8 Ways To Increase Engine Power #blogpost

This post is in response to Ian Wright’s guide to car modifying. He covered a lot of bases, but engine performance wasn’t really one of them. So I decided I would do that, because an engine is arguably the most significant/important part of a car.

One: Engine Rebuild
Difficulty: Hard
Cost: Moderate

If you have a high mileage engine and want it to make more power, you should consider rebuilding it before you throw speed parts at it. Replacing bearings, piston rings, machining the crankshaft and cylinder walls can really make a difference. A freshly rebuilt engine will be making more power than the same engine that’s been chugging along for hundreds of thousands of miles without any major work done to it.

Two: Free Flowing Exhaust System
Difficulty: Medium
Cost: Low to High

An internal combustion engine may be one of the mechanical objects that comes closest to resembling a human body/organ system. One big reason being is that an ICE needs an efficient way to breath in order to maximize it’s performance; that’s where a good exhaust system comes in. Uncorking your engine’s exhaust system will make it louder, more powerful and some believe more fuel efficient.

Three: Increased Bore And Stroke
Difficulty: Hard
Cost: Medium

If you want an engine with more displacement but don’t want to do an engine swap, increasing the bore and stroke of the engine is a good option. What it does is increase the distance the pistons travel up and down in the cylinder walls and the size of the cylinder walls and pistons. Long story short your engine can intake and detonate a lot more fuel. How it’s done is by changing the crankshaft and connecting rods for stroking and increased bore and piston diameter for boring.

Four: Improved Air Intake System
Difficulty: Average
Cost: Average

A good percent of factory air intake systems are built with production cost in mind, not performance. Whether or not an aftermarket air intake system will improve your engine’s power is dependent on the car that you are modifying. Some stock air intake systems are hard to improve on where an aftermarket one might actually decrease power instead of increasing it. A third possibility is that the system will have very little to no gains in power.

Five: Better Fuel Delivery
Difficulty: Low To High
Cost: Low to Average

If you have more than enough air going into your engine, try looking at increasing your fuel flow. You can increase it with a swanky Holley carburetor, a racing fuel pump or fuel injectors from HKS.

Six: Aftermarket Camshafts
Difficulty: Average
Cost: Low to High

Camshafts control how much the intake and exhaust valves lift off the cylinder head and how long they are lifted off the cylinder heads. By putting an aftermarket camshaft in your engine, you can see some big power increases because camshafts play a big role in engine breathing.

Seven: Tuning
Difficulty: Low to High
Cost: Low to Average

Sometimes, you can make power with a stock engine just by tweaking it a little. Whether it’s upping the boost of a turbocharged engine, tuning for race gas or E85 or advancing ignition timing, most factory engines have some room to grow power wise. Tuning has more significant gains with boosted engines compared with naturally aspirated engines.

Eight: Boost And Nitrous
Difficulty: Average To High
Cost: Average To High

While this engine modification can yield the most results, it can also be the most expensive and dangerous. You can increase your engine power drastically, but supercharger and turbocharger kits can easily cost 4 figures. Another potential cost is fortifying your engine to take the boost/nitrous. It’s big risk, big reward with boost and nitrous, the question is, do you want to take it?