I have a F150 thats basically stock. It has K&N cold air intake and thats about it. what would be the next best thing(s) to do?

 

A chip/tuner and an exhaust would be a good start.

 

exhaust would be my first choice.

 

Exhaust will make it louder. A tuner will make it quicker. A tuner has too many benefits to list. Try a search here (or on any automotive forum) and find someone who regrets buying a tuner. I got a dollar says you come up empty.

 

i bought the hypertech for my 98 ford f150 4.6 and personally i thought it was a waste of money only only reason i bought one was i had to because of all the other performance mods i put on. save your money and buy something else is my thought.

 

Oh well. I forgot that there are crap tuners out there. I was talking about a quality unit like a Superchips or Predator tuner. There's thousands of posts on tuners here already, but buy what you want. Everyone here seems particularly fond of Mike Troyer and Superchips, but all the Lightning owners run Predators.

And I figured I'd draw at least one oddball out of the cracks with my post, looks like it worked.

 

you have the k@n do magnaflow for flow then put on underdrive pullies and a must 6600 or9100 hope it helps

 

The best bang for your buck is a chip or tuner. Browse through the Computer Chips forum and see what members are using. Granted on this board you will see a bias towards Superchips but you will also notice that the man behind the tuner knows his subject.

JMC

 

I installed the exhaust and FIPK on my 01 5.4 and it was louder and cool, but until I put in a 1715 tuner the truck never knew it was there. Major power gains, a tranny that shifts like a truck and I went from getting 12mpg to 14-16. Buy the exhauast and grab a Supertuner and you'll never look back.

 

AMEN Brother!!!

 

i looked into an exhast system. some people say its good but then some people say that its a waste of money. i want to go dual exshast out the back with flow masters.

any thoughts on that?

and about the underdrive pullys, whats the story about those?

 

what about a throttle body spacer, or a whole new throttle body, but bigger

 

A good exhaust would be #3 in HP per dollar. A properly engineered exhaust is not a waste of money. I don't personally recommend duals or Flowmasters, but I would read up on what people do recommend in the exhaust section. The story on underdrive pulleys is that the different diameter pulleys change accessory speed, reducing parasitic engine drag, which frees up horsepower. It's simple physics and they work. Throttle body spacers suck. Larger throttle bodies can add a few horsepower, but you need to port the intake elbow to attain maximum benefit. Here's my personal opinion on upgrades IN ORDER: chip/tuner, air intake kit, exhaust, underdrive pulleys, electric fans, rear end gears, and add a shift kit/valve body for good measure. If you plan on doing much more than this, just buy a supercharger initially instead of piddling your money away on minor improvements.

 

go read the project MPG article from performance unlimited. it has some great info on what to do.

 

There's a ton of info on this subject already. Do a search using "catback" or "exhaust" as the topic, and read away. You'll probably find that Magnaflow's SI-SO (Single In-Single Out) system is the preferred setup due to its ability to boost HP & torque across the RPM band versus every other system where the gains are only seen in the upper RPM range.

Underdrive pulleys are also a power booster. The two pulley setup uses a smaller crank pulley and a bigger water pump pulley. The combo of these two results in the all of the belt driven accessories spinning slower=less motor drag=more power. There are some situations that need to be considered. If you've got a high watt audio system, sit in traffic a lot, have big tires, etc. you'll want to have a programmer burned so that your idle is raised a little bit, to offset the slower alternator rpm at idle.

Time after time when this question is brought up, the same info gets repeated. Top 3 upgrades are: Air intake kit, catback system, chip/programmer. Take a look at the "Computer Chips" section on the main board page and see that most upgraders have taken this approach, and some have gone WAY beyond.

Throttle body spacer? Heard nothing good about them so far. Bigger TB? Probably not necessary yet. Do a search on both, and you'll find that your questions have been asked, and answered numerous times. It takes time going through all the threads, but you'll come away wiser in the end.

SL