Best HP for the money?

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VinceJac

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I have a 2000 ls, 3.9 base engine, and i have just got all of the dreaded ailments fixed (valve gasket, cops, cam sensor, window regulators, ball joints, and tie rod ends). I am now looking to put a few extra dollars into this vehicle after its recent clean bill of health. What is the most economical way to increase HP?
 
Buy a mustang :) but to actually answer probably getting a tune and intake but that's about all you can do there are other things but they won't do much
 
Get the Ebay intake tube; Insys, and get a heat shield from Hite. They work pretty good.
 
Will theses products give roughly the same hp increases as the more expensive versions?
 
There are a few options. How much are you in a position to commit? Financially speaking.
 
I really haven't committed to a price, but the more economical the better. With that said, I do not want to save a few dollars and end up inhibiting performance. Right now I am looking at the Tru-Rev by KKM but I am wondering if this option is significantly better than the whole package offered by insys.

Also is it necessary to swap my factory intake tube with chrome or stainless, or is that more of an aesthetics thing?
 
Most, I imagine, will say go to the aluminum intake tube. I stayed with the oem plastic and added a K&N cone filter and a heatshield a member here(Hite 337) made and sells.
 
+1. I started to say that. That project is well underway here.
 
Go with the aluminum intake tube from ASMI on ebay, a MAF adapter (spectre 8145) and a K&N filter (RF-1015). I have the heatshield for sale to go with the intake, see sig below. Also you can do a 2.5" catback exhaust. Then do a custom tune with the SCT programmer. That stuff together will run you around $1,000-1,500.
 
I know this may sound stupid but I can assure you it isn't, as I have confirmed it several times on dyno pulls from my past Supras I've owned. Every little bit helps. Mark your spark plugs on your leads in line with the open face of the spark plug. Make sure that you can see the line or dot. I use a red paint pen and put a little dot on the top in line. When you install them make sure that when you are finished that the open face is in line with the combution chamber and the fuel injector. This will insure that combustion of fuel will happen faster and more completely. On average you will gain a total of 1-2 HP, but with a car like the LS, with no aftermarket support, it's not bad.
 
I use a paint pen and draw a line on my socket extension and line my plug up with with that line to index my plugs. I have always done this. Good advice centason
 
Either or work, lol. It is a 1-2 hp gain which isn't bad for just really turning a wrench. Oh OP, if you have the money run Purple Power oil and a Mahle oil filter. I run a Mahle filter on the LS right now, but will not run the oil until I have this thing rebuilt and broken in. If I were to change the oil at this point, I could cause problems with the seals, which I don't need at the moment.
 
Best way to gain horsepower is first to make sure everything runs right with no leaks or misfires, all fluids are flushed and replaced and then add an intake, exhuast and a tune.

Other than that you need to either get a bottle or some FI.
 
I have just got my engine back to running well after multiple misfires and a lot of frustration. I will look into the Purple Power. I plan to do my Induction system this weekend along with the plug alignment. I will need the heat shied shortly. I also plan to get the Magna Flow but that wont be for a while. I appreciate all the great input.

I can already tell this is going to be addicting. I find myself looking for new mods now and will probably do LED's, Tint and headlights soon. I figure what the hell, I just spent the money fixing all the "common" problems, so it should be reliable for at least another ~100,000 miles. I hope I'm not too optimistic.
 
Improvement? Yes---but what sort?

I've said here before that as I was going into Land Speed Racing, I did both the fancy intake tract with filter, and a complete Magnaflow cat-back. None of these things made ANY difference in the top speed I achieved in the mile. In fact, by a few hundredths of a MPH, the very first run I made was the best. So do the intake and exhaust mods for the sound improvement and the modest improvement in gas mileage---NOT for more power.

In order to go faster, I had to go to a competition-grade N2O package from NX, on top of the intake and exhaust mods, and then add a methanol-as-fuel combo to go with the NX hardware to achieve the record. After that, every time I added more methanol to the combination I upped the record. We still hold the Maxton E/F CC record with my '02 LS Sport. (See 'Land Speed LS' in the HP section)

KS
 
And thanks to Cammerfe, I now have his former Zex n2o system(along with a bottle warmer remote bottle opener, and extra pills up to 175hp).

A huge "thanks again" to Cam for the deal on the system.
 
Be careful marc. I think you're pushing your luck with 150 on a stock engine.
 
2002_lincolnLS said:
Buy a mustang :) but to actually answer probably getting a tune and intake but that's about all you can do there are other things but they won't do much
Click to expand...

Only the 05+ mustangs or cobras can hang. The rest are an even match with an LS besides aftermarket.

Oh and the new V6 mustangs.
 
Turbo that puppy
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