- Joined
- Sep 12, 2023
- Messages
- 2,041
- Location
- North Ridgeville, OH
- Cars in Garage
- 2
- Vehicle Details
- 1997 Thunderbird 4.6, 1998 Mark VIII LSC
Over the years I've had the T-bird on a dyno a few times. The first time was in 2012 after I had a mail order tune for 93, PI cams, a PI intake, and the Trubendz 2.5" duals on the car for a little while and wanted a "baseline" prior to the MHS top end work. 212 RWHP (+50 HP over stock)
The following year, I dyno'd it again with my own 93 tune, MHS stage 2 PI heads/stage 2P cams, and saw 255 RWHP, a 43 HP increase (or 90 HP over stock).
Fast forward to 8 years later (3 years ago, now) and I had finally gotten my hands on a set of much-needed long tube headers for the car. I had to get things modified for installation so I took the car across town to SCP. I had them do a baseline run before installation, since they have a Mustang dyno which reads differently than the old Dynojets, and it came back at 230 RWHP (about 90% of the Dynojet's reading).
After the headers were installed, we couldn't get a clean pull because the TC kept unlocking midway. David Dalke was pretty sure it was a torque limit scalar and he sent me a value file so I could fix it in my tune later, but we still didn't get a good run on the dyno. So with some extrapolation - comparing a partial pull with the converter locked against a pull with it unlocked, we estimated 255 RWHP on the Mustang dyno (or about 283 RWHP in Dynojet terms) - an almost 30 HP gain from the headers over Preston's (RIP) ported stockers, and a total net gain of 100-120 RWHP (depending on your dyno) over stock.
Also, this shows empirical proof that the TC transmits more power when locked than when unlocked.
The following year, I dyno'd it again with my own 93 tune, MHS stage 2 PI heads/stage 2P cams, and saw 255 RWHP, a 43 HP increase (or 90 HP over stock).
Fast forward to 8 years later (3 years ago, now) and I had finally gotten my hands on a set of much-needed long tube headers for the car. I had to get things modified for installation so I took the car across town to SCP. I had them do a baseline run before installation, since they have a Mustang dyno which reads differently than the old Dynojets, and it came back at 230 RWHP (about 90% of the Dynojet's reading).
After the headers were installed, we couldn't get a clean pull because the TC kept unlocking midway. David Dalke was pretty sure it was a torque limit scalar and he sent me a value file so I could fix it in my tune later, but we still didn't get a good run on the dyno. So with some extrapolation - comparing a partial pull with the converter locked against a pull with it unlocked, we estimated 255 RWHP on the Mustang dyno (or about 283 RWHP in Dynojet terms) - an almost 30 HP gain from the headers over Preston's (RIP) ported stockers, and a total net gain of 100-120 RWHP (depending on your dyno) over stock.
Also, this shows empirical proof that the TC transmits more power when locked than when unlocked.
