Power is sub par, any ideas??

[JustinSane]

Hi guys tonight me and area 91 took a couple SHOs to the track for some test and tune, well bandito seems to be lacking in some power and I am not sure what could be the reason, the air was good tonight as was the wind, infact a few guys set personal best in MPH the absolute best MPH we could get from bandito was high 91's, now it does have a 80mm mas and lpm and we was thinking it could just be not tuned right, other then that we cant see any reason for the lack of horse power, we will be tearing into him over the next few days and checking the valve adjustment and looking to see if the timing is off a tooth , the intake is not that old so we dont think it has any built up restriction in it, the secondarys open as they should right between 3800 and 4000. the maf was cleaned yesterday and the air filter is a recently cleaned KN unit, you can see in my sig what else is done it has new taylor wires and a super coil, the car runs very smooth and the only thing i have noticed and it may not be related is in the morning you cant just start him up and walk away , you need to rev it a few times or it stalls, but once reved it idles fine. any way what im asking for are ideas on what to check. most of the other SHOs that run with us trap at least a few MPH better then 91 on basic 3.0s with minor bolt ons. any way we will be doing a mini upper 60k so we can look into the top end and see if any thing is outa spec, but any tips from the experts here would be great, thanks.

 

[yamahaSHO]

Before guessing at what it could be, check the codes so you have something to go off of.

 

[SHOguy 92]

Hate to say it, but there are SHO's out there that trap around thos speeds, yours may have some mods, so it does seem kinda strange. Checking your codes like said is a good idea. Also see if you can get this post moved to maint section, you'll most likely find more help there.

 

[greenbeanmtx]

That chip was made for that car by the previous owner based on what mods he had done to it. He never had the car physically tuned. However I never had any cold start idle issues with it. The only time it would ever be grumpy on start up would be after it had sat for a week or so. Even then it would pick up and go without any stalling. Could climate be playing a roll there? It would probably do that car good to have a professional tune especially with the miles it has. I know you never really had a chance to beat on it down here in texas but it always was plenty strong down here. It felt stronger than my 89 did up top but since its catless with the 80maf it never had any grunt down low. I was told thats just a by-product of those mods. If i had kept the car i would have probably gone with a high flow catted pipe and had it professionally tuned. Anytime you get on it hard you will see some black smoke so its probably tuned really rich.

 

[SHOspazz92]

My 92 Would only do about 91 MPH at 3,000 feet elevation. How high is the track that you are running at?

-Sam

 

[JustinSane]

we will pull codes asap, the car does pull strong and it is smooth, it just seems to be down 20 or 25 horse judging by the trap speeds, im not sure of elevation but it isnt high most guys get awsome trap speeds at this track, liek i said all the other SHOs in our group that have 3.0s still in them trap a good 3 or 4 mph better at any given time. ( could a mod move this to the proper section please ) thanks guys.

 

[Power Surge]

From the info you've provided, I would say the first step is to get the car on a dyno and see where your A/F is at. With a different MAF and a mail order tune, the car could be rich enough or lean enough to be costing you power but still run "good".

Until you verify the A/F on the tune, you're just chasing everything else.

 

[JustinSane]

we are pulling the LPM and 80mm maf and putting stock back on it, we are also pulling the intake and valve covers and doing a upper 60k check up, we have a intake that has a boat load of hours in it porting and what not and we will be putting that one on, the car is rich it blows black at high RPMs. your right about the AF ratio, problem is we havnt a dyno around here. so we go off plugs and i will be adding a wide band in the future. on the street it pulls hard revs smooth and runs great, its the trap speed however that is a indicator of power and 91 mph is low for a 3.0 such as this at our track. by the way our track is darn near sea level, i think we are a few hundred feet above at max.

 

[JustinSane]

There are no codes, so this makes it even more interesting.

 

[NCTaurusSHO]

hey, I found after trying out an 80 mass air, a 73 mass air and the stock one, that mine ran a lot better and pulled harder with the stock mass air back on. however, it DID seem faster with the bigger mass airs when i put them on at first, but after swapping them and putting one on right after the other and so on, that the stock one made mine run better, maybe give that a try. good luck

ashley

 

[JustinSane]

that is the same idea we had. thanks for the idea though.

 

[NCTaurusSHO]

yeah i thought i would just say i thought that might be it too hope it works.

ashley

 

[JustinSane]

we just arent sure that it could be making it loose that much power to run only 91 mph. oh well we will know next weekend if it is any better, course we are also putting on a dif intake and doing a upper 60k. the car just had a 60 k done but we want to double check it all while we are already into it that deep, besides that the cam sensor seal is leaking so we might as well do it all.

 

[NCTaurusSHO]

my difference was between chirping secnod and not chirping second. that is a fair amount of power..i think. lol. always worth a try. 60k will do a number on it as well though. but you should really drive it with one mass air on... switch it and drive it back to back. then do the 60k lol. you'll be ready to turbo in no time, with new parts on her.

ashley

 

[Mr Anonymous]

There are no codes, so this makes it even more interesting.

Interesting? Not at all. Until you get the thing on a dyno, everything else is just a GUESS. Why not just find out what the car is actually making for power and go from there?

 

[JustinSane]

no dyno any where near us, perhaps at carlisle i will get a chance but untill then the MPH in the 1/4 is my only tell tale sign. ashley is right of course it woul d be best to do the maf alone , but we have a huge weekend this comming weekend and we will only get 3 time shots at most so im doing all the stuff at once and run it like that, cant make changes between runs in bracket racing when you only get 2 or 3 time shots. after the holiday weekend the track will be back to normal and i will take the 80mm and chip with and do a few runs on each to compare.

 

[yamahaSHO]

Maybe you should check the codes again. ANYTIME it stalls, you will at least get a code for that.

 

[JustinSane]

We was talking today and was wondering how much difference there is in power between 87 octane and 91? at the trach i was running 87 area 91 says that could have made the computer pull out a little timing, but is it anough to cause such a low trap speed?
As far as codes go we have the motorcraft computer that plugs in and does all the self test with car off and on and it checks for codes, it shows no problem codes when we check it.

 

[greenbeanmtx]

Are you running 87 in it? Since it has the chip its only been ran on premium. I was told it was supposed to run premium with the chip in place.

 

[shobote]

87 octane, and you are racing ? hope it is not WalMart or Speedway gas either...... I would pull the 80mm MAF and LPM, and put in some 93 octane top tier gas; ie.e, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP-Amoco.. the so called discount (if there is such a thing today) stations buy their lower grade distillate from smaller refineries that do not have the advanced formulations and additives for keeping combustion chambers, valves, etc clean as well.