Of course everyone wants to wring more performance from their machine. I'm going to split this section into the 4 stages. Beware starting down this path can become very expensive, and you must tell your insurance company of any changes you make to your car.
This section just covers the power plant for your car, Suspension, braking and other performance modifications will be covered elsewhere. This section is dynamic and I will attempt to add more details, information costs and providers details to each section as I get them
The Max Gain BHP figures are exactly that. The absolute maximum you could gain if every other detail on the car is right and the fuelling was so wrong before that that item just happens to require that amount of correction. Also adding one mod may remove power from another. All your mods need to work as a whole rather than expecting each to add what the manufacturer claims (In his dreams). What often happens is that you bolt on a mod and you can feel a big difference, this is normally because they add a couple of BHP at a very set point so it all hits at once and you feel it. Big gains like 10BHP all over the rev range from say a Unichip are more subtle and actually don't notice as much (at first) because of the huge rev range they work over
Also the end BHP at full throttle is not the whole story. What you want is more torque and a wider curve which is much more useful and means you are in the power longer. It is easy to tune the standard engine for an impressive peak power spike at up to 20 BHP higher than spec using a Unichip, but that spike is so narrow its almost unusable in practise
| Modification | Max Gain BHP | Approx Cost | BHP per Pound |
| Service your car | 0 | £120 | 0 |
| Rolling Road Tune | 3 | £60 | 0.05 |
| Computer diagnostic | 0 | £50 | 0 |
| Modification | Max Gain BHP | Approx Cost | BHP per Pound |
| Synthetic Oil | 0 | £40 | 0 |
| Air Filters | 2-4 | £80 | 0.025 |
| HT Leads | 0 | £75 | 0 |
| Spark Plugs | 0 | £30 | 0 |
| Ecotec | 2 | £50 | 0.04 |
| Fuel Pressure | 1 | £75 | 0.013 |
| Larger Injectors | 1 | £300 | 0.003 |
| Exhaust | 10 | £300 | 0.03 |
| Exhaust Manifold | 10 | £300 | 0.03 |
| Catalytic Converter | 2 | £50 | 0.04 |
| Superchips/Unichip | 10 | £200 | 0.05 |
| Modification | Max Gain BHP | Approx Cost | BHP per Pound |
| Head Reworking | 10 | £400 | 0.025 |
| Larger Valves | 5 | £200 | 0.025 |
| Skimmed Head | 2 | £100 | 0.02 |
| Cam Swap | 10 | £400 | 0.025 |
| Balancing | 0 | £100 | 0 |
| Lightening | 0 | £100 | 0 |
| Ignition Re-mapping | 10 | £500 | 0.02 |
| Throttle Bodies | 25 | £2000 | 0.0125 |
| Gear Ratio Change | 0 | £200 | 0 |
| Crankshaft Mods | 0 | £100 | 0 |
| Modification | Max Gain BHP | Approx Cost | BHP per Pound |
| Nitrous Injection | 50 | £400 | 0.125 |
| Turbo Charging | 50 | £2000 | 0.025 |
| Super Charging | 50 | £2000 | 0.025 |
Service your Car
Before you even start considering make sure your car is running well, is serviced regularly, and is running well. What's the point of spending lots of money to gain 5HP when the engine is 10HP down on standard because the Air Mass sensor is defective.
In particular check out the cooling system. Make sure the water pump, thermostat and temperature senders are working well, Overheating is a common problems on the Mondy and many have met their demise this way. Obviously tuning can produce higher temperatures. Personally I have an Oil cooler fitted now to give me the ability to dump even more heat
Rolling road Tuning
Stick your car in for a rolling road session. It will make sure you are producing the correct power and should enable you to spot any problems
Computer Diagnostic
Also get a download from your On Board computer (Easier on earlier mk1 Mondy) to make sure there are no errors or problems
In short don't start tuning until all is running well. If you have a problem, the extra load and stress of increasing the power could make it worse or produce a very expensive repair
Synthetic Oil (Worth 0HP)
Personally I want the best quality of oil in my engine. Compared with a rebuild even the most expensive oil is cheap, and having seen the lack of wear on my old camshaft after 110K miles I'm sticking to Mobil 1. I've used it since the car was run in and nothing else.
