what other mods can you do to your engine without turboing?

jakey106 · Post by **jakey106** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:55 pm

Hey guys i just want to know what other mods you can do to your engine without turboing i know you can work the cams and bore it out and shave the head has any one done this and how much?

FtoSam · Post by **FtoSam** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:06 pm

New fuel pump.Upgrade Brakes.LSD.New air intake pipe with POD, box and CAI. Bigger injectors. High Flow 2.5" Exhaust. Good Suspension(helps put power down).Get piggyback ECU.Strip weight out of car.Heavy duty clutch. lightened flywheel.Lightweight rims help.Short shifter to help with gear changes.
Then because all of that is still not going to keep up with a turbo, Forge your internals and Get NOS. Will prob cost almost the same as getting turbo'd to do ALL that but it would be different.
Downside... Theres not much more you can do that will give you power for your money after that.
Turbo is almost endless... as long as your engine can handle it and you got plenty of fuel coming in.... traction becomes your only limiting factor... then with AWD..... well... your crazy... cant wait to see the first AWD fto in aus... aparently theres a few in progress atm.. I know a guy who has already got a galant gearbox and is just waiting to find the drivetrain. Should be a year or two away.

nosman · Post by **nosman** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:15 pm

ah Sam would that be the crazy thing we cruised with when i came up hehe?

boarsai · Post by **boarsai** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:23 pm

Legality of Nitrous would be a bigger downside

FtoSam · Post by **FtoSam** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:36 pm

Lukas: Yeah the red one. He's trying to go AWD to get traction down. When i was driving beside him the other night, he boost stalled at 80km/h and then lit up the tires. then chirped as he went into 4th doing well well over 100... i was like... oh....my....god....
mind you he's slower than an excel up to 80..hhahahah...
untill he goes AWD.

And yes legalities of NOS... meh... you can often hide a kit quite easily. and being a N/A fto cops are unlikely to search for it.... just dont go round sayin... I GOT NOS yeah yeah... purge.. yeah yeah.

sublime19 · Post by **sublime19** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:56 pm

I asked questions before, here's some answers I got!

and this one will answer all your questions im sure:

http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... light=loan

and this is about the engine capacity:
http://www.ftoaustralia.com/modules.php ... pic&t=8774

Post by **BorepYano** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:56 pm

boarsai wrote:Legality of Nitrous would be a bigger downside

i think u r allowed to have the whole kit installed in your car, as well as the bottle, but it must not be connected... i.e. the bottle can not be connected to the kit... or something like that.

jonowong · Post by **jonowong** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:49 pm

i dont think a bigger fuel pump and bigger injectors would be useful for a n/a car... theres no way to get extra air to burn that much fuel to require bigger fuel pump and injectors...

just my 2c

and b0rep is right for once...

FTEvolution · Post by **FTEvolution** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:49 am

jonowong wrote:i dont think a bigger fuel pump and bigger injectors would be useful for a n/a car... theres no way to get extra air to burn that much fuel to require bigger fuel pump and injectors...

I would be inclined to think the CAI, combined with a thorough porting of the heads (not necessarily a polish though, I have heard mixed reports of polishing effectiveness) and enlarging, or just getting a bigger throttlebody would equate to a non-insignificant increase of the engine to swallow greater cfm of air.

Don't forget to match port the inlet manifold to the heads, and the exhaust manifold to the heads also. I would be inclined to say that all of the mods listed in this thread would easily add up to waaay more than you want to pay for a street weapon.

I have heard that stock FTO injectors don't go over ~55% duty cycle, so doing those mods, with a VAFC (if it works with MIVEC) would probably be enough to get the car really humming.

In summary: With all of the mods listed above by others, and of course some gearbox/diff strengthening and a good aftermarket LSD, you could have a practically bulletproof track weapon. If you only wanted a street weapon, with the ability to do track days and the odd drag day, go turbo, there isn't really any better bang for buck, especially in AU with all of your restrictive rules.

Post by **Bennoz** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:32 am

I think in Jakey's case were are looking for bang for buck.

* Sort the intake pipe (ie piss off the stock unit - very restrictive)
* Get a high flow filter
* Put some rpw extractors
* Get a high flow cat & 2.5" exhaust system
* Get a piggy back ECU (SMT7, Unichip, Emanage)

There's 3 grands worth & about 15kws.

If you start pulling heads, your looking big dollars. The only mod I'd bother with in the fuel line is a rising rate FPR. Even with a blower going on to my car we are only upping the fuel pump size (I already have the FPR on.) As you say, FTO fuel system is only running 55 - 60% of its cycle on full throttle.

There's nothing you can do to strengthen the F5M45 manual box. Only drive train issue I would worry about would be clutch. If its tip, you can have the torque converter strengthened & tightened up. LSD would be nice, but at an average price of $1400 - and thats without labour involved in pulling & stripping the box - it really is only a track day want.

And yes, you can put a nitro kit in the car, so long as the primary bottle is seen to be disconnected. There are also a number of ADR specs that must be met when putting the kit in, like bottle location, line locations etc. Can't be near impact zones or rubbing etc.

FTO338 · Post by **FTO338** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:48 am

There was a member in Vic who shaved the cam on his FTO, and it got a good result, don't know how much because he got his racing mechanic do it for him. His also a drag racing himself.

I'm just going to add few more things to Ben's list

Larger TB
Ported and polish intake manifold

Go to car for sell section and read what Steve (old President) and I ex-fto, if you did everything that we both done, you just about did everything u can do to a N/A FTO car.

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:08 pm

NA cars require attention to the entire intake system. Ben and 388 have already said these...do them

CAI system Get a new intake pipe. But if you serious get a new TB and intake pipe to match. Get an Apexi pod and get a CAI box of some kind to shield it...even its its dodgy. UAS have some plastic ones.

Exhuast side...extractors, cat and muffler. Freee up the restriction as much as possible. the CAT is the most important and will give the most gain in the zorst. Get a high-flow -700+CFM rating..

Depends on how much u wanna spend and how u do it.

payaya · Post by **payaya** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:36 pm

jonowong wrote:i dont think a bigger fuel pump and bigger injectors would be useful for a n/a car... theres no way to get extra air to burn that much fuel to require bigger fuel pump and injectors...

just my 2c

and b0rep is right for once...

I was thinking the same thing!

Best mod would be to put in a manual period if you dont have one.

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:28 pm

payaya wrote:
jonowong wrote:i dont think a bigger fuel pump and bigger injectors would be useful for a n/a car... theres no way to get extra air to burn that much fuel to require bigger fuel pump and injectors...

just my 2c

and b0rep is right for once...
I was thinking the same thing!

Best mod would be to put in a manual period if you dont have one.

confirmed! gain more through that than most other mods.

FtoSam · Post by **FtoSam** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:04 am

well its settled...
-Convert it to manual
-New freeflowing exhaust with highflow cat
- New air intake system
- Get extractors
- Larger TB
- ECU

That should keep you busy for a few weeks.