I just bought a 2004 40th anniverary ed. Mustang with a 3.9L V-6, and an automatic trans. I love the car, it's like a piece of art. However, My Dad's 3.4L oldsmobile alero is faster which sufficiently pisses me off. I would love to give my pony more power, and I am willing to spend about $1500, but I am unwilling to void my waranty. What should I do, other than wait 2 years for the waranty to expire? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cat Back dual exhaust, Rear sway bar, Demolet Tunable Intake (full system) and some Under drive pulleys, the Alero's front end will be gleaming in your rear view mirror.

 

You can do alot of bolt ons but it will still void your warranty. You really cant make any decent power while keeping your warranty. If the alero is that much faster than you, then bolt ons will be a big dissapointment. If I were you id fing a used or just a cheap blower to go on it. I have spent over 2 grand on my car for bolt ons and nitrous, but I could have had a blower on it by now. I wish I would have just saved for a blower, then I might be running high 11's in the 1/4 mile. Beating aleros is cool, but if you want to beat a mustang GT then buy a blower. I think Vortech makes a nice package for the V6 pretty cheap.

 

1500 will buy you nitrous. so buy that and be done.

 

The blower sounds like the best way to go, but I don't want to void the waranty. Thanks for the advise, but I think most of what was suggested would leave me SOL if anything broke on my car. Still if anyone knows of something that won't void the waranty I would love to hear about it.

 

as jeredan said, there is not much that you CAN do without voiding the warranty. no dealer in their right mind is going to give you a full range of freedoms in modding the car and still cover it if it breaks. you are doing the mods, which, as performance parts do, make the car perform in ways not intended as stock, or as purchased, whatever the case may be. you should be ok with simple things like exhaust, just depends on the dealer. not much can happen when going with a standard bolt-on exhaust system. but use common sense. Adding a blower or nitrous, if not done correctly, could blow the engine. of course the car did not come that way, and it is YOUR fault the engine blew, the warranty will be void. Messing around with gears could mess up the tranny, rearend, etc. Not going to be covered; however, gears would be hard detect without a good mechanic to check it out. you COULD get lucky and they not find out about them, but it would be a stretch.

if in doubt, contact whoever has the warranty and ask, or READ your warranty. it should give basic guidelines to what is covered and what is not. it will not tell you what exactly what parts you can or cant put on the car, but should give you guidelines to follow. if you want to push the limits, do simple bolt-ons that could be removed and the stock parts added back in the event you needed to take it in for any work. Who says you will have to take it back for anything? Things like the cold air, underdrive pulleys, rear sway bar mentioned in an above post, could easily be swapped back out if it needed to be taken in. then you would just have to deal with your conscience, but if they don't know about it, they can't void the warranty.

think about it. just as an example, let's say that putting on a cold air kit somehow leads to a blown engine (not likely but just for example purposes). does it really matter if it happens during the warranty period or not? the warranty will likely be void, and you would have to buy an engine. but what if it happened after the warranty expired? you would still have to buy an engine. you are in no worse shape, and you lost the peformance gains and fun driving the car for the period of time until the warranty ran out. those are the risks you take with any mods to a car. stuff happens. if you can't handle the risks, leave the car alone.

Scott

 

I saw a notchback with a V6 in a magazine with pretty much a stock engine that runs 10's with nitrous.

 

If your talking about the Green one in MM&FF then hell no it wasn't stock, they just didn't use a blower, but alota stuff is done to the engine, new manifolds, rockers. It's basically a Ford Windstar on top. LoL and they used Nitrous.

Honestly, aside from what tangerine said a Cold Air Intake, Throttle Body and exhaust should be sufficient for now. As far as warranty, I got my intake installed by the guys at the Ford Performance shop while i was gettin my 20k check up, and they said since they did it, and cuz the guy know's me, the intake won't void anything else on the car. Not that ur guna get huge power gains with a new intake neways. If push came to shove, You can always install a Cold Air Intake yourself and put the stock if you have problems, it should be a 15 minute job.

As far as lossing to an Alero wow that worries me about your driving, i got a manual 2003 V6 and I play around with my friend in his Alero and always come out a car length ahead. Maybe u gotta practice that 1, 2, D shift, lol.

 

watch out for the size of the throttle body you put on 70mm+ will make you lose low end HP and torque. and since 99+ came with 65mm(???) its worthless anyways

 

but it's not the size that helps you, its the response and smooth flow of air that matters, on the bigger cars yea bigger thottle body works better.

 

also depends on your CFM's from the intake, if your pulling in high CFM's then yeah make way for it,if not, then you dont need to upgrade.

 

I think I will go to the ford dealer, and asking them what they can do that won't void the waranty. My only concern with this option is that it will probably cost my alot more than if I did the work, or had a local mechanic that I have used for years do the work. As for the cold air intake, how much more power will that give me, I don't need much more to be sufficent for now.

 

CAi 3-7 depending on brand

 

If you want to get around the warranty then do this: Put on a catback exhaust, put on a cold air intake, put on a Nitrous Express nitrous system.

You can drill the hole for the nitrous nozzle into your new cold air intake. The catback will give you enough exhast flow to use nitrous. Whenever you have to take the car to the dealer, just take the nitrous system and cold air intake off.

I have taken my car to the dealer 3 times and had substantial work done to it after the nitrous system was taken off. After you get the car back just put it back on.

Cold air intake: $150
Cat Back exhaust: $350
NX Nitrous system: $600
Total: $1100
Power increase with a 50 shot: around 60 horses at the wheels. Probably 75-80 lbs. of torque.

You will destroy the Alero and you still have $400 left for sticky tires.