Here's how you can get big horsepower gains from two basic parts


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ktNcdBFPM&t=25s

Adding a significant amount of horsepower to an older car can require a good deal of work, and even more money. With the advent of factory forced induction, that has all changed.

Long gone are the days of having to rebuild your entire engine with expensive parts that ultimately make your car less reliable. Now you can just "bolt on" simple parts to your existing engine and expect massive gains.

In the latest build episode on my 2003 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG, I do just that. The car comes factory supercharged so after making sure all the supporting mods like exhaust and cooling were done, I decided to add more boost. In this case a smaller supercharger pulley was needed in order to spin the blower faster and create additional pressure. I went with a 76mm pulley which adds about 5 psi compared to stock. This puts me around 15-16 psi, and that's worth around 50 horsepower. This was a great time to upgrade the throttle body so installed an 85mm unit from Victory Road Performance. The gains compared to the stock 74mm TB are very impressive. Some have seen upwards of 40 additional ponies just from the 11mm increase.

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The installation of the throttle body forced me to have to remove the entire supercharger as the factory snout needs to be sent out and enlarged. Although I replaced the supercharger pulley with the blower off the car, it can totally be done on the car too.

My quest of running mid 11s is one step closer, and in the next build episode I install a much needed methanol injection kit. Stay tuned!