Hi there, first post from me.

Im an expat who used to live in the UK and moved to the US about 5 years ago.

OK, when I arrived my wife had this 92 taurus LX that had every option it could have.

Lovely car, reasonable milage and very clean.

We enjoyed this lovely car for 3 years and then it blew a head gasket, luckily it was under recall and it was all taken care of.

However it had electrical problems, the engine would cut out and the windows would let themselves down.

In the end she got a brand new car and gave the taurus to me, I was determined to find out what was causing these issues and soon did, it was the dimmer switch for the lights lol.

With that fixed I had a lovely car with 90k on the clock and a recent head gasket and major engine overhaul.

However, the US decided to mess me about with immigration and the car sat redundant in a field for 3 years.

As it stood it needed a new muffler (rotten) and a repaint (the roof was very rusty.

Now, for some reason I love this car, it might be because i am from the UK where we dont have many large cars or it might be because it has oodles of untapped power (3.8l EFI).

I decided to mod the hell out of the car and make it look more euro, something I have not seen done yet (not many people rate taurus's) and thus I have bought the very best paint (house of kolor) and a new muffler (porsche lookalike, 2 square pipes out of the one large box) and have a massive audio system to go in.

I have also decided to completely debadge and dename the car and lower it alot, basically Im going for the sapphire cosworth look (taurus's look very alike the UK sierra sapphire cosworth by ford).

One question i do have is this, how much power is it possible to unleash from this large engine?

I know that its pretty feeble as standard, a mere 120 horses, but I have heard that adding a new muffler, K&N intake and cold air chip can give me another 60+ horses.

Any ideas what I could do to squeeze some more out of it?

I want a rocket ship ! :loser:

well firstly that piticular engine is more of a commuter car motor than somthing designed for a sports car, ou have the hp wrong which is closer to 155 or so, but the redeeming factor on this engine is the fact that the engine has about 215 lbs of torque, so a port and polish, a cam and basic breathing mods (intake (aka short ram, or cold air) header and a catback exhaust) and obviously a chip to take full advantage of these should GREATLY improve the power of the engine, and give it a more rev happy nature, but alas the world isn't perfect and there are a few problems with this, firstly good luck finding the parts that i listed, and the other is that from what I've herd this engine likes eating headgaskets and with the tranny probems that have plagued this car more power is sure to make them worse, but if your willing to deal with theat then have fun dude!

well firstly that piticular engine is more of a commuter car motor than somthing designed for a sports car, ou have the hp wrong which is closer to 155 or so, but the redeeming factor on this engine is the fact that the engine has about 215 lbs of torque, so a port and polish, a cam and basic breathing mods (intake (aka short ram, or cold air) header and a catback exhaust) and obviously a chip to take full advantage of these should GREATLY improve the power of the engine, and give it a more rev happy nature, but alas the world isn't perfect and there are a few problems with this, firstly good luck finding the parts that i listed, and the other is that from what I've herd this engine likes eating headgaskets and with the tranny probems that have plagued this car more power is sure to make them worse, but if your willing to deal with theat then have fun dude!

Im aware the taurus is a bit of a granny car :D thats what I intend to change.

Being from the UK and having alot of idea what I want to see made the taurus a good choice, Im after a certain 'look' and can achieve it with the taurus.

I wasnt aware it was 160bhp, but that helps..

TBH then I think with the k&n air intake and the new muffler and a rechip it will be more than enough, anything over 180 should do fine :)

As for the engine and trans well I certainly hear you there, the head gasket has gone once but it was all redone and thus shouldnt be ready to go again anytime soon (i hope anyways) and the trans is marvellous, not a single noise slip or problem.

I think for most of the cars life it was used by careful women, we live in the middle of nowhere and it has never been beaten very hard.

The car I intend to make it look like can be found here (this is a standard one)

http://www.rs-ford.co.uk/images/gallery-sapphire/saph1.jpg

So hopefully with a spoiler and some bondo work I can achieve this kind of look :)

Thanks for the advice :)

Andy

well if 180 hp is your goal then an intake (more than just a drop in filter) header and full cat back will get you close if you really want to give that engine some punch then you need to improve the breathing (this is where the camshaft comes in) as this engine is tuned for torque allot of that can be changed by simply putting in a more aggressive cam, a port and polish would be the finishing touch on the motor to really give it a top end rush, and this can be done at any lcal machine shop who does that sort of thing (i would advise calling around first) and as a side note if you port and polish the intake manifold then you will need to ether bore out your throttle body or get a new larger one to take full advantage (a port polish and a cam with the other mods would have you between 200 or 215) but whatever you choose, good luck man, keep us updated

I believe that engine has 17# grey top injectors, which generally were only good for about 170-180h.p. Make sure you monitor the air fuel ration with a air fuel gauge that hooks to the o2 to make sure it isn't running lean. If you do have to swap the injectors, that's where it gets a little more tricky then just throwing parts on/in the engine. Luckily for you, they were nice enough to make it MAF.

I've modded the crap out of my 2.9L Ranger engine, I had to convert it to mass air flow. It's running:
19# Orange top Mustang Design II Injectors
210 .435 @ .050 Intake 216 .450 @ .050 Exhaust lift cam (Stock .367/.376) 111 LDA
3.8L Taurus MAF (Adapting to 5.0L soon)
Bigger 86 Ranger Throttle Body (Adapting to 5.0L Soon)
Pace Setter Ceramic Coated Headers
No catalytic converter with Dynomax dual out muffler
Heads Milled .030" (Intake was milled to conpensate)
+ a lot more.

I'm saving to redo my heads, my valves are floating, you'll have the same problem depending on how big the cam is. I am getting dual valve springs, 4.0L valves, 1.55 rocker ratio rocker arms, and better hardware. I have a set of 'free floating rocker arm spacers' just begging to be installed. But I am waiting until I have the cash for the rocker arms.

There's a secret involded for this engine to even run. It's not like a carborated engine, you just can't throw parts on it like a carb. With out fudging the voltage from the MAF to the computer, it can't even stay running. Runs great otherwise, I don't have any tread left on my tires. :)

A cat back exhaust won't give you any more performance, it will just make the exhaust sound different. It might drop a little back-pressure, but sometimes that can be a bad thing on a V6. I don't know enough about the 3.8L, didn't want to deal with trying to keep a head gasket from blowing from the extra heat you'll be creating. You may also have some cooling issues.

A good article:
http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Miscellaneous/exhausttheory.htm

I am not sure about the current air intake setup on one of these, but Ford generally already has a way of taking in fresh air from outside. Unless there is some way to make it even cooler, that might actually work.. I know my 2.9L Ranger air box can flow enough air for a 5.0L. Also, I've seen those K&N intake setups, it looks like if one didn't know any better they would be sucking in hot air from under the hood, which would decrease performance.

Remember when increasing the air flow, the engine must actually need that amount of air flow to make a difference. Or else you'll end up with a car with no guts below 3000rpm (Over porting). A lot of thinking is involved when modifing an engine in that such of a way. Porting and polishing is an art, skill, and is very difficult with out a flow bench. I suggest you look for actual performance books for a 3.8L Taurus. They always have reliable data.

If this is your first performance engine build, don't expect it to be perfect the first time. I personally would pick a different car to dump money into. You're certainly going to be replacing transmissions. Maybe worth while if you can identify the cause and fix it, though, I imagine the problem is that it was engineered with cost effectiveness in mind. It may just be a piece of crap. Who knows.. I just sold my 93' 3.8L with a blown tranny for 60 bucks..

Pete