wat sort of power can i get out of my ed xr8 for about 3000 grand well not power but i want to keep building it so should i just beef up the bottom end then make it go hard or wat cheers

well for 3 mill you can get a bugatti veyeron ha ha.

na for 3 grand u can start to look at freshening up the engine and driveline and go from there

HEADS !!!

exhaust would be the cheapest upgrade with a nice benefit. can fiddle around with intake piping but not much to gain there.

major gains in the ho5.0 are the intake manifold and heads. cheapest option is to upgrade to the gt40p and explorer combo found on au's or ed sprint. late el's i think also got the explorer manifold.

otherwise aftermarket alloy heads if you have the cash.

gt40p's go for around $800 - $1000. keep an eye out on here and ebay.
explorer manifolds go for around $500 - 700.

I have a set of pro top line heads brand new you can have for 3k
Fully fitted out with the works hehe

Then add another 500 odd for nice hydraulic roller camshaft etc and you'll be away

Seriously though as stated above, correct me if wrong but i think the ED XR8 has the E7 heads which are VERY restrictive and no good for any performance gains, if on budget look into set of GT40P heads which can be found for around 1000 in pretty good nick, then at same time whilst heads are of i would instal new camshaft and lifters to liven these new heads up a little
Then find an explorer manifold, can be found between 300-500, these outflow and perform the factory intake manifold hands down, attach a bigger throttle body to this sucker whilst your at it
Then look towards your exhaust system to free up the extra gasses your motor is producing, once all this is done then get an edit to take full advantage of all mods performed

Hope this helps

explorer manifolds? what are these? and the gt40p's? please explain both of these to me sorry i'm new to the ford side of things my first car was a holden

explorer manifolds? what are these? and the gt40p's? please explain both of these to me sorry i'm new to the ford side of things my first car was a holden

explorer manifold is the inlet manifold, consists of upper and lower sections. They come off el series 2 v8's and AU falcons. GT40p's are cylinder heads off an AU xr8. They flow better and make a bit more grunt than the heads your car has. Cheapish upgrades but a bit expensive if you cant fit them yourself.