25 Hidden Hop Up Tips
Be hot, look stock
by Tom Shaw
6. Battery In A Battery
Here’s a slick tip that shaved 37.5 pounds of the stock repro battery weight. This takes some effort, but the payoff is big. Take one empty repro battery case (this guy gutted his own – messy and dangerous) and installed a small racing battery inside. The Dyna Batt (Dyna Batt Performance Distributors, 2699 Barris Drive, Memphis, TN 38132 (901) 396-5782) weighs less than 14 pounds and fits inside the big, repro case. It was wired to the big case’s terminals from inside, and held in place with hard packing foam. That shaves as much weight as a medium sized TV off the very front of your Mustang – the worst possible place to pack extra pounds. Yet, it still starts your car looks factory correct, and who’s to know?
7. Pertronix Ignitor
This little jewel hides beneath your stock distributor cap and fires your coil without the lo-po, always-declining, erratic performance of conventional breaker points. Just yank the points, toss ‘em in the round file, install the Ignitor in their place, and enjoy quicker starts, better performance and mileage, and consistent performance. The Ignitor works with standard or high-performance coils and never needs replacing either. Thousands of vintage Mustang drivers are singing this thing’s praises.
8. Fan Club
If you’ve got a fluid drive fan, buy another race-only fan and drain the fluid out of it. That will minimize its speed and the hp loss to drive it, especially at higher rpm. Just make sure to change it before you go cruising.
9. Windage Tray
This is an age-old trick. A windage tray keeps oil from sloshing in the crankcase and splashing against your rapidly spinning crankshaft. Other than the modest initial cost, there’s no downside. They weigh next to nothing, they’re easily installed, and Dallas Mustang is among the many vendors who stock them.
10. Roller Lifters
They work on several levels. First, the roller fulcrums create a lot less friction than ball and stud designs, so there’s less horsepower wasted on driving them, and there’s less heat generated as they operate. And — bonus — they allow quicker opening rates than stock rockers. Needless to say, rollers, like these from Crane, greatly extend lobe and lifter life too. There are quite a few different products out there to convert stock hydraulic lifters to hydraulic rollers. It’s an improvement that’s well worth the trouble.
11. Roller Rockers
They’re the flipside to the aforementioned roller lifters and also reduce friction and heat. They are also reduce deflection – the flexing and bending under load – so that your valve actually sees all the lift designed into your cam instead of being wasted in bending an OEM stamped rocker. These Crane Energizer rockers are ideal for older Ford V8s.
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