Cobra Power Buildup

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop where today our challenge is to see how much street legal horsepower we can bolt on to a popular late model muscle car. In

this case, it's an 03 cobra

that comes from the factory with a supercharged 4.6 L engine. And of course, it's got an onboard computer which many of you may consider to be a barrier to making more power.

Yeah, but before computers, you had to swap out the camshaft cylinder heads, intake carb and who knows what else just to make more power. But nowadays you can make more power using that computer by changing things like the ignition timing and the fuel delivery rate. Now to do that with our cobra, we're gonna use this handheld power programmer from Hypertech. But first we need to do a bone stock baseline with our cobra.

Ok? Looks like 364 horsepower at the rear wheels. A good place to start.

Now, let's see how we can improve on that. With this power programmer.

It plugs right into the diagnostic port under the dash.

Then we just follow the programmer on screen prompts by answering a few. Yes or no questions.

The whole procedure should only take about 15 minutes. By the way, that hypertech programmer also allows you to compensate for different rear end ratios and tire diameters.

Plus it controls the rev limiter speed limiter and cooling fans. Now, if you have an automatic car, you can also adjust the shift points and firmness. But the coolest part is the fact that it doesn't void your warranty and you can also go back to the stock tuning.

Well, looks like I'm done here.

Let's make another run,

man. 407. That's an increase of 43 horsepower and

we didn't even get our hands dirty. Ain't technology great. Well, I hate to burst your bubble but we will have to get our hands dirty when we swap out the blower pulleys. Now, this thing came from the factory with about a 3.5 inch pulley that'll generate up to about 8.5 pounds of boost max and we're gonna replace it with this two piece pulley set up from U PR products. Now, what this is gonna do is allow us to change out

the pulley size without actually removing the hub from the blower itself. Now, we're gonna start out with this three inch pulley. It's gonna allow that blower to spin up to about 12 pounds of boost. And even with that smaller pulley, we can still use the stock belt by adding this idler pulley to the front of the engine. Now, this thing's gonna do a couple of things for us. First of all, it's gonna get rid of that extra belt slack, but even more importantly, it's gonna help eliminate any belt slippage. Now, let me show you how easy it's gonna be to install this new pulley

start by removing the shroud.

Then after unbolting the pulley retaining bolt, remove the belt

using a removal tool, pull the stock pulley off the blower shaft,

then reverse the tool and push the new pulley into place

the idler bolts up next.

And finally, we can reinstall the belt.

Hey, good job. By the way, you won't be able to reuse that factory shroud with the idler. So when you're under the hood, you have to be careful not to get any fingers or loose clothing caught up in the belt.

Now

it's time to reprogram the computer once again to optimize our fuel and spark for that added boost. Wow, Joe gets ready to make this next run here. This is something that you cobra owners really need to know about engines that were built

before November 1st 2002 have a potential problem with the driver side cylinder. Had. In fact, Ford even issued a TSB or a technical service

bin that they sent out to all the dealers. Now to check the bill date of your engine, just take a look down here on the valve cover right below the master cylinder and there you're gonna see a barcoded sticker that'll have your bill date on it. If your engine was built before November

first, you hear that ticking noise coming out of the driver's side. Chances are you've got some valve guide wear. And what Ford would like you to do is bring your cobra into the dealership, have them check it out and see if the cylinder head needs to be replaced.

Now,

apparently there was a design problem that caused an overheating condition and this new cylinder head takes care of that problem. You can ID, this new head by the blue paint that's found above the exhaust port.

If your early cobra hasn't been updated. Well, this programmer is gonna recognize that and it won't let you reprogram your computer.

But if you have replaced your head, all you have to do is call Hypertech, they'll issue you a code and that'll let you proceed.

But right now, let's proceed to make another

dyno

run and see how the pulley swap affects our numbers.

Well,

I can feel the difference. How much difference.

Well, you have to win a lap at the break to find out. Stay with us.

Exactly.

Hey, welcome back to our cobra power play. Now, if you're just joining us, here's what you've missed. We started out with a box stock 03 Cobra that comes from the factory with a supercharged twin cam 4.6 L motor. Now, right out of the box. This thing spun up 364 horsepower at the rear wheels. Then we reprogrammed the computer using a high

tech power programmer, spun it up again

and this time we picked up an additional 43 horsepower. Pretty impressive. Huh.

