hi, i was just wondering what i have to do to get my inline six 1994 F-150 to get more power. i want it to sound like a V-8 with headers and straight pipes since thats what my brother has. i want to show the gmc up! any help would be appreciated! thanks

 

check the stickey at the top...

buy a v8. inline 6 engines will not EVER sound like a v8. the firing order, exhaust gas pulses, cylinder arrangment and number of cylinders prevent this.

flow masters sound ok but a little ricey, magnaflows are deep and throaty, straight pipe is loud and tractorish, turbo muffs are a good tone and glasspacks sound like ***.

 

Spot on, it's not possible to get the 300 to sound anything like a v8. I've gotten tractor comments a lot here recently with the straight pipe duals out of my headers and an "X" pipe.


Only thing I would disagree with there is the turbo statement. I had twin turbo mufflers on my duals and thought it sounded ricey.

An "X" pipe with duals will help the sound more than any other mod you can make imho and also help performance a smidge with a freer flowing exhaust.

 

Can't get much plainer or to the point than that. Or more correct in mind. I agree with everything he said.

Btw i hope the chevy he has is a 305 or else you will need a very large pocket of cash to show him up. If his motor is modded out i'd just forget about it and be happy with what you have, or buy a new truck with a v8. Anyways g/l.

If you realy want more power make yourself a custom intake and put a high flow filter on the end of it, then get a highflow exhuast, then a aftermarket cam from crane cams, or comp cams, or 1 of the very many cam manufacturers out there. Your stock split manifolds will work fine and they flow quite well compares to the old single manifold 300s. You can always port the heads add bigger injectors, bigger valves, oversized pistons, bump in compression so on..

 

Actually your missing two cylinders, bent six's sound like *** too.


You can get close, a single in dual out muffler will get you a nice deep tone, x or H pipe on true duals and flowmaster will get you close but none will give you the powerful sound of a v-8.


If the sound is a real issue to you and you are determined to make the old efi generate more power, save yourself some frustration and just swap in an efi v-8, its a bolt in and has ease of modification and a hair more potential.

 

thanks for the reply y'all! the chevy hes got is a 305. i think ill just find a 302 and drop her in!

 

jus another thought....
would my 300 be worth the hassle of a body lift with 33 inch tire or would that kill watever power it has?
thanks!

 

It has power, it was meant for hauling not racing. 33's will be fine depending on what gearing you have.

3.55's are about the best the factory put in them, With those you can hook to about anything and pull it around, i mean trailers, I'm thinking of hooking my truck up at the county fair at the truck pulls, hey it's an I6 so it has ***** of torque.
I've got 4.10's and she flat out hauls. It's not a race car but it'll burn them into 3rd and chirp into 4th. Top end is 67mph though. I kept up with my buddy's K20 with a 4spd and a mild 350 easily with 1/2 throttle, the only mods mine has is 4.10 gears, the sewer pipe, cat not there, and a torque type cam. I'm probally running around 170HP and 320ftlbs, i'd guess. I'm gonna dyno it before i do the 4bbl and efi manifolds. But if one not familiar to I6's would drive it they would swear it was in the 250+ range, but thats because it makes all of it's power low.
The SB chevy was a car engine so it revs and gets up and goes better.

DT

 

it just has the stock gearing...so the 33 inch tires will do fine?

 

Well look on the Door post, under axle there will be a number.
18 is 3.08 19 is 3.55 H8 is 3.08LS H9 is 3.55LS.

My 300 sounds like a semi truck at part throttle, but it sounds like a built to the hilt Big Block when i floor it, at idle it's got a nice sparky lope.

I love it it's not a V8 i love the large I6 sound. Not ricey at all, sounds like a Cummins 6BT. But loud. Louder than a girl i know with a professionally built racing 350 in her late 60's C10

DT

oh my first 2 weeks of my senior HS year are complete and going good guys.

 

i cant tell wat gearing it has. is your truck a manual shift or automatic? wat exactly did you do to ur truck for more power? i remember back in june, my truck had trouble pulling a half loaded hay wagon down the road. i do hav an exhaust leak that is getting fixed on wednesday. would that have been a contributing factor?

 

Sorry it took so long, i had to eat

Exhaust leak won't really do anything for power. There should be a tag on the axle cover that will have the ratio on it. It's held on my a bolt

4X4?
what tranny do you have?
my truck is a granny 4spd manual. It always had more power than i used, because of the 4.10 gears, but the cam was already in it when i bought her from an old farmer.

my buddy has an 82 4X2 with a c6 and a 9" and it has a brand new crate motor in it, with only 5k on it or so. And it is sluggish as crap, i mean we used it to haul fire wood and it did fine going from the field to his porch had power for that but on the road towing a backhoe It wouldn't go up a hill too good, 10mph max.

I think his has got like 2.75 gears though.

But i noticed a huge differance when i went from the stock 2" exhaust to my 3" all the way from the DP to the tip. It had way better response, i think my exhaust was plugged cause the muffler blew out half way through the school year last year.

I'd open up the exhaust. In canada they are **** about altering cars, my cousin lives in the hamilton area and he has a heavily modified blazer he got in trouble for lowering it. So i'm sure you can't run straight pipes with no cats like you can here.

Hope fully optikal will come back, he's knows about these EFI's more than i do. I know you can't go to radical on the cam or the computer will go nuts. I know the carb'd ones alright, but optikal had done some work on his EFI.

Hey Gerry was your 77 EFI when you bought it? or did you do it your self? just curious.

DT

 

unfortunately mine was efi when i bought. Someone jerry rigged it up. It runs good but, the wiring is a headache to say the least, Butt splices holding wires together,electric tape over connections. horrible to say the least.

Btw i know what optikals cam is and it is efi friendly. it's a 260/272 grind from crane cams. i'll post the # in a minute (i planned on using the same cam on my truck before i decided i was going to sell it).

ps. sorry i must have deleted the cams specs but, i'm sure it was the crane power max truck cam with a 260/272 grind. you can find it on there site pretty easy. i beleive this is about as big of a cam as you are going to be able to pop on your efi motor without some issues. Should have a real nice lope to it

 

Well as long as it runs good.

That's the cam i'm gonna run when and if i ever have to rebuild my 300.

DT

 

May find out that cam comes alive between 2000-2500 rpm and does nothing for anything below.


Common mistake is to over cam an engine, might be worth sucking up the desire to go as big as the efi can handle and get the smaller powermax cam that crane offers (they offer three for the 4.9). Not sure about ya'll but I spend most of my time between 1500 and 2000 vs 2000+, to give the engine ***** where its needed, the lower grind may be more effective, should also give you that additional rpm needed for play time as well.

If a stock camshaft and .420 lift (1.75 ratio) can net an additional 200 rpm and noticable tq (as posted by silver streak), just imagine what .429 inake/.458 exhaust lift with stock intake duration and 12 more degree exh duration can do, also has a smaller advertised duration of 248/260 vs the stock 268. Which means it should be snappy and ready to rev. All this drama from the smallest powermax camshaft.