Ford Air Filter Opinion

Hi All,

I am thinking of putting one of those Ford Motorsports Chrome Air Filter Elements on my 85 GT. It's the one that looks like an air filter in the middle and has a chrome top. No what I want to know is..........would this give me more or less power? Cause if I put that on I remove my whole existing air filter bowl and also the air induction hose that go on each side of the bowl. So am I sucking back warm air from the engine? What do I do with the vaccuum lines? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Reply to
Steph
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I'm not sure if you are required to pass emissions, as this will not pass a visual.

You'll also lose the heat stoves that help warm the car up in the cold Canadian winter.

The vacuum lines that lead to this can be plugged at the source and removed I suppose... and the thing that 'looks like an air filter" is actually the filter element that you see sticking out between the two chrome caps. I have one of these cars but can't remember where the rest of these lines go... I think one went to the PCV valve. Honestly, I'm not sure how this would work.

If you're trying to make the car pretty, go for it... I'm sure someone here has done this swap and could tell you how to re-do the vacuum and PCV lines to make the car functional. If you're looking for power, don't bother - the gains by having more of the element available to air directly next to it (as opposed to the twin snorkel air cleaner with the fender intakes) will be reduced by sucking in the hot engine air. Realize that the total volume of air that can flow through the two snorkels is more than the volume of air that can flow through a stock late-model 5.0 intake, and those cars run just fine and into the 300+ hp range with their intake piping.

I asked in your last post whether or not your car was an auto with the CFI or if it was a 5-speed with a 4bbl carb.... this will dictate a lot about what you should do next in the quest for more power.

JS

Reply to
JS

Hey JS,

My car is a 5spd.................you got any good suggestions for more power.......I bought an 8.8 rear-end lastnight with 3.73 gears. Next?

Reply to
Steph

JS gonna give Steph the whole "whatcha wanna do with your car?" talk? B/c... I'm lazy :(

-Mike

Reply to
<memset

Damn, Mike, you are getting pretty lazy in your old age.... lol...

is..........would

Reply to
JS

LOL Shup... I ain't old yet ;D Just.....lazy.. is all. =/

-Mike

Reply to
<memset

Well, as Mike alluded to in his laziness post... ;-) there is a lot that is determined by what your ultimate goal for the car is.

The 8.8 with 3.73's should give you more of a kick than any CA$200 will buy you. That's definately a bang-for-the-buck modification.

Nickel and dime mods give you just that, nickel and dime horsepower, if even that much.

Some mods help driveability... subframe connectors are a great step in keeping the car from twisting up with your new gears and will allow the car to handle better and launch straighter. Get a good pair like Global West... others recommend KB or Steeda. A Tri-Ax or Pro 5.0 shifter will make finding the gears much less scary. Little things like this improve the feel of the car and driveability. It makes the car feel like it's working for you as opposed to feeling like you have to work to get the car to perform.

If you're more into the twisties, a suspension upgrade and more chassis bracing (strut tower brace, K-member brace) will help immensely. If you're not, I wouldn't worry about these. Extreme drag race applications will require more chassis bracing and suspension upgrades, though a different style.

Fox cars are notorious for miserable brakes. Before I'd make one too fast, I'd want to make one stop faster. I've had more than my share of Fox chassis cars and know that the brakes are marginal at best.

Now... if you have all of that down, or if you're not really into any of that... and are just wanting more power.... think of things this way.

The engine is a big air pump, as you probably already know. The weakest link in the chain is going to be the biggest restriction, and changing that out will give you the biggest performance increase.

On the old carbureted cars, there is some gain to swapping on a better intake and carb... but there's still more to be found doing the heads first. After the heads are changed out, the intake and exhaust mods will provide even more horsepower than if changed out before the heads.

I realize the heads are cost-prohibitive to most, and a larger job than most care to get into, but if you're truely looking to tap more power out of your '85, I'd say this is the way to go. Save your pennies.

Another weak link in the '85 GT system is the exhaust. If you don't want to do the heads right now or don't have the money, put a full exhaust on it from the headers to the tailpipes. Convert to an H-pipe system like the '86 up cars have. The '85's dual-into-single-into-dual isn't very efficient. Keep in mind that if your car is computer controlled (some carbureted cars were I believe), the O2 sensor will have a place to live in the new H-pipe. If you don't, or even if you install the one O2 sensor, you can put another O2 sensor in the other side and run an A/F ratio gauge if you wish to help monitor the engine and help in tuning.

An optimized carburetor may help, but stay with a small one and have it professionally tuned if you can't tune it yourself correctly. Bigger is not better here either.

A cam will help tap some more out of that old beast as well, and be much less work than the heads. I believe the carbureted cars came with a roller cam, but you'd have to verify that.

Basically, in a nutshell... if it were my car....

Throw in your 8.8 rear Have quality subs *welded* on (bolt-ons only help a little) Install Tri-Ax shifter Change complete exhaust system to '86-up style Braking upgrade Install matched head and cam kit (this, along with an intake, will probably get you close to 300hp on your N/A carbureted 302 with the correct tune)

If you're looking for more power than that, you're talking nitrous or a stroker/351W setup...

Hope that doesn't confuse you more. My mind's a little scattered at this point, so this post probably doesn't read real well. I even spared you the "Well, what do you want the car to do?" line.... you can find that in other posts about the same question...

JS

Reply to
JS

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why I'm too lazy to post it =). Very nice, JS.

-Mike

is..........would

Reply to
<memset

I think I should pass this role off to you. It seems I've somehow assumed it... you wanna try the next one?

JS

Reply to
JS

I'll let my girlfriend. She's the copy/paste queen (inside joke from back in high school involving a school project & a teacher that didn't gave a rat's ass)

-Mike

Reply to
<memset

At least ask her to do some creative editing so it doesn't look like it came straight from me... aight? LOL...

JS

Reply to
JS

LOLOL kk... heheh

-Mike

Reply to
<memset

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