My 85 Thunderbird has a 5.0 with TBI, but how do I get more H.P. without loosing much MPG?

Question

I know that a lot of people with the Mustang GTs that had the 302/ TBI setup would just ditch it for a carb to get more power, but I still want to be able to drive the thing and not pay an arm and a leg. It gets between about 18-25 mpg now, and I don't want to loose too much, but it sure would be nice to give it some more balls! Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

well buddy, if your car was two years newer you might have a few more options. Not really much you can do espically to the engine. Ford decided to put flat top pistons in 85 to help get a few more horses. They did this in thunderchickens and mustangs. The problem is, with flat top pistons, you have no valve reliefs cut into the top of the piston, you cannot really change the cam or shave the heads because the pistons are so close to the valves that a bigger cam or shaved heads will cause the pistons to crash into the valves, and that means catosrophic faliure. Being throttle body does not help either, it's better for gas mileage than performance. If you can find an adjustable fuel pressure regulator to up the pressure and some hotter burning spark plugs that could help, change to a high performance air filter and maybe exhaust, like I said, you're kinda limited so goodluck!

Answer 2

get a better air intake system. i think its the k&n air filters