limmits of the 98 4v

k7svt · Dec 31, 2012

i might have to wait till after the wedding and see what i have in front of me if i decided to just go all out im going for more then 550 at the wheel till then any and all info i can get will be great

k7svt · Dec 31, 2012

im going to boost the car with ether a novi 2000 or a kenny bell i really dont want to hear the blower till i hit the gas and i thought about what you said bigbore im going to do this right. i just have to see what i have left after the wedding. as far as power goes im running 12.99 with under 400hp im not sure i want to cage my car or not. due to there is only 563 bab cobras made in 98 i was hoping it would be worth some money but if not lets go 10s. and do this right

Marvin97 · Dec 31, 2012

BigBore96 said:
Wait what?. Not degreeing even the stock cams is leaving power on the table and could potentially be messing up the power you have as one side of the engine could be making more or way less power than the other. Terrible. Do yourself a favor and do not skimp on this. It's not expensive to do. At all.... And as long as you can follow what to do then you can do it. It's just time consuming.

The Termi pistons will lower the compression ratio. But, here's the thing. Many MANY Termi's make over 500hp no problem with an eaton. Eatons are crap compared to a quality blower. Especially if you do a centri.
Are there other ways to make power? Yes. Are there more cost effective ways? No.... Running less compression and more boost is not a problem at all.

8.5:1 comp vs 9.2:1 isn't leaving a whole lot of power out going 8.5:1. Especially with boost. Run 1-3 more lbs of boost and more than make up for the difference while doing it much cheaper.
Would I run a N/A motor that low compression? Definitely not. But boosted I would, especially on a budget.

For me, the potential gain to be seen from degreeing a set of stock cams isn't worth the time/money/effort unless you're trying to get the most out of the setup possible. It's very time consuming, and as far as expensive, well that depends on if you have to buy all the tools required to degree them, along with adjustable cam gears. I suppose if you could borrow the tools from a buddy and just filed/shimmed the stock gears it could be done on the cheap. To me the power to be gained isn't worth it. All this assumes you can degree them properly as well.

Do it how you want, personally if I can make the power I want running 15psi instead of 20psi, well it just seems stupid to run 5psi more than I have/need to

BigBore96 · Dec 31, 2012

k7svt said:
im going to boost the car with ether a novi 2000 or a kenny bell i really dont want to hear the blower till i hit the gas and i thought about what you said bigbore im going to do this right. i just have to see what i have left after the wedding. as far as power goes im running 12.99 with under 400hp im not sure i want to cage my car or not. due to there is only 563 bab cobras made in 98 i was hoping it would be worth some money but if not lets go 10s. and do this right

Your car now has around 300 or less hp. As far as the bab cobras and value. Mod the hell out of it. sn95 cobras are not valuable unless it's a Cobra R or something special. Doing it right is always better than doing budget builds but budget builds can be done correctly as well.

Fwiw. You do not need 550 hp to run 10s.

BigBore96 · Dec 31, 2012

Marvin97 said:
For me, the potential gain to be seen from degreeing a set of stock cams isn't worth the time/money/effort unless you're trying to get the most out of the setup possible. It's very time consuming, and as far as expensive, well that depends on if you have to buy all the tools required to degree them, along with adjustable cam gears. I suppose if you could borrow the tools from a buddy and just filed/shimmed the stock gears it could be done on the cheap. To me the power to be gained isn't worth it. All this assumes you can degree them properly as well.

Do it how you want, personally if I can make the power I want running 15psi instead of 20psi, well it just seems stupid to run 5psi more than I have/need to

The tools and the parts to do it properly can be had for less the $200 brand new. And the tools always resell. There is 0 reason not to degree them. If you know anything about the 4vs then you know how far off they can be. So it's a waste to have the engine apart and not degree them. The gain from degreeing is more than you think. Not ot mention again, that without degreeing them, they ARE way off from each other and are hurting power throughout the curve and messing with the curve as a whole. Getting it done is more than worth the money spent to know the timing is dead on as opposed to shrugging your shoulders and being like idk????

the.greg · Dec 31, 2012

k7svt said:
im going to boost the car with ether a novi 2000 or a kenny bell i really dont want to hear the blower till i hit the gas and i thought about what you said bigbore im going to do this right. i just have to see what i have left after the wedding. as far as power goes im running 12.99 with under 400hp im not sure i want to cage my car or not. due to there is only 563 bab cobras made in 98 i was hoping it would be worth some money but if not lets go 10s. and do this right

I wouldn't recommend a kenne bell for someone like yourself that spends a lot of time at the track. You will heatsoak and never be consistent because no intercooler is available for a kenne bell for a 4v with b heads. I have one with meth on my 4v and it isn't ideal for a car that sees a lot of track time. My model kenne bell(1.5l) whistles at idle too.

A centri is probably the easiest route for you. You can get one for relatively cheap and make 420whp easily maybe more considering you have longtubes depending on how much boost you want to run and be reliable and consistent at the dragstrip. Plus when you are ready to build the engine with some new rods, all you need to do is up the boost and/or upgrade your centri head unit to hit your power goals.

k7svt · Jan 1, 2013

how safe do you guys think it would be if i do go and add a blower with 90k on my motor there easy miles not counting the 30 1/4 mile passes. i ran a compression test at the end of the summer and everything was perfect.

T-5 Killer · Jan 1, 2013

BigBore96 said:
Negative. 96-98 Cobra cams are the best 4v cam from ford.
The Ford GT cams have more lift than the cobra cams, but the cobra's have more duration. Which is where the power is made.

Good to know Thanks!

330CubeGt · Jan 1, 2013

My cars got 94k on the clock and im getting ready to hit it with a 125 shot.Mine runs strong, has good compression and I have been beating it for just over a year now and besides going on the third t-45 everything is great. I wouldn't worry about 8psi or so on the car. Hell I might even run 10psi if it was mine. Your car now probably makes 275rwhp and from the times you laid down your going about as fast as you can as is. But if you double the horsepower and you hook you should have no issues dipping into the 10s.. Our cars are rare and are worth more then othe SN95s but still not a ton of money. Mine is 1 of 1,055 and kbb on it is 7/8k.

Heads up and ass kickin! Using Tapatalk 2

BigBore96 · Jan 1, 2013

k7svt said:
how safe do you guys think it would be if i do go and add a blower with 90k on my motor there easy miles not counting the 30 1/4 mile passes. i ran a compression test at the end of the summer and everything was perfect.

At 90k you have nothing to worry about. Boost it. Just be wary of oil levels. #1 killer in 4vs. Right along side bad tuning.

k7svt · Jan 1, 2013

i change the oil evey 2500 to 3000 or after every 6 race days i did not change it this past year because i towed it to the track once made 16 passes on it over that weekend. and i never drove it. and for my car its 1 out of 565 bab cobras and i book at 10/11k if i were to sell it