On my old Rally Sierra I could actually feel the extra go when I swapped from Dinosaur juice to synthetic. Using the 0W/40 Mobil 1 gives an easier cold start but still good protection at high temps.
Some claim it will give extra power. Me I just think it makes sure you can produce that power without grinding the engine to bits. Whatever oil you use make sure you change it regularly and use a good quality filter
Air Filters (Worth <2HP)
There are a myriad of replacement air filters, both panel types that are a direct replacement for the original and really don't give much extra power or cone types that can really let more air in, often because you remove a lot of the restrictive plastic piping to fit them. This has a secondary benefit of giving more room in the engine bay
I have seen test after test of these and the biggest changes are of the order of 2BHP. Some quote more but that is because they were fitted to really bad breathing cars in the first place.
Even though this is a small increase it is worth doing as adequate airflow will be needed later to compliment all the other mods you will do
What the tests show fairly consistently is that foam replacement filters are no where near as good as oiled cotton cones (like K&N) and in fact Revs magazine has just shown that several foam filters actually result in a power loss (sorry Piper!)
Again and again in these tests K&N comes top or near top, and their kit includes every single item needed to fit the filter and still retain legal engine emissions control. It is illegal to just stick a separate filter on the breather tube, it must re-insert the vapour back into the intake, a fact lost on many of the kits. Also check that there will be adequate cold air flow to the new filter (K&N provide ducting to route a cold air induction tube to the filter) or you will suffer from heat soak.
Also after I fitted the air filter I noticed some fuelling flat spots which needed a raise fuel pressure to fix
HT Leads (Worth 0HP)
Another area rife with marketing lies. Spark plug leads cannot give you any extra power unless your last ones were so bad you were misfiring. What they can give you though is a healthier fatter spark for less effort and more durability. I have found that cheap leads break down quickly on my Mondeo (They fire twice as much as normal leads), probably due to the movement of the engine block and high temperatures in the deep plug well. Fords own are OK. But I have had good reliability with Splitfires. Buy good quality leads for peace of mind and reliability not for performance
Spark Plugs (Worth 0HP)
Despite some of the claims I have seen to the contrary, a spark plug can NOT produce any more power for an engine (Unless the old ones were in a REALLY bad way). Once the petrol is ignited, that's it. I can believe that better plugs spark at a lower voltage and give a fatter spark with a longer duration. But once ignited the flame front on the chamber is independent of the spark plug. Rolling road sessions back this up.
Over the years I have used Champion, Bosch, Bosch 4 point, Splitfire, NGK Platinum's and NGK v grooved platinum. All work the same. Having said that the champions insulators broke after 10K miles (I have had bad experiences on my motorbike with Champions so I don't recommend them). My favourites are NGK and their web sites are a goldmine of information
. Just make sure you do not tighten them too much. Finger tight and then a quarter turn is all I give them. Don't use antiseize as it can contaminate the cylinder head. I've just had a long flame war with someone on the contour forums over this. He claims that his plugs always seized if he didn't use it. Turns out he was tightening the plugs to double the normal torque.
Ecotec (Worth <2HP)
Amazing device, cant rate it enough, does every thing it claims and worth every penny. Buy one and fit it (good fun on the Zetec, not!). Go to their web site to see how it works etc or see my review on this site
Fuel Pressure (Worth <1HP)
After you up the breathing of the car by allowing more air in and you are producing more power, eventually you will require more fuel than the standard injectors can provide. Two solutions, one is to replace the injectors, the second is to increase the fuel pressure behind them. I took the later and fitted an FSE fuel Pressure valve. It cured a large flat spot. Be careful though. If you turn up the fuel pressure too much the injectors will dribble and ruin your emissions and could do in the cat. In the future I'm going to fit larger injectors
Larger Injectors (worth <1HP)
When your injectors are pushed and cannot squirt enough fuel in the the duration of the squirt must increase. If the duration gets too long then the valves/piston will be in the wrong place and an inefficient burn will result. I believe that at about 170-180 BHP you are reaching the limits of what the standard injectors will cope with (Zetec). Larger injectors can squirt in the right amount of fuel in a shorter time and hence solve this problem. Make sure you don't go too big though or else they wont be able to inject the small amounts needed at idle. No big power gains from the actual injector swap but they allow you to progress beyond 180 BHP.
