Lose of power
 

We just added the following mods to our 88GT stang:

MAF conversion
Typhoon Intake
X303 cam

Did't have the money for heads at this time, figured we do the above now. Everything went well - set timing idle etc. I haven't driven the car yet, but my son tells he doesn't have any power when cranking through the gears on the highway.

Any ideas, things we should look at?

Well, I'm pretty new to the 5.0 game... (more of a 351W guy), but isn't the x cam a little much for that car??

Yeah, the cam is the VERY last thing you need to change in the stock heads/cam/intake combo. Its a very surprising performer for a stock piece.

I agree, the original game plan was to upgrade H/I/C after the mass air conversion. The combo was AFR165 or 185s heads, Typhoon Intake, and X303 cam. Money ran a little short after the MASS air conversion, getting some upper control arms. My son already had the cam and intake on order. Once it came in decided to put them on the car.

Is it the stock heads that's killing us, or could it be something else like air/fuel mix? My son also noticed that when he's on the road and punches it, gets smoke out the exhaust. We didn't take the heads off the car for this upgrade.

i'd say its definetly them POOP stock heads, .542 lift is to much cam for those heads.. put those AFR's on problem solved.. good luck ;)

I guess that could also be the cause of the burning during acceleration. What I remember from the past is usually it's valve seals when you step on the gas and get smoke out the exhaust.

Here's our delima:

My son really wants AFR185s, everything I've read about them I can understand why. I talked to AFR and they said the 185s are not a direct bolt-up to a stock motor, as the pistions need to be notched.

Outside of pulling the X303 back out, is there anything else we can do to get us by till winter, when we take her down and work on the motor? We're even considering a DSS with 185s.

Previous post you read the ultimate goal is a stroker with 185s. Are there any cheaper high-flow heads we could put on that are less than 1 grand?

Don't want to notch the pistons to run the 185s, not real keen on buying the 165s now and 185s later.

Ebay had a set of Edelbrocks for $850.00 plus shipping, brand new in the box.....

What mass air conversion did you put on it? If its the ford motorsport one that comes with 24lb injectors it also some with a cobra computer which is junk. That cam is also way to big and cant believe the springs could hold up very long. If the maf kit is an fms one get rid of that junk computer.

That's definately a possiblity too, if you have the cobra computer, you will need the cobra Mass air meter, or at least the Cobra sampling tube calibrated for your injectors, it is different from the other tubes no matter what size injector they are calibrated for. The wrong tube in the meter will send false readings of the amount of air that is being taken in and in return will not match the fuel needs, therefore loss of power. I have seen this problem before, find out which computer you have and be sure the meter is calibrated for you year model and meter size.

Thanx for the info - this gives us something to look at!

I'm pretty sure the mass air conversion kit my son got was the ford motorsport kit, as it was a simply running of one wire. What computer do you guys recommend?

Agreed on the cam being too big for stock heads, we would've had the heads, but the ole green paper stuff ran a little light.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but don't u need to either reprogram the comp, or chip it when u change cams?

You're wrong :D

Talked to my son and the conversion kit is the Ford motorsports. This wasn't the complete kit with the bigger 24 or 30lb injectors. We're still running the 19lb injectors.

He also reminded me we put the mass air conversion on before the cam and new intake and the car ran fine. Since putting the cam and intake we have the lose of power over 4K rpms.

I got to thinking about an earlier post stating the springs couldn't take the aggressive lift, and started wondering if we've got a floating valve? That would cause a lose of power as well.

When the cam was installed, did you degree it or just straight up?