Re: Looking for a little more power

Posted by Hal/WA on March 03, 2003 at 19:11:06 from (208.8.194.21):

In Reply to: Looking for a little more power posted by Josh on March 03, 2003 at 17:25:16:

Taking off the catalytic converter might give you a little more power, especially if it is nearly plugged. It also might make your truck noisier, as the converters often function as a muffler. On the other hand, if you live in an area that has vehicle emission testing, or ever expect to sell the pickup in such an area, your truck will almost certainly not pass the test and you will probably be forced to put on a NEW converter. I doubt that you will find a shop that will remove your catalytic converter (because they are worried about being fined $10,000!), so you will have to remove it yourself and fabricate a new piece of pipe to fit in its place. I have heard of people removing catalytic converters and breaking the ceramic stuff out of inside and reinstalling the empty case.

Lower gears will make your truck seem like it has more power, but possibly at the expense of gas mileage. There are lots of Ford trucks in the wrecking yards and getting a lower ratio rear end might be a practical thing to try. If you do this, you also have to change the speedometer gear if you want the speedometer to read correctly. If you use your pickup for a car most of the time, you will notice that the engine turns much faster at freeway speed if you use much lower gears.

I have known people who hotrodded 6 cylinder engines by installing headers, a hot cam and a 4 barrel carb. It is possible to get a lot more power than from the stock engine, but when they were through, those guys realized that they had spent LOTS more money on aftermarket equipment than it would have cost to put in a stock small V8 for similar, more reliable power.

What I would do is either live with the lack of power sometimes or get a similar pickup with a V8 and prefferably a real truck 4 speed.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: Looking for a little more power Jordan 04:53:23 03/05/03 (0)
• Re: Re: Looking for a little more power Jordan 14:25:21 03/04/03 (0)

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