Post by hotrodder on Mar 2, 2008 19:49:55 GMT -5
I figured that since no one has posted anything in here, I'd be the first to speak.... Common things that you can do to increase performance. I hope this will be a nice reference or what not thread....
As far as the heads, bigger valves, most common bigger sized used is the 2.14/1.81 valves. The you can gasket match the ports for better flow. Now the kicker is, to figure out which set of heads you have. The factory produced numerous sets of heads, and only a few are sought after for different reason, wether it be closed chamber, hardened seats, ect... This is based on factory cast iron heads, after market heads are some what of a different ball game, endless possibilities going on there now....
Cam, what type of cam you use will depend on, well, you. This is based on, one what you can afford.... Two what you want, as in sound/performance, ect... Usualy.. A lopy cam want ramp up like a smoother idle cam.... This I found out when I had the old design "509" cam in my '69 440, great idle, nice and lopy, but found that it wasn't all that great until it started building some rpm, so I idled it up some, and ran it.... There are pretty much four kinds of cam, the hydraulic flat tappet, solid flat tappet, hydraulic roller, and the solid roller, and the price will pretty much start at the lowest place being the hyd flat, and go up to the solid roller.... But with the rollers, you have to run more than just the roller cam and roller lifters, you'll have more money tied up in other areas too.....
Carb, bigger isn't always better. If you have, lets say, a basic 440, you don't need a 900 + cfm carb on it for it to run. There's a formula to use to figure out roughly what size carb you would need to run, but don't have it with me right now, and no it aint cid x 2.... It deals with cid, rpm, ect.... Then foc ourse there's fuel injection, expensive, but nice.... With the kits out on the market now, you could just pick up the phone, call a company, tell 'em what you got, what you want, pay 'em, the kit come in, and you can install it, and go... For the most part. But with the fuel injection, electronic in this case, you will have to run O2 sensors, so, if you don't have the threaded bungs in you exhaust, you get to add some...
Exhaust, headers will help you gain some horse power, and while I'm not telling anyone what to run, nor am I advertising for anyone, us Mopar guys have to face facts in that, TTI makes the best fitting.... Unfortanatly, they are also the most expensive. There are others that we can run like Hooker and such, but the fit want be the best. Pipe diameter, this will depend on what motor you're running. If it's a factory 440, then a 2.5" exhaust system should be fine. A 3" exhaust, while nice, should be for motors producing a bit mroe power, and therefor flowing more exhuast... But run what you want, it's your car, enjoy it. Crossover types..... For the apparent best sound, straight pipes seems to be the best. For the most power, I'd say the X pipe is the best way to go. For some of each, the old style H pipe. Since I'm mostly refering to street cars, we want even go the open headers route. As for mufflers, again, a whole lot out there. You will need to decide on, do you want something quite, something mild, or something wild? Then how much do you want to spend? A lot of, it seems, are starting to get away from FlowMaster and going with Dynomax, Magnaflow, ect.... Apparently Flowmaster isn't all that great of a flowing muffler....
Intakes.... A lot to talk about here. Factory cast iron, nice and heavy. Due to different hoods, when selecting an intake, remember your hood clearance, some intakes are taller than others, like the Eddy Performer RPM is taller than the factory cast iron 4bbl intake. Then if you decide to use a carb spacer, that will obviously increase the height too. Other intakes like the Tunnel Ram, Blower, ect probably want fit under a stock hood without modification.... There are some blowers made that will fit under the hood, but they are not the roots type that go on top of the motor....
Compression ratios, I've been told that each 1 point in compression is worth roughly 25 horse power.... But on pump gas, say you drive up to a gas station and get the premium gas, you should be running no more than say 10:1 with cast iron heads, or 11:1 with aluminum... With the aluminum heads due to the heat loss rate, you can factor in a 1 point compression loss. How do oyu determine your compression..... Again, nice formula, but you need to know a lot of exact figures like combustion chamber cc's, gasket thickness (compressed), bore size, ect.... There's some programs that you can buy/download off the net that will help with the calculating, but becareful of what you get off the net....
Piston selection. There is a term called flame travel, bit technical.... Flat top piston is going to give you nice compression with possibly the best flame travel. The highest compression is a dome piston. The lowest would be a dish piston.... Most stoker kit's now come with forged pistons, if you get a forged piston, it may be best to try and get a light weight forged piston. The lighter the rotating mass, the less stress there is on the crank and all in the bottom end and can result in longer engine life, and a better ramp speed due to the lighter weight. Basicaly take a person, draw a line in some dirt, tell them to stand at it, and then take off running... Afterwards, take the same person, at the same area, add say 50 pounds or what not to them, and tell them to once again take off, even after resting to get back to the way they were the first time, there time will be slower b/c of the extra weight. This is one reason to use lighter components, but each component can be lightened in certain areas w/o sacrifycing quality.... Take weight out of the wrong area, and you'll creat a problem... As far as pin/crank journal/ ect spec's, I want go there. Same for rod angles and all.
What else, someone take it from here, I've typed a bit, and have forgotten what I've said. There's a lot of things you can change to try and increase power. Hopefully we will start getting some proven combo's in here, including some that folks have done with a stock motor using bolt on parts. But remember, with a factory motor that's say 30+ years old, those are 30+ year old parts, and unless you've owned that car for all it's life, you may not know what all it's been through, ect. So try and not push the envelope to much....
