Ford Mustang Forum : “What should I do?”
What should I do?
I recently bought a 1996 Mustang Convertible with a V6 and I was kinda wanting to get some more performance out of it. Some of my research says that a supercharger wouldnt be much good due to the compression that engine already has in it. Does anyone have some ideas of upgrades I could do that would get me a noticable improvement and how much they might cost?
Do you're usual N/A modifications.
Exhaust system, extractors, high flowed catalytic converter, pod filter with Cold Air Intake, and if possible, get the ECU retuned.
No idea how much the stuff would cost, sorry.
Be prepared to pay for decent quality stuff though, it often is worth the extra $$
Yeah I wasnt gonna skimp on quality to save money. I was wondering about cost so I have an idea how much I need to save up. Thanks for the advice. I did a little research and evidently the only way to get a turbo to work in that car is to pull a 3.8 from a TBird of the same year because they were built for a turbo but the 3.8 in the Mustang was not
Have you considered the possibility of running a thicker head gasket to lower the compression of the engine, so that you can safely run a turbo?
It would save the hassel of doing an engine swap.
Not sure what the compression of the mustang engine is, but yeah. Just something else for you to ponder. lol
change the underdrive pullies. This will gain you anywhere from 8-15hp. I don't know what they run for the V6, but a set for my 97 Cobra run around $120. Cold air intake wont gain you huge amounts of power, but is always good to have, they run around $150-200, again, I don't know for V6. Get a catback exhaust on it, should gain you a little. The big thing is to let the engine breath, the cold air and the catback exhaust help this. Exhaust should run you around $500, look for Flowmaster, or Magnaflow. You could look into nitrous(NOS), if it is installed correctly, and used wisely, you can get some decent gains from it, without harming the motor.
look up rebuild kits on the internet. i can't remember the exact site but they sell rebuild kits (forged pistons, rods, bearings i can't remember exactly what else, its been a while) for around 900 dollars and you can get them with the lower compression pistons to make it safer to run boost through the motor.