Why was it so sloww?

ok not to bad mouth mustangs but last night I met this guy who recently had his engine bored and reworked to a 331 ( He showed me the machine shop tickets) and suposed to have ported stock heads, extude honed intake,cam built auto with a 28000 stall He said he thought it would get 12's at the track. Well when we left and started to cross the bridge he hammered on and after I heard the car revv up I hammerd on it. Not only did I kill him I absoultly made him look stupid. After that, we went out to a back road (He wanted to try again) and went at it. Same thing, Just killed him by like 5 bus lengths I mean a stock 302 fox body puts up a better fight than that one. I know he was not having traction problems because he was running BFG drag raidals. Like I said, I honestly am not bad mouthing the car, I am just trying to figure out why it was slow. Any ideas? Is a bad combination?

Andy

Bad combo. Stock heads suck, no matter how much you port them. Probably over-cammed. Probably not properly tuned (has he ever been on a dyno?)

plus, Ford auto's suck a lot of power.

True. Ford automatics have like a 23% power drain. It's tragic, really.

The 2800 rpm stall is more then likely not matched tot his cam, for that motor it seems a litte low on stall speed. Does he have gears? Just sounds like his combo is put together all wrong. I mean 331 with stock heads and intake, even a good port is not going to due justice for that motor.

I have to disagree with the stock heads suck thing. True they arent as good as say some 18* Vic's but you can still make some pretty decent power with them. I just got back from the machine shop with my friend to get his heads, crank, rods, pistons, and intake. He just had stock heads port matched to his performer rpm intake and his rotating assembly balanced. He is looking at about 400rwhp and every bit that much torque. Thats a mean street engine with ported stock heads.

The guy with the 331 probably like has already been said does not have the right cam. He probably chose a radical cam with an intake and head job for street rpms. Also for a cam that big he has nowhere near enough stall.

Stock E7's with a decent port job will support a fairly healthy 302/306, but not a 331. Too much displacement, not enough runner volume, no matter how good the porting was.

Simple fact, the combo is all wrong. With decent heads and intake, say AFR 165's and a Performer RPM intake, assuming the cam is built to pull hard in the mid- upper-RPM range, his car will run like a raped ape after some time on the dyno. Right now, nothing works together.

A friend built a 418 stroker for his Faleen vert, that made a whopping 350-ish HP. The cam just wasn't right for the motor to bring it to it's fullest potential. On a small shot of nitrous, however, the little 418 put down over 700 lbs/ft of torque, which is what the cam was designed to do.

Any time a combination seems to be horribly underperforming but the engine runs good. It 9 out of 10 times can be traced back to bad cam selection. Like they always say be nice to your cam guy cause he can make you super fast or super slow.

Also stock ported heads are not the way to go. A stock 302 with good aftermarket heads and intake manifold would take a 331 with worked(like most people have) stock heads and intake.

I'm not saying stock heads are better than aluminum heads, just saying not to underestimate them.

Does he have a shift kit maybe? What about gears?

Sorry it took so long to post, He has 7.73 gears and I am not sure about the shift kit. We ran again lastnight ( And he accually put some money down on it after I ran him for fun :grinno: ) once again, I absoutely distroyed him, and became 200 bucks richer :icon16:

There's his problem. 7.73 gears, I bet all he does is spin, even in 5th. LOL

Big problem! Oh well you got some money off of it!

7.73?! :22yikes:

yea man thats fuckin crazy i didnt kno they had gearing that high, my friend mike has the similar setup the 331 stroker he runs 11.70s

That is pretty nutty, I've never heard of 7.73 gears. Hah, whats he get, about 60 mph top speed and 3 miles per gallon

Come on guys. Obviously that was a typo!

Come on guys. Obviously that was a typo!

It was..... I mean I knew that!!!!!

yea i was thinkin that but hey you never know

Who knew! lol

I was hoping it was a typo... But hey, it was funny at the time..

3.73..........you asses :icon16:

lol, this is the first time i read this thread. im not sure they make 7.73s. yes 3.73 sounds a lot better. it probably was the cam. too aggressive or not enough, but if a stock 302 would have kept up better, thats sad man.