more HP from 302 ideas?

[dhs.buckley]

I have been looking at getting a little more Hp from my 302 which is about a 96 mustang block with edelbrock perfomer rpm heads and manifold with a 465 holley on it, i have been told the best way for cheap hp so far is to upgrade the fuel pump from the original 70 lph to a holley blue 110gph pump and use a 670 holley street avenger carb. any other thoughts on this combo?

[leroy17]

Not sure if it still works in the modern era however in the late 80's and early 90's, strategic placement of a CRANE CAMS sticker (as I understand it) was the easy HP of choice for most street cars.

[dhs.buckley]

also i heard you get a lot more horsepower after it has just rained aswell, pulling the choke out at idle gives you that extra lumpy cam that you wanted aswell

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by dhs.buckley

I have been looking at getting a little more Hp from my 302 which is about a 96 mustang block with edelbrock perfomer rpm heads and manifold with a 465 holley on it, i have been told the best way for cheap hp so far is to upgrade the fuel pump from the original 70 lph to a holley blue 110gph pump and use a 670 holley street avenger carb. any other thoughts on this combo?

If your fuel pressure, fuel supply and fuel ratio is all okay you dont need another pump. It won't make you any more HP.

[dhs.buckley]

Originally Posted by Rich A

If your fuel pressure, fuel supply and fuel ratio is all okay you dont need another pump. It won't make you any more HP.

found out with the 465 holley single fuel line, that the rear fuel bowl is empty after about 5 seconds of wide open throttle so in this case the 70 litre per hour pump will not keep up with 465 with vac secondaries,so no chance with the 670 holley with twin fuel lines.

[Towmaster]

Originally Posted by dhs.buckley

found out with the 465 holley single fuel line, that the rear fuel bowl is empty after about 5 seconds of wide open throttle so in this case the 70 litre per hour pump will not keep up with 465 with vac secondaries,so no chance with the 670 holley with twin fuel lines.

Yep agreed, you shouldn't need two lines from the pump in the boot to the engine, just one line, about half inch should be fine. Does it have the standard camshaft in it? IF so put in a bigger cam.....

[dhs.buckley]

Originally Posted by Towmaster

Yep agreed, you shouldn't need two lines from the pump in the boot to the engine, just one line, about half inch should be fine. Does it have the standard camshaft in it? IF so put in a bigger cam.....

it has 5/8 fuel line which i was going split with a fuel rail, it also has a 5/8 return line to the tank from when it was fuel injected.
it does have a cam in it, stage 1 maybe?, but i have no specs on this but i would suggest it is fairly mild, not very lumpy at idle.

[Andrew429]

Hi dhs.buckley,

It'll probably get laughed at, but have you considered a carb spacer plate.
A 1" spacer plate can make more of a change than you would expect, more so if it has a magic blue bottle plumbed to it.

[Wazza]

Bigger Cam

Bigger/better Carby

MSD

Best headers/exhaust system you can afford..( This made a world of difference on my first Cobra.)

That'll do pig!..

Have fun.

Warren

[dhs.buckley]

i think it's got some reasonable go fast gear on it, ie heads manifold and ignition is mallory, cam seems ok, its pulling 300rwhp on the dyno, but not for long with the current fuel pump problem but has been suggested by the dyno bloke it will pull over 350rwhp with the 670 avenger good tune and fuel pump, exhaust and cam would be next if i wanted anymore.

[Towmaster]

Originally Posted by dhs.buckley

i think it's got some reasonable go fast gear on it, ie heads manifold and ignition is mallory, cam seems ok, its pulling 300rwhp on the dyno, but not for long with the current fuel pump problem but has been suggested by the dyno bloke it will pull over 350rwhp with the 670 avenger good tune and fuel pump, exhaust and cam would be next if i wanted anymore.

Realistically, if you are getting 300 rwhp from a 302 it's a pretty good 302.... Unless it's a 'happy' dyno. You won't get much more unless you spend a lot of money to get it to rev. Alternatively you could opt to stroke it to 347 cubes. That will give you a fair bit more power and torque.

[dhs.buckley]

Originally Posted by Towmaster

Realistically, if you are getting 300 rwhp from a 302 it's a pretty good 302.... Unless it's a 'happy' dyno. You won't get much more unless you spend a lot of money to get it to rev. Alternatively you could opt to stroke it to 347 cubes. That will give you a fair bit more power and torque.

the dyno bloke said he was pretty suprised it pulled that sort of figure, he reved it to 6500 rpm but it was at its best at 5900rpm, but the fuel ratios where good until the secondaries kept running out of fuel.

[750hp]

Any chance you can hit up the previous owner for the engine specs? That will give you a baseline to work from, but will also give an indication of stuff like what valve lash settings the cam is designed for.

Knowing the age and mileage of the motor might also indicate when it might be time to look at replacing/rebuilding things like roller lifters (if it has them).

I agree that 300 at the wheels is already a pretty healthy combo.

[jhv48]

If you want to eliminate the fuel starvation and get the maximum power your setup can produce, toss that single fuel line, vacuum secondary carb and get a nice double pumper, dual feed, mechanical secondary carb. It will wake up your engine and not break the bank.
Worked magic on my first 302.

[*13*]

Brake the bank, Webers! Big "seat of the pants" improvement.

[dhs.buckley]

Originally Posted by 750hp

Any chance you can hit up the previous owner for the engine specs? That will give you a baseline to work from, but will also give an indication of stuff like what valve lash settings the cam is designed for.

Knowing the age and mileage of the motor might also indicate when it might be time to look at replacing/rebuilding things like roller lifters (if it has them).

I agree that 300 at the wheels is already a pretty healthy combo.

the engine was built in to what is now in 2005 it had 5400klm on it at that stage, its upto 9500klm now so, i was going to get the dyno bloke to lift the tappet covers off as it sound like a flat tappet cam and check clearances,
All i can see from the reciepts is the heads manifold, roller rockers, carbie and cam, but no details on the cam, previous owner is not sure about it, apart from the fact that he was there when the first dyno was done.
there was a mention from the engine builder that the carb and the fuel pump may of been down graded at some stage as he was worried about the last owner rapping it around a tree,
but he has lost the paper work on the cam.

[dhs.buckley]

Originally Posted by *13*

Brake the bank, Webers! Big "seat of the pants" improvement.

would love to go the webers, but i think the wife might have a problem with that xmas present list.

[David Hodgson]

Sounds like the internal don't need any more work. Just fix fuel supply and replace the 465 with either 600 or throttle body injection.

If your still looking for more drop in a 351.

[byroncobra]

If your still looking for more drop in a 351.

.......a blower would be cheaper

[Rossba]

I had a similar fuel problem with my 550 holley on my 302.
After changing mechanical fuel pumps, bigger fuel lines still ran out of fuel in second gear on the track.
I bought the larger dominator bowls, replaced the secondary metering plate with a secondary block and ran the twin 3/8" inlet fuel line, extended the rear jets and put vent extensions in it.
Fixed the problem and worked great.

Ross