Exhaust (Worth <10HP)
Here there is scope for a big improvement. The standard exhaust is quite restrictive and is bottling up more than 10BHP. Simplest and quickest fix is to fit a cat back system from one of the known brands such as Jetex, Janspeed etc. A rear box only wont give you anything but a lot of noise and grief from the bill. The aftermarket exhausts work but have more time spent on making a noise rather than power.
I'd suggest the best solution is a Powerflow exhaust. These are custom made on the car to your own design, so you can specify, single or twin exits, Power, noise or lack of and in my case extra ground clearance. They cost only slightly more than a stainless steel system (Which they are), but have a lifetime warranty. I was very pleased with the 10HP extra mine gave, which was very noticeable even when pulling away from the garage. I had a single exit 3" system made with a mid system resonator and a single back box. Sound is deeper than standard but not noisy
Exhaust Manifolds (Worth <10HP)
Very popular in the US, the standard exhaust manifolds (especially on the V6) are pretty inefficient. They had unequal length pipes, rough cast insides and allow exhaust from one cylinder to enter another cylinder on the intake. Because of this valve durations are kept short. In fact this is one of the reasons that a hotter cam increases emissions as the longer valve duration allows exhaust back flow. A well designed manifold will release power by allowing a longer duration valve opening without increasing emissions and speed up the the exhaust flow, but it needs the cams to release its true benefit.
Catalytic Converter (Worth <2HP)
Replacing the Cat with a straight through pipe is claimed by many to release 10HP. I and several others have now measured this and it will give you 2HP plus a lot of grief as a cat is required for a UK MOT even if you meet emissions without it. A more subtle mod would be to poke out the insides of the cat so it looks like one is still fitted.
The Standard Ford cat is actually quite good and unless you want to fork out for an expensive after market high flow cat is your best bet. Don't go for the cheapest, I have had 2 cheap ones (the first failed emissions after 5 months the second, buckled and failed to seal on the header after about 2 weeks). Because of the mods on the Molemobile I cant pass the emissions test without one
Superchip/Unichip (Worth <20HP)
Adding a superchip will release some extra power to a mondeo, primarily by leaning the mixture and changing some settings to give power in favour of longevity and emissions. Superchips have done a good job of producing a chip that works for the majority of mondeo's in stock or slightly modified trim and giving them some extra get up and go.
However the Superchip map is just an average map is not customisable for your specific car, with your modifications and your engine style. So although it helps it wont give you all you could get
The best solution is a completely customisable and re-mappable chip such as a Unichip. This comes with a standard map in it. Your car is then placed on a rolling road and the chip is set up on your car to extract the right mixture at all load/revs settings. This is more expensive than a superchip (~£600 as apposed to £200), but will get every last bit from your engine and can allow for your modifications and your engine peculiarities. It is not uncommon on heavily modified cars to get an extra 20BHP this way.
Bear in mind that each engine is different and that one modification does effect and work together with others. So the end result my be greater than the sum of the parts, but its just as likely to be less. Do be very suspicious of the claims of max horse power by bolt on product manufacturers.
In this section I look at the more traditional ways of raising power output. Most of these require an engine rebuild and so are not just an afternoon with the bonnet up. However they give bigger gains along with reliability and are a must for real performance. Its a shame that so many people think that power can be bought from a packet and don't get round to the true performance modifications.
