Re: More Horsepower??
there is a bunch of bolt-on mods that you can get for a ford 302, will they give you more HP, yes, will they maybe cause other problems? maybe. <br /><br />I can think of a couple of things to "bolt-on" for your motor:<br /><br />1. K&N Flame Arrestor, claims 18hp on what who knows, they never give the actual test results on what motor. I have always put a K&N filter on my vehicles and do notice a bit of a torque increase. Make sure your engine compartment is getting enough airflow to "charge" up your filtercharger.<br /><br />2. Pulleys. Changing your pulleys to different diameters will decrease engine drag and increase horsepower. I put a set on my Mustang and probably got 15hp out of them. Granted a marine engine doesn't have a lot of accessories like A/C, smog pump, etc. The other thing with the pulleys is you will have to change belts and if you don't have one already, a serpentine belt is recommended since I am not sure if they make the pulley system for single belt system<br /><br />3. Carb. Not cheap. Since you will be increasing air flow into the carb, you need more gas into your carb. Stepping up from a 2-bbl to a 4-bbl can increase HP as well. Just be careful on what size you get, getting too big will have the opposite effect... loss of HP!<br /><br />4. Porting heads. This smooths out the intake and exhaust ports to get the air in better and exhaust out quicker. Could see a 25hp difference<br /><br />5. Camshaft. DO NOT GET A CAR CAM. Car cams are setup differntly since they hae a different power curve. Getting a cam that opens more and longer can help dramatically. Note: When you put in a cam like this, you need to change out the valve springs. Getting bigger valves will help as well.<br /><br />6. roller rocker arms as previously stated. They help by "rolling" over the valve tips instead of sliding. You can expect a 10-25hp gain from these. <br /><br />Having your heads ported, polished, new valves, valve springs, rocker arms, will increase your HP a lot. This won't be cheap. You could be looking at about at least $2000.00 without labor to do these. <br /><br />You may want to check around and ask marinas if you can slap on mustang heads on your 302 without messing up the power band. If you can, there is a set of heads out there that are complete for $1000.00 or so and they are aluminum. These heads are an instant 50hp over the stock mustang heads. <br /><br />Be a little creative, and make sure you ASK a marina about these modifications, if they say no do not do them.
