Anybody watch "Horse Power" on Saturday?

[2001ExpSport]

Saturday's show(not sure if it was a repeat) topic was a Mustang with the pushrod 5.0. I think they said it was the last year for the pushrod. Anyway, they put it on the dyno and it was rated with 165 RWHP. I am not sure, but didn't the pushrod 5.0's put out around 225 HP? Well, it had over 100k on the ticker so I am sure the hp went down. Plus that 165 was RWHP.

So here's the topic of my post. During the show they installed a catback system, cold air intake, ignition computer, coil, plugs, wires and lastly a new distributer cap. These are all great mods in my opinion, but I was really disappointed when they dynoed it after the mods. It ran at 184 RWHP. So the gain was only 19 RWHP. I was expecting more. They ended up spending just over a grand for all these parts. Seems like a lot to me, but I feel that way about everything....

I guess I was just expecting more gains, at least from the way they were stoked about the parts. Maybe that's just show biz.

By the way, the only thing I hate about these shows(another would be the Shadetree Mechaninc) is that they have endless amounts of money, I'm so jealous.

Ok, well, I was bored and figured I would talk about the show.

 

[Texplorer]

I know what you mean, I hate to watch TRUCKS and see them lifting, lowering and everything else imaginable to all these vehicles. I always wondered where they got there vehicles so I e-mailed them and asked, the e-mail got sent back to me saying something about it can not be delivered. Oh well, I guess I will never know.

 

[mrboyle]

The 225HP rating was at the flywheel. 165 RWHP isn't to bad for a car with that kind of mileage. The horsepower gains are very accurate from what I have seen. Its pretty pathetic that all these companies can take gains they can achieve on a engine dyno and advertise them so it sounds like you are getting alot more than you'll ever gain.

 

[james t]

some of the mods they did were just high-milage maintenance stuff. the cap, rotor, coil, plug wires, those just needed to be replaced and are not usually expected to increase hp that much. the catback helped some, but if you noticed it didnt have mufflers on it in the first place. just straight pipes run after the cats. the new ignition was nice, but untill you get up there in hp its not really needed. i would have spent that money on headers. all in all, 20 rwhp is not bad, thats a pretty good gain. you can definatly "feel" an extra 20 hp, especially at the wheels.