This question has probably been asked atleast a million times, but please bare with me. I recently purchased a 1993 F150 witha 4.9 I6 (300 ci). How do I get more power on the cheap?

 

Talk bout beatin a dead horse......drop in K&N filter....different gears in the rear...tuneup with a good coil and some good wires.

 

Rebuild with forged rods/pistons, turbo cam, stiffer valve spings to handle boost + cam, add single turbo + upgraded fuel system. LOL

Or you could go with more gear, ported head, better cam and more compression.

Do a search and get ready to open you wallet because more power isn't cheap.

Well, you could do a cheap nitrous kit, but who knows how long the stock motor will last. And nitrous sales by the lb, so it costs to use it. lol

 

this topic has been covered alot in the inline six forum. look in there you can find something. Headers, exhaust, and cam are the most common.

 

What is the inline six forum? Where is it?

 

Can you put a chip in them?

 

power and cheap do not go together.

 

go to top of this page and select forums and look for the big six forum.

 

John,

An inline six, like any piston engine is basically a big air pump. To get more performance and HP out of that baby on the cheap is to improve it's breathing and exhaust flow which will pump more air out the back end.
Remove the stock restrictive air filter and box and install a K&N setup for improved air intake and breathing. Next will be to relieve some of the back pressure by installing more of a flow throuigh exhaust and this can be accomplished in a couple different ways, basically by removing the stock catalytic converters and putting on a high flow cat with large diameter exhaust with either Flowmaster or Dynaflow mufflers split into dual exhaust or my personal choice instead of mufflers would be cherry bomb glasspacks. Go to your local small muffler shop that has a few years experience with a welding torch and pipe bender and tell them you want to improve the exhaust flow without spending a whole bunch and without buying an expensive X pipe. Going from the single tailpipe to dual exhaust is fairly easy to fabricate and can even be done with one cat, one glasspack and then split to dual tailpipes, plus the duals sound so tuff. See if they can remove the stock cats and install a high flow cat, if they don't have one available you can get one delivered pretty fast by Summit Racing Equipment or one of the other online parts suppliers with fast shipping and have them put that on.
Now if you've already done this type of upgrade then move on to the other perfomance suggestions already mentioned. The upgrade I detailed will probably give you about 18 more HP so that should help.

Johnny



Ford F-150's Rule the Road........God Bless Henry Ford

 

hook up nitros

Ray

 

Dear Johnny.. I liked your 'no nonsense' repl. I have a new sport track 4x4 w/ 4.6 L 3 engine would a k&n make any appreciable difference ?

 

a k&n filter would make a very small, if any, difference.

the whole filter system may improve performance, slightly.

it would sound louder which gives the perceived feeling of more performance.