll get it all figured out. I love the car to death and loved it when i first saw it. What did it for me was hearing that engine. Its WAY different from my 4cyl plymouth acclaim with about 3lb torque (no thats not a typo). You can sit behind the wheel and feel the v8 grumble...but what am I ranting for, I'm sure most of you know what I mean. :)

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #6 – October 20, 2004, 10:37:59 AM

3" is too big for most any N/A smallblock (unless you mean a single 3). Expect maybe a 5-10 hp gain from full exhast 2.5" You don't need a big name like flowmaster, my summit brand 2-tube lers sound a lot like 'em.

There's a lot of custom work involved in setting up a turbo plus quite a bit of "homework" determining if the turbo you have will work on your engine. Plus, forced induction requires the strengthening of the internals.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #7 – October 21, 2004, 05:02:42 PM

just my :2c:
but if you have the 5.0 SO, id think it would be easier to swap to a 5.0 HO. your talking about doubling the HP of your 155hp engine. far stretch from 300. the HO is rated at 225hp. that would be half the battle right there. youd be alot closer to 300 and it would be easier to build that 300 with this engine than it would be with the SO. they can be had for cheep and can be found easilly and are a relitivally easy swap. your car was made for this engine, its just fords fauld for droping the ball on this one.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #8 – October 21, 2004, 10:20:45 PM

HO upgrade, get stang motor and computer from junkyard cheep. long tube headers, mmff did a test and lt's made 225 into 250. ud pullys, cai with k&n filter. and gears. all this is pretty cheep and easy.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #9 – October 26, 2004, 09:40:48 PM

Im suprised no one has suggested spraying it, I know two of the faster cars on here (TC50 and Chrome302jr) run nitrous with great success.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #10 – October 27, 2004, 01:21:15 AM

I dont think 300 HP can be had "cheap" unless ya spray it like Sancho said. To make 300 ponies, at a minimum we're talkin ported E7's, a good hyd roller cam, at least a 190 lph fuel pump, aftermarket intake, throttle body, MAF conversion headers and dual exhaust. If you go with a carb the only thing that changes is I'd probably use a Performer RPM intake and a 600-650 CFM double pumper (you could probably use a carb with vacuum secondaries but mechanical secondaries are just cool!) with a good fuel pump.

Oh, and one more thing. The SO pistons have no valve reliefs so you have to get into the short block if you want to use a cam larger than the stock HO cam or heads with larger than stock valves. I'll be a happy camper if I can get my 300 HP for less than $3000...

As mentioned before, I think the cheapest and easiest route is to buy a used 87+ HO engine and start with 225 HP/300 ft/lbs. You can probably score one for less than 500 or 600 bucks. Add a 100 HP shot of nitrous to it and you're at 300HP for less than $1500.

Speed cost money and the amount of horsepower you can realistically build is directly propotional to the size of your bank account... or credit limit, heheh...

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #11 – October 27, 2004, 01:31:33 AM

Quote from: jimfulco

Free up the exhaust system.

Yup fer sure, even a nitrous kit won't help much without a good flowing exaust.

Re: Cheap upgrades and 300hp upgrade help please!

Reply #12 – November 01, 2004, 10:07:58 PM

Nitrous isnt exactly a wise start up upgrade. You run out and constantly have to refill it, and the engine has to be able to withstand the stress the spray puts on it.