Just got back from the dyno shop for a power tune. With a 122,000 mile stock 5.0 ford bottom end, trick flow heads, gt 40 intake, stock cam, 65 mm throttle body and 72 mm air tube we hit 270 hp with 305 lbs torque. I now have my sights set on paint and seats...the power tune worked wonders. They reworked my real lean mid range also reworked my cold start program and reworked the idle program to help when I turn the a/c on to compensate for condernsor fans voltage drop and compressor drag. It now starts excellent and idles good and has gobs of power thru the mid range....... Thanks to chris tuten at the muffler House in columbia Sc.

 

Awesome numbers Gerry!
If you don't mind me asking, how much did the whole tuning process set you back? I'm putting down the exact same numbers as you with 25 more cubes and an e303 on a bone-stock 1991 A9L. I've been told I could possibly unlock another 20 - 40 rwhp if I just bite the bullet and pay someone to tune it.

I take it the harness went in fine?

Thanks,
-Jason

 

Jason, Yes I have been following your post and build. I cannot tell you how much better the car runs. When I put everything together and worked out the bugs it ran good but stumbled and just didnt run as good as I thought it could. After the power tune it was a totally different car.Cold start and drive off is just perfect and thru the mid range improvement was significant. Real seat of the pants and foot improvement. Now what is critical is finding the right guy to listen to what you want to do with the car. There are a bunch of tuners out there so get a guy who will listen and knows 5.0 's. For example, we talked before the tune and I explained how I was going to use the car and what my expectiations are. He told me he would not try to add more horsepower if he did not think the engine could handle it as where some tuners will dial it strickly to provide you with the most horsepower without reguard to your set up. Another example was he pulled back some timing to avoid detination at the cost of some Hp. What is installed is a plug in board to the back of the computer which plugs into the stock computer and after each run he programs it and then runs it again. A good shop wires into your mass air, sniffs the exhaust and so on.
Okay the cost was not cheap but the results were worth it. My cost was $480 which includes the computer chip which on line the cost was about $250 but there were cheaper shops .
If you remember I had replace the distributor harness.....which was causing me to die a while back.... Drove it to Turkey Run in Daytona over Thanksgiving weekend and got 22 mph and had no problems..Hope all is well with your family and your holidays go well. Would love to have a bunch of miata guys cannon ball run somewhere in the future if we can make it happen and its not too far. Take care . Gerry