300 wheel horsepower from just bolt ons..is it possible?

[venegmo]

hello my fellow Mustang lovers! i own a 2001 laser red GT and i love the car.she was a neglected vehicle,her previous owner barely took care of her,and wasnt too careful with her...

i've had some issues with it, but little by little she's been coming together,and hopefully she'll be the way i want her to be soon enough.

this car is my first V8 car..prior to this,i had a 2005 SRT-4 and i managed to squeeze out 300 at the tire with just bolt ons,and 21 pounds of boost and it put me on the mid 12 sec range.

my question is, how could i break 300 at the tires with this car,without breaking the bank? i figured since my SRT and my pony both have similar baseline power,at the crank,the gt having a slight advantage, this should be easier to achieve in the mustang since its got a bigger V8 motor,compared to a 4 cylinder of the neon... in the neon i had intake,full piping,full exhaust,FMIC,stage 2 pcm,wga...what would i need to get this kinda power in this mustang? i've read that with minor bolt ons, i'd be lucky to squeeze out 260...kinda discouraging,to be honest..as of now i have catback exhaust,and professional products typhoon intake manifold..i plan on getting intake,TB,plenum,pulleys,headers,midpipe,and a tune....down the road i plan on going force induction..i'm still deciding on a turbo kit,or a Kenne bell blower, but that's gonna be way down the road.but for now i wanna have fun with this thing..thought about the spray, but i dont really wanna risk blowing this thing up...so, what would you guys recommend? thanks and hope to hear good things from y'all

 

[Massie02GT]

First off, congrats on the purchase. SRT's are fun little cars that can be extremely potent, but IMO there's nothing like the v8 rumble and rear wheel drive.

Alright, now for the heart breaker. 300whp n/a is attainable....with every single bolt on you can imagine and a very healthy tune. You will need full exhaust (intake, tb/plenum, longtubes, mid pipe, cat back), as well as an intake manifold (which you already have), cams, and new heads (personally, I'd go with TrickFlow). Then you'll need to get an aggressive tune put on it. All of that should put you over the 300 mark, even if barely.

I'm sure someone else will chime in with more details, but that pretty much covers it. Happy modding and toss up some pics along the way.

Edit: The easiest way to reach your goal is to go forced induction. If you shop around and don't mind used parts, you can put together a ProCharger kit for ~2k. Just depends on whether you prefer n/a or forced. Also, don't forget that if you do cams, there are different profiles for n/a and blower cars.

-S

 

[gtstang1219]

I made 300 with pulleys, CAI, TB and plenum, longtubes, off road x, magnaflow magnapacks dumped, Bullet cams and a good tune. I would also recommend gears that was one thing that really woke my car up. I went with 410's and do a lot of HW driving with no problem. Good luck with the car.

 

[SVT GT]

300 to the wheels (out of a 99 to 04 GT) is very attainable, without heads, power adder or an aggressive tune.

 

[DaBigBone]

Yes they have similar baseline, but you have to remember, you hit 300 with your SRT-4 with 21 pounds of boost... Throw 21 pounds of boost at these cars and see what happens lol.

It's possible to hit 300, but I don't think its possible unless you drop in a set of cams. I've seen a couple people in the 285-290 range without cams. I could be wrong, but I'm just talking from personal experience

 

[Nemesis96]

^ +1 and try porting the heads, that will definatley wake up the pony.... It did for mine when I did a full PI swap on my 96 mustang gt...

 

[SVT GT]

I hit 295 to the wheels without ported heads but had blower cams, aluminum intake, and other supporting bolt on mods. If my tune was a more aggressive 93 octane tune and N/A cams I'm sure it would have been close to or around 320 to the wheels. I do agree the easiest way to get over 300 (around 360 or 370) is with a S/C, but if trying to stay N/A and hitting 300 you will need cams imo. For the price of a S/C you will easily have close to that in bolt on parts and labor. Save, get a intercooled S/C kit, keep it at 8psi, and have fun! Then build to that later, if you want.

 

[01SilverGt]

If its a stick car you can get 300rwh with full bolts, cam swap without touching the heads.

 

[JoeyR]

Others said it pretty well
Complete upper intake(TB/Plenum/Manifold)---- DIYS =$600 range
Good set of cams----DIYS = $500 range
Underdrive Pulley's ----- DIYS = $120 range
Longtubes with free flowing exaust ----DIYS= $800 range
Lightweight Flywheel----DIYS = $150 range
some 3.73's or 4.10's(FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO) DIYS = $180 range
and lastly a very good tune! =] DIYS = $120-400 range

So for maybe 300RWHP you're looking at about $2700 and that's doing everything yourself. More then likely you will end up paying to have some of those things done, in which case you're looking at well over the $3500 range. Sadly fact and point these SOHC 4.6L don't respond to great for the price of bolt-ons(trust me i know) i raced a bone stock 2003 GT the other night and my car is nearly a full-bolt on GT the outcome was pleasing to me as from 60-120 i pulled 4++ car length's on him....FACT is though for the 3K+ I've invested on bolt-ons in my car, one would really expect more. Another fact is the SOHC motors really start to run out of steam on the top-end(N/A that is). If i could go back i would have simply saved up and slapped a Vortech S/C kit on my car for $2700-3000 installed, and made well over the 350hp mark at a low PSi. And in that case you would no longer have the poor top end of that n/a sohc 4.6. But for the average person we want results NOW! my advice to you is as follows:
Get a set of 3.73's or 4.10's, Longtube headers and complete exhaust, an SCT tuner, and lastly a set of Nitto NT555R's for the rear. That will be enough to really wake up your GT and u'll have an absolute fun & quick car to drive. All while you save up for that S/C kit. The best thing is those mods will work with ur blower when you get it!