Then we swapped our stock blower pulley for a three inch.

We reprogrammed the computer again,

made another run and made this 415 horsepower and that's an extra eight horses,

but we ain't done yet. Now, let's see what happens when we swap out the three inch pulley for this one that measures 2.8 inches and this one's gonna be even easier to install.

All we have to do this time is remove the belt.

Then these five bolts

and we replace one pulley with another,

of course, the smaller pulley is gonna require a shorter belt.

So we're gonna replace the stalker with this shorter 74 inch belt. And well after this, we can recalibrate the computer once again with our programmer and make that final run.

Hey, not bad. 427 or another 12 horsepower. Now, here's a quick review to show you how we got here.

The Bone Stock Cobra made 364 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Then after using the power programmer, we got the most gain of 43 horsepower,

the three inch pulley bumped that to 415

and the 2.8 inch pulley was good for another 12 for a grand total of 427 horsepower. And that's 63 over the baseline

man. This has been a quick and easy and inexpensive way to add power to a light bottle muscle car.

But you might be wondered by now, why didn't we take it further with things like a new intake and cat back exhaust? And well, the answer is we could, but the hyper

tech power programmer we used is optimized for the modifications we made today and

well optimize is the key word here.

You see, that's why we saw significant gains with each change, particularly when we reprogrammed the stock set up in the computer

and modifying the intake and exhaust would upset those optimized settings. The engine could run lean and possibly get damaged. Now, Hypertech can anticipate every possible combination of components so they set their focus on the ones that will give you the best bang for the buck.

Now, if you do decide to change your intake and exhaust, make sure you check with the manufacturer for their suggestion on how to keep your motor fat and happy.

Well, you'll be happy to know that you don't, you need a fat wallet to take on a project like this. In fact, that power programmer costs about 350

the blower pulley and idler. Well, it'll set you back about another 2.5. Now, if you've been doing a little bit of math, you probably already figured out that that's less than $10 of horsepower. Plus you won't have to spend all weekend out in the driveway chasing that horsepower couple hours

ought to be more than enough to get the job finished.

Well, speaking of that, we're not finished here in the horsepower shop either. Next, we're gonna put the supernova there on a diet and we'll show you how it sheds a few pounds right after the break.

Hey, welcome back to the shop.

Now you guys remember our Supernova race car, right? Well, a few weeks ago, we had a chance to take it to a local track to see just how well our work paid off.

We made several shakedown runs on the eight mile strip

and with only a few tweaks, we had it running pretty straight,

going straight is one factor to winning and others keeping the weight down to keep the ETS low. In fact, just about anything you can do to shed some extra pounds without hurting the structure is gonna help the car go quicker. Well, like this fiberglass hardwood hood we installed to replace the heavy metal anchor that was here.

So we gave them another call and picked up this front and rear bumper for the Nova and for an added bonus, we even picked up this lightweight deck lid and all the hardware to install it.

So let me show you just how easy this is gonna be.

We don't need the stock out of brackets anymore. So that'll help us shed a few extra pounds.

So it's just eight bolts that hold the bumper into place.

Well, I got the rear one off now just for grins. Let's see how much extra weight we shave off just for losing these heavy bumpers.

Ok.

It looks like about 44 pounds

and about five for the brackets. And hey, we lost 50. Not bad

Now, to install the new bumpers instead of bolts, we're gonna use four Zeus fasteners to attach the bumpers to the inner brackets

to do that. We first pop rivet the Zeus plate to the back side of the bracket.

I was looking at

debris.

There we go.

Now with the bumpers in place, we can go ahead and mark our holes,

then

you can drill the holes in the bumper

and here's a tip always drill from the front to avoid chipping

and pop rivet the Zeus fastener to the bumper.

Now attach the bumper to the brackets by locking the Zeus fitting.

Now that was pretty easy and it gave our car a whole new attitude and of course, you just repeat that process for this rear bumper. Now, what do you say? Let's get rid of this heavy stock deck lid by removing four bolts.

Ok. Let's see. Just how much this boat anchor weighs.

Wow, that's over 45 pounds

to make way for the new fiberglass deck lid. We just install four bounty brackets again using pop rivets.

