Morning everyone,

So I have had my truck now for over 3 years now and I do love my truck, but it is way to under powered. I was wondering without having to pull the motor on the truck how can i get more power out of it. I have the 4.6L V-8 5-speed. It def. doesn't like when i put the bigger tires on come spring, but it also doesn't like hauling to many things. I already threw a cold air intake on it, but thats it so far any help would be great.

 

In what circumstances do you use your truck where more power would be helpful, and it is not sufficient in it's current state? Are you exceeding manufacutre recommended capabilities? Do you have any unaddressed issues?

This will help us determine what you can do. Although, any gains you get via bolt ons (no internal engine work), will be minimally noticeable, if at all aside from gears.

 

^ What he said. If you're going with bigger tires and tow a lot the most noticeable thing you can do is re-gear. Heck I noticed a power decrease just going from 265.70.16s to 285.75.16s

 

well i have been hauling a lot and the motor doesn't like it. No my truck is running perfectly fine i always keep my truck in perfect running order. That and I would like to have more power there just in case I was thinking of pulling the motor and just completely re-building it, but like i said i don't have the room right now for pulling the motor.

 

short of boosting it, you aren't really going to get any noticeable power increases from bolt on mods

 

Not to burst your bubble on the CAI, but it most likely did more harm than good. These trucks already come factory with a CAI. The purpose of a cold air intake is to get air that's cooler than that of the hot engine bay. It's pretty difficult to beat the factory setup w/o a badass configuration.

You could try getting a tuner. If you really want speed than I guess a lightning swap(better upgrade that trans if you do that though. It'll go boom real quick). You could also look on the mustang forums to see what guys there do to their 4.6s.

As mentioned earlier, what gears do you have in the rear? Switching to 4.10s or 4.56s will make the truck be much more responsive but have higher rpms at highway speeds. A gear swap is definitely a must if you're going to large wheels and tires on it.

Finally, a super cheap thing you can do right now is look up the zip tie mod(search it will pop up) to get rid of any slack in the throttle cable. You could also buy a new throttle cable, which is really the correct way to fix this issue.

 

I vote for gears and a tuner.

 

"The motor doesn't like it"? Lol. If you're hauling more than the truck is capable of, I could see that. You should get a F250 if you are. If not...it's all in your head. The engine is going to work harder when hauling, just a fact of life. It's not a bad thing and doesn't require you modifying it. This isn't a Civic trying to tow a boat.

 

Thanks guys for all your input. I did go from 265/70/17's to 35" tires after i put a lift on the truck which i did notice the truck struggled more after that. So just recently I re-geared it from 3.55 to 4.10 and oh my god it is a big difference especially when i go back to stock tire size for the winters up here in Wisconsin. Yeah rpms are a little higher on the freeway but torque wise i think this was the best bang for the buck. Thanks for all your help gentleman.

 

Looks like I want to do that too.