Have an 86 Lxi FI race car and an 88 Lxi FI parts car, what can I swap for HP gains?

[accordracer39]

So I have an 86 LXI dirt track race car that I bought halfway through the season and now that it's almost over I want to start a list of things to upgrade for next season.

I also have an 88 LXI fuel injected parts car where the parts are available to me for free/cheap. I know the exhaust manifolds are slightly different and the 88-89 have more HP. Can I swap these? Any thing else I can swap for gains?

My car is almost completely gutted and emissions/etc are not a concern (don't even have a cat, or even muffler at the moment.) I also have an 85 and 90 prelude available if any of those would help as well. (running prelude control arms upfront).


Thanks!!

[Vanilla Sky]

They're similar enough that gains would register in the "statistical noise" range of improvement, but it's always good for spares. The exhaust manifold will help, as would the intake manifold, but you'd have to set it up to actuate the secondary runners on the intake. If you can get away with a little porting on that cast iron exhaust manifold, you should be able to pick up almost as much power as one would by installing a Pacesetter header. To rough the finish up in case of a contested teardown, a mild acid will etch the iron enough to get rid of the sanding marks, leaving a rough "as-cast" look instead.

From the Preludes, get both sets of front upper control arms. Put the ones from the 90 on a shelf, put the ones from the 85 on your car. There's a how to or three on making the Prelude A arms work on our cars, but you should be able to figure it out.

[JohnBoy]

I race oval track too the biggest thing is get it cars suspension and camber right then work on tire then put a 25-35 lb weight or chunk of metal in front of the driver side tire. get rid of the coolent line to the throttle body because all it will do is get your throttle body hot with puts warm air into the intake. on cement I dont have to brake just let off the throttle then punch it but I've never raced dirt so cant help you there. remember tires finding the right size for the track is key!!! the bigger the track the bigger the tires I have two different set I run on to diff. tracks.