Hello everyone. I am new to this site and am loaded with questions about the truck I picked up a few months ago. I recently purchased a 1999 Ford F-150 XLT with the 5.4L Triton V8. I absolutely love the power that comes from this thing stock but I am interested in even more power. I was wondering what could I possibly do to gain more horsepower? I don't know a great deal about engines and performance but I am learning. I have about $3000 give or take a few hundred dollars to play with. So what could I do to maximize my power and what kind of gains could I likely see with performance parts?

 

with 3000 bucks, long tube headers, true dual exhaust, high flow cats, Cold Air Intake, Underdrive Pulleys, Belts, E-Fans, and a custom tune from Troyer Performance. You will be very impressed. You could easily see a gain of 80-100 rwhp with all of these mods.

 

That sounds pretty good. I know I'm going to have this truck for a long time so thats why I feel comfortable putting money into it.

 

I suppose I should also ask what would be the most realistic amount of hp/torque I could get out of this engine before I'd either have to swap somehow or start having to modify the engine compartment.

 

if you have more money, add all the mods i previously stated and a supercharger...

 

Hahaha. Time to start saving. Right now it just passed 80k miles which I think is great for a truck that is 8, almost 9 years old. As far as I know the original owner didn't modify it at all so I get to have all the fun myself. I don't know what difference it makes but it also has like a 5 inch drop on it or something like that. I know it sits quite a bit lower then most 99 f150s i've seen. This is going to get addicting real quick I can just see it....

 

I wish we could buy this engine.
http://www.fpv.com.au/cars/force-6--...on/engine.aspx
I believe the engine is 388 HP without a SC or Turbo.

 

wow....

 

If you read enough car/truck reviews from Australia you get the feeling that they get all the goodies down there. I wonder if Ford just listens to them more than us here in the States. A lot of their Ford products down there would blow most of our Ford products off the road, right from the factory. It is sad. Must be a Turbo law in Australia that a certain content from a car maker must be equipped with Turbos.

 

He has the SOHC 16-valve engine. A set of cams plus all that stuff might stay under the $3000 dollar amount.

OP, if you got some garage buddies, buy them some beer and get free labor and save even more!

 

All those things mentioned will help you. Headers wont really do much except make the truck louder. with this engine in NA format (not supercharged of turbocharged) backpressure in the exhaust is very necessary to make good power. Free it up too much and you will start to see a loss in power. IMO, save your money on the headers. not worth it.

As for other mods, a tuner does a lot, as well as an intake. On my truck before I went supercharged I did a superchips tuner, modified the intake and put in a K&N cone filter, and replaced the stock muffler. That was good for a noticeable difference. Ive actually still got all the stuff, so if you want it just PM me.

As they said before, if you want to go for more, then dont worry about any of that stuff, and just supercharge it. You can get a take-off supercharger from a Lighning of Harley edition truck that will bolt right on and give you a lot more bang for your buck. Building power out of an NA motor is expensive. Supercharged power is cheap (relatively).

If youre interested in this kind of thing, a lot of guys have done it. As for me, Im in the process of a full motor swap- puting in an L motor. More info on supercharging here:

http://madenterprise.com/F150.htm

Mike is a great guy to work with- super helpfull and very knowledgeable.

 

Hahaha I'm sure I could find some people to do it. Not too hard around here. I'm starting small but eventually I want to have the kind of truck that no one around here has. Plus who doesn't want a little more power to play with?

 

If you can seriously get the installations done free, and if you get a tune, you might as well entertain performance fuel injectors and denso iridium spark plugs or the like, and if you go with Troyer, you can get a Ford Lightning MAF for $150 and already figured into the tune. You got the low-count threads on your valve assemblies for the spark plugs so if you change them then don't over torque!

 

So realistically how much horsepower could I get out of this engine? 500? 600?

 

There are Lightning owners able to pull upwards of 700 H P out of the block but they are also pumping tons of $$$ into their ride. 500 HP is definitely achievable easily with mods plus forced induction of some kind.