Head Reworking (Worth <10HP)
Many engine heads nowadays are designed really well, especially with fuel injection the induction channels are straighter and smoother than they used to be and hence there is not often a lot to get out of them. Really head work involves smoothing the airflow by radiusing and curves, slightly widening passageways, removing casting
Larger Valves (Worth <5HP)
This will allow more fuel and exhaust flow in a shorter time, but is one of those diminishing returns. Stock valves in the Mondeo are not bad and the fact that there are 4 of them to start with means that its hard work to use this for more power. You can go for slightly larger and or better yet get the profiles on the backs done properly which will make more difference than going larger. One to do when the engine is being re-built
Skimmed Head (Worth <2HP)
Higher compression means more cylinder pressure (and temps), to be able to do this you need good fuel and ignition maps or else you will get detonation and damage the engine. Make sure your knock sensor works well before you contemplate this. Obviously this can be combined with turbo/supercharging or nitrous or you will definitely melt the whole lot. Upside is you get to use a higher quality head gasket which is less likely to blow
Cam Swap (Worth <10HP)
Go for it. Good power increase for little effort and risk. Biggest decision is how far you go. The cam works by taking bottom end away but giving you more top. If you are like me and rev your engine to redline before changing up then a hotter cam will suit. If however you change up at below 4000rpm then you will hate a hot cam. Drawbacks are a lumpy tick-over which gets worse the hotter the cam and a more sluggish engine below "getting on the Cam", which is at 4000 rpm with my Piper Fast Road set. Having the engine balanced helps a lot
Balancing (Worth 0HP)
No performance gains with this, but it is very noticeable after being done, the car idles better, with less vibration and revs up so smoothly. It offsets any lumpiness on the hotter cam. Many of my passengers have commented on how smooth the Molemobile is now the whole drive train including the clutch is balanced. If the engine is out I would definitely recommend it. Best advantage is you can rev higher with less engine stress. Combined with the cam I now redline at 8000 rpm (but max power is at 6700 on mine so I set my rev limiter at 7200 (which funnily enough is where Ford set it originally)
Lightening (Worth 0HP)
This is normally combined with Balancing. Lightening the crankshaft and flywheel, reduced the rotating mass and allows the engine to spin up faster. The drawback is there is less engine braking (no so important on the racetrack but helpful on the road). Take some off but don't go too far
Ignition re-mapping (Worth <20HP)
The standard Ford EEC IV or V unit is designed to give low emission running on any Mondeo, its has to allow for all the sensor varieties, manufacturing variations and ages of engines and hence is very safe and errs on the side of caution. Your engine is of course well maintained and serviced and can take some extra fuelling. Also has you bolt on more and more goodies you are needing a higher and higher flow of fuel and air to the engine to meet its potential. A Unichip is a great way to control all this much better, but you can replace it with a custom completely tunable chip which uses none of the original ford Mapping
Throttle bodies (Worth <25HP)
One of the best, but most expensive mods, as it requires complete ignition re-mapping afterwards. Take off the single throttle body and bolt on 4 individual ones, each with its own injector built in. Huge increases in the amount of fuelling possible and much better control of that fuelling. Webber do a kit which includes everything you need and the new ignition control. Definitely one to be set up on a rolling road by someone who knows what they are doing. Next on my shopping list, when I win the lottery
Gearing Ratio Change (Worth 0HP)
Often overlooked as a performance mod. The stock ratio on most cars is actually normally set to give the best emissions. Often you are far over geared and a good sign of this is that 4th has a higher top speed than 5th, as 5th may be so tall you don't have the power to redline in it. By changing the drive ration you should be able to bring all the gear lower, resulting in faster acceleration and a better top speed in 5th gear. Difficult to do and expensive for the gearbox work, it can make a lot more difference to drag starts than any other mod and can transform a car. Better yet nobody can tell.
Crankshaft Mods (Worth 0HP)
The Zetec crankshaft is a weak link in the engine and the Rod Bolts are known to go. So definitely change these for stronger ones if the engine is out. Several company's do up rated ones for the Mondy, which is a good guide to the number that go. My Crankshaft was also out of true after 105k Miles and had to be reground. Again apparently common.
Nitrous Oxide Injection (Worth <50-100HP)
Easy 50 - 100 BHP gain at the flick of a switch. Your Insurance company staff will all buy a second house on your policy increase. Also start saving for a new gearbox and engine, because yours isn't going to last long. A mod for those who drag race or want to make the car unusable on the street. Totally on/off power which will stress your car incredibly
Turbo Charging (Worth <50HP)
Definitely worth doing and one of the most cost effective ways to add big power. Kits available now for around £3000 for the Mondeo. Most of this cost is in adding and re-mapping a completely new fuelling map for the radical changes needed in air and fuel. If you use an adjustable boost gauge you can control the power for day to day use or mind blowing oomph. Again the insurance companies will live for years off your policy alone. But probably worth it just to hear a Mondy dump valve chuff on the overrun. Drawback is a delay between hitting the throttle and the boost
Supercharging (Worth <50HP)
Basically a turbo charger, that is driven by the drive belt so it is always engaged. No lag while the boost pressure raises, just instance power. Gives the same top end as a turbo. More expensive and can drain power at the bottom end. More common in the US than in England, where several kits are available for the V6. Again you will need a new engine management system.
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