Then we attach more Zeus fasteners

and that deck is done.

Well, that's it.

It took us about two hours worth of work. And the old Nova shed almost 100 pounds of unneeded weight. Yeah, a lot of racers will tell you 100 pounds could be worth 1/10 off your et. Well, pretty soon we'll take the old Nova back to the track for some serious quarter mile runs. But don't you run away? More horsepower is ahead.

Horsepower T V's Quick Tech is brought to you by

Wyotech.

Now, just imagine that heaven forbid somebody smacks one of the doors on your Prize street machine and you need a door skin replacement.

Well, right now, we're gonna discover what's involved in that using this 97 Taurus. Oh,

I know what you're thinking. There's nothing wrong with the door skin on this Taurus.

Now, there is,

first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna take off the interior door panel. Uh We're gonna remove the mirror, we're gonna remove the weather stripping and any of the interior handles at that point. What we're gonna do is uh take the door off of the vehicle and we're gonna place it onto a stand, make sure that we go ahead and mask up the uh

the glass. So we don't get any type of grinder sparks on that.

We're gonna take that grinder on a 90 degree angle and cut off the exterior edge of the door. Spin

at that point, we're going to, uh, take a cold chisel and slightly separate the door skin from the shell itself.

Once we have the door skin off, we'll go ahead and, uh, clean the interior edge.

And then we're gonna go ahead and bend our flame.

Once we bend our flange,

uh, we're gonna go ahead and seam seal it

to seam, seal the new skin to the shell. Dwayne uses a glue gun

and lays down a thick bed of adhesive around the entire edge.

Soon he's ready to place the new skin on the doors shell using plenty of clamps to hold it in place as it dries.

Ok, Joe, the next thing we're gonna do is go ahead and roll this door skin edge. What we have here is a door skin edge tool.

What this does is gonna roll the door skin edge. It's a specialty tool. But what we're gonna use is gonna use a hammer and dolly method the old fashioned way. That's what you prefer. Huh? Ok. Go ahead.

Hello, Joe.

She's ready for some primer and paint

and we'll hang her back on the car. All right.

Well, I should point out that what you saw in about three minutes, takes a professional, even like Dwayne about six hours. So, remember that when you pay your bill? Good work.

Hey, no doubt about it. The LS one is a popular performance platform for a lot of you enthusiasts out there. But if it's got one shortcoming, it's that composite intake, man, that thing just can't stand the pressures of additional boost or nitrous. So Wan came up with this cast aluminum intake that's been designed by the late John Lingenfelter. Check this out. The runners have a lot of extra meat in them so you can pour them or even machine them for nitrous nozzles and the whole procedure is made a lot easier. Thanks to this removable bottom plate.

Now you can get one of these in either a natural finish or polish like this one. And the best news is it won't polish off your paycheck prices start at about 550.

Well, check out this new aluminum cylinder head for your big block Mopar. In fact, it's a new casting from Indie cylinder head that features CNC machine intake and exhaust ports and valves that measure 219 and 181.

The chambers are shaped to create a swirl

effect for more efficient combustion and of course, more horse power. Now, no matter how big your big block is, they've got a head to work with intake runners ranging from 295 to 425 CCS.

Now to get a set for your Mopar, you're gonna have to pay just under three grand.

It's no fun getting beat at the track every week. So now you can have the last laugh with this. It's the new GMEF I Nitrous kit from Nitrous Express.

Now it's a single nozzle fogger system that's adjustable from 35 to 100 and 50 horsepower and it's available for most 46 and eight cylinder engines. Now, the kits come with a 10 pound bottle, all your lines and hardware that you need for an easy installation and the price tag. Well, that'll keep a smile on your face too at $560.

All right, Mustang, boy, come on back

and now you're riding in a real car.

Hey, before we leave, I want to introduce you to the latest member of our horsepower team. It's a 1998 Ss Camaro and, well, the Camaro might be gone, but it's far from forgotten.

In fact, there are a ton of performance parts that'll bolt right up to this thing and in coming weeks we're gonna have a lot of fun turning it

into a red hot boulevard Bruiser.

Yeah, it's all starting next weekend. You don't wanna miss it. We'll see you then.