1985 Mercury Capri - The Big Gulp

It's also important to retorque the manifold after a few heat cycles.

Here, the 302 awaits battle with the Dynojet chassis dyno.

While the engine made great power, we noticed a slightly lean air/fuel reading (13.5-13.7:1) at WOT. With that, we upped the jets from the out-of-the-box jetting of 62/70 to 64/72, but the engine failed to respond. We then went to 66 jets in the primary and still nothing. At this point, we figured the factory fuel pump wasn't keeping up, so we decided to call it a day until we could get more fuel to the engine.

Capri tester car was a clean machine with roll-up windows and that awesome '85-'86 three-spoke steering wheel.

Power was up big-time with the combination of the S&B filter, BG carb, and the Weiand Stealth. We lost a touch of torque, but gained 34.4 total rear-wheel horsepower and 40 at redline. The powerband was also moved. Peak power is now at 5,200 rpm versus about 4,800 before the intake swap. And 34.4 hp is easily 40 at the flywheel.

We were curious to see how the modified Motorcraft/Holley would do against the BG with the new manifold, so we slid the old reliable back into working position. This was the best of three pulls. Had the carb been totally stock, it's likely the BG would have showed a larger gain.

By day's end, we hopped up the 302 by almost 35 hp. We also tried the timing at 30, 32, and 35 degrees, and found 30 degrees to be the hot ticket. The engine responded so well to these basic mods that we began to wonder if 300 hp is a realistic number to shoot for.

To find out, we're planning a head and cam swap, so look for the 5.0 H.O. Capri in an upcoming issue.