As far as the heads, bigger valves, most common bigger sized used is the 2.14/1.81 valves. The you can gasket match the ports for better flow. Now the kicker is, to figure out which set of heads you have. The factory produced numerous sets of heads, and only a few are sought after for different reason, wether it be closed chamber, hardened seats, ect... This is based on factory cast iron heads, after market heads are some what of a different ball game, endless possibilities going on there now....
Cam, what type of cam you use will depend on, well, you. This is based on, one what you can afford.... Two what you want, as in sound/performance, ect... Usualy.. A lopy cam want ramp up like a smoother idle cam.... This I found out when I had the old design "509" cam in my '69 440, great idle, nice and lopy, but found that it wasn't all that great until it started building some rpm, so I idled it up some, and ran it.... There are pretty much four kinds of cam, the hydraulic flat tappet, solid flat tappet, hydraulic roller, and the solid roller, and the price will pretty much start at the lowest place being the hyd flat, and go up to the solid roller.... But with the rollers, you have to run more than just the roller cam and roller lifters, you'll have more money tied up in other areas too.....
Carb, bigger isn't always better. If you have, lets say, a basic 440, you don't need a 900 + cfm carb on it for it to run. There's a formula to use to figure out roughly what size carb you would need to run, but don't have it with me right now, and no it aint cid x 2.... It deals with cid, rpm, ect.... Then foc ourse there's fuel injection, expensive, but nice.... With the kits out on the market now, you could just pick up the phone, call a company, tell 'em what you got, what you want, pay 'em, the kit come in, and you can install it, and go... For the most part. But with the fuel injection, electronic in this case, you will have to run O2 sensors, so, if you don't have the threaded bungs in you exhaust, you get to add some...
Exhaust, headers will help you gain some horse power, and while I'm not telling anyone what to run, nor am I advertising for anyone, us Mopar guys have to face facts in that, TTI makes the best fitting.... Unfortanatly, they are also the most expensive. There are others that we can run like Hooker and such, but the fit want be the best. Pipe diameter, this will depend on what motor you're running. If it's a factory 440, then a 2.5" exhaust system should be fine. A 3" exhaust, while nice, should be for motors producing a bit mroe power, and therefor flowing more exhuast... But run what you want, it's your car, enjoy it. Crossover types..... For the apparent best sound, straight pipes seems to be the best. For the most power, I'd say the X pipe is the best way to go. For some of each, the old style H pipe. Since I'm mostly refering to street cars, we want even go the open headers route. As for mufflers, again, a whole lot out there. You will need to decide on, do you want something quite, something mild, or something wild? Then how much do you want to spend? A lot of, it seems, are starting to get away from FlowMaster and going with Dynomax, Magnaflow, ect.... Apparently Flowmaster isn't all that great of a flowing muffler....
Intakes.... A lot to talk about here. Factory cast iron, nice and heavy. Due to different hoods, when selecting an intake, remember your hood clearance, some intakes are taller than others, like the Eddy Performer RPM is taller than the factory cast iron 4bbl intake. Then if you decide to use a carb spacer, that will obviously increase the height too. Other intakes like the Tunnel Ram, Blower, ect probably want fit under a stock hood without modification.... There are some blowers made that will fit under the hood, but they are not the roots type that go on top of the motor....
Compression ratios, I've been told that each 1 point in compression is worth roughly 25 horse power.... But on pump gas, say you drive up to a gas station and get the premium gas, you should be running no more than say 10:1 with cast iron heads, or 11:1 with aluminum... With the aluminum heads due to the heat loss rate, you can factor in a 1 point compression loss. How do oyu determine your compression..... Again, nice formula, but you need to know a lot of exact figures like combustion chamber cc's, gasket thickness (compressed), bore size, ect.... There's some programs that you can buy/download off the net that will help with the calculating, but becareful of what you get off the net....
Piston selection. There is a term called flame travel, bit technical.... Flat top piston is going to give you nice compression with possibly the best flame travel. The highest compression is a dome piston. The lowest would be a dish piston.... Most stoker kit's now come with forged pistons, if you get a forged piston, it may be best to try and get a light weight forged piston. The lighter the rotating mass, the less stress there is on the crank and all in the bottom end and can result in longer engine life, and a better ramp speed due to the lighter weight. Basicaly take a person, draw a line in some dirt, tell them to stand at it, and then take off running... Afterwards, take the same person, at the same area, add say 50 pounds or what not to them, and tell them to once again take off, even after resting to get back to the way they were the first time, there time will be slower b/c of the extra weight. This is one reason to use lighter components, but each component can be lightened in certain areas w/o sacrifycing quality.... Take weight out of the wrong area, and you'll creat a problem... As far as pin/crank journal/ ect spec's, I want go there. Same for rod angles and all.
What else, someone take it from here, I've typed a bit, and have forgotten what I've said. There's a lot of things you can change to try and increase power. Hopefully we will start getting some proven combo's in here, including some that folks have done with a stock motor using bolt on parts. But remember, with a factory motor that's say 30+ years old, those are 30+ year old parts, and unless you've owned that car for all it's life, you may not know what all it's been through, ect. So try and not push the envelope to much....
