Tell me how this sounds as far as being a cheap ass and in college. I've already got some 1.7 rockers. Going to port some e7's and have them milled to bump up the cr to 10:1. Just running the stock hyd roller cam retarded 4*. Its already got longtubes and dumps. No powersteering, stock intake and a 65mm throttle body. Last but not least a underdrive pulley on the crank I'm running a stock cam because a friend ran 8.6's stock motor,no ps, 4.10's and in a heavier mustang.The car still had stock street manners also. The only thing I'm not sure about is retarding the cam.Now I've read about advancing and retarding the cam and they usually got more out of it on the top end than the bottom end when the advanced it....looking for any advice or tips and btw its fuel injected
Since you mentioned it was FI, everything sounds good except for the stock intake. With ported heads, and a 65mm TB, it will be a real cork in the intake system
If you're good, do a search at stangnet.com for "tmoss" and home porting Tmoss is the guy who is god at porting the efi intakes. he has step by step guides how to port the hell out of those intakes. I've got a fully ported lower that I got from a friend sitting in my garage who followed his suggestions, it's been opened a LOT. Personally, I'd ditch the 1.7's and go with 1.6's and a tfs stage one cam, or an e cam. The HO cam is good, but not nearly as good as a tfs or e cam. You "may" be able to use a tfs or e cam with 1.7's, but you'll have to clay for clearance. A tfs or e cam can be had for around $100-$150 used, not too bad. ALso, the ported e7's will get you going, but I'd look for a set of gt40 iron heads. call your truck yards and you should find a set for $200ish off a 96/early 97 explorer. Do know what to look for, the gt40's have three bars on the end, not four. port the gt40's for a wicked combo. In that case, snag the explorer upper/lower, as it flows nearly as much as the gt40 intake. If these mods are too much, just stick with the ported e7's, port your lower intake, and get a better cam.
Don't retard the cam timing. That moves the powerband up in the rpm range (albeit only about 6-800 rpm). This results in loss of torque at lower rpm. A 302 needs all the help with torque it can get, especially if the car has an automatic transmission with a stock/mild converter. I would either run the cam straight up or advance it if you want to experiment.
Thanks for the advice guys. I have heard of Tmoss and have emailed him in the past. I'm saving for a gt40 lower and a sheetmetal upper at the moment. Should help it a little. Do you really think advancing the cam would be even worth it?
I wouldn't mill the heads myself. 10:1 is 93 octane unless you're running a large cam, about $2.49 a gallon sucks for a college student... $2.49 a gallon just sucks all around. Bumping the compression will have a small increase in torque all the way across the rpm range, 5-10lbs of torque. You'd get more power from a camshaft swap, port, intake and exhaust while still only running 87. At least it won't cost you more every time you stop at the pump.
