5.0 Upper intake water hoses

tktrain · December 15, 2006

The upper intake on the 5.0 has two water hoses that are about 1/4" running to it. Is there a benefit in not reconnecting these? Alternately, are these keeping an essential system active or efficient? I have heard that these should be kept in place on the TB spacer on Fox Mustangs. I would assume the water heats the UIM, defeating the purpose of using the phenolic spacer.

410Fortune · December 15, 2006

These are not hooked up on either of my 5.0L explorer GT-40 engines.

The hot water feed to the throttle body keeps it from icing over in some climates, it also helps heat up the intake air a bit, basically keep it warm helping the engine to get to temp quicker, at least thats my understanding.

I find it worthless and not needed, even in Colorado where it gets really cold
The water running through that small pipe is only going to be about 200 degrees or less by the time it gets there, a phenolic spacer will still give you benefits as the engine and lower intake temps are likelt above that and the surface area that transfers heat from lower to upper plenums is also greater then a 1/4" dia tube.

Ditch it!! just more hoses to worry about and places for leaks to develop.

I am sure Ford had their reasons, but its beyond me what purpose those tiny hoses serve, they dont even feed the throttle body, they go into the intake about half way down the main passage from TB to banks 1-8

Turdle · December 15, 2006

Are you speaking of the "coolant crossover " at rear of the intake manifold?
My 98 has no lines to throttle body, however it does have a dual metal line, attatched to 2 hoses which go to rear if lower intake, and also the heater core. At the front of engine, the dual tubes join into a threaded fitting screwed into intake.
The smaller tubes insure coolant flow to rear of heads, and eliminate air bubbles faster--

Is this bypassed on yours Jamie?

MountaineerGreen · December 15, 2006

I noticed the same thing when I did my spacer, and considered bypassing it, but didn't know what it did. I would just get a short length of hose and loop the two places back together. I may do that sometime.

410Fortune · December 15, 2006

Okay the large metal lines that feed coolant to and from the heater core are not what we are talking about here JTsmith, although that is where the feed that would go to the underside of your upper intake comes from.

On my BII I dont even have that metal manifold, I jsut took rubber lines directly from the engine to the heater core
BII setup, (I ended up ditching the big red hoses and using smaller black ones, thank goodness)

on my 96 I have that metal manifold, but the hot water feed to the upper intake are bypassed, or basically a rubber hose connects the two ports.
Here is the metal heater core manifold:

you can see the two small tubes that would normally feed the upper intake hot water thingy, on my truck it has a rubber bypass hose from one metal tube to the other, I believe in my BII (p heads) it was like this from the factory.

as far as I can tell the metal manifold that runs along the pass side of the lower intake and feeds the heater core is there just to make more room on the pass side of the engine for spark plug wires, etc, it cleans up the routing of heater core hoses all the way to the back of the engine.

let me see if I can dig up pics of my setups

tktrain · December 15, 2006

410fortune has it pegged about which hoses I mean. When I installed my spacer I hooked those hoses back up not wanting to have a new issue, but I'm going to disconnect them when my 'new' UIM gets here. I am buying one from ped5stang for $100 to replace my cracked original. I think I'll do a sandpaper roll clean up job on the runners, at least as far as my die grinder will allow into the runners and main passage, before I install it.

MountaineerGreen · October 21, 2007

Bringing it back from the dead- I have my UIM off at the moment, may take this opportunity to bypass this. Do you still recommend this?

BLKLTDV8 · October 21, 2007

tktrain said:
The upper intake on the 5.0 has two water hoses that are about 1/4" running to it. Is there a benefit in not reconnecting these? Alternately, are these keeping an essential system active or efficient? I have heard that these should be kept in place on the TB spacer on Fox Mustangs. I would assume the water heats the UIM, defeating the purpose of using the phenolic spacer.

THE reason for these water hoses on a Mustang 5.0 was to cool the EGR block which is the spacer between the TB and the UIM. Since the EGR runs at a high temp, Ford used coolant to take some of the heat out of the induction charge. A lot of 5.0's had disconnected or plugged EGR systems and the owners bypassed (connected) the water hoses. Those who thought they were doing good by connecting the hoses but still ran the EGR system actually took some performance out. Just thought I would clear this up.

MountaineerGreen · October 21, 2007

Humm, so since my EGR is still intact, I need to keep this?

BLKLTDV8 · October 21, 2007

MountaineerGreen said:
Humm, so since my EGR is still intact, I need to keep this?

If the function is the same as a Mustang, then I would keep it. I don't know for sure if it is, maybe somebody else could chime in and help out.

vic340 · June 4, 2011

I was wondering the same thing. I have a missfire on cly 4 & 8 we removed upper manifold to get to the injectors. We found that coolant is leaking into the 4 & 8 ports. Is it common for the coolant passage to leak?

charlievanpelt · April 17, 2016

410Fortune said:
Here is the metal heater core manifold:

you can see the two small tubes that would normally feed the upper intake hot water thingy, on my truck it has a rubber bypass hose from one metal tube to the other, I believe in my BII (p heads) it was like this from the factory.

as far as I can tell the metal manifold that runs along the pass side of the lower intake and feeds the heater core is there just to make more room on the pass side of the engine for spark plug wires, etc, it cleans up the routing of heater core hoses all the way to the back of the engine.

let me see if I can dig up pics of my setups

410Fortune You wouldn't happen to know the actual name of that part, by any chance. A friend of mine had hers bust on her 2000 Exploder and we can't find it anywhere because we don't know what to call the darn thing lol.

Ryan87LX · April 17, 2016

charlievanpelt said:
410Fortune You wouldn't happen to know the actual name of that part, by any chance. A friend of mine had hers bust on her 2000 Exploder and we can't find it anywhere because we don't know what to call the darn thing lol.

It's called a Heater Tube Assembly. I suspect you'll have a hard time finding one, but the Mustang ones are reproduced now: https://lmr.com/item/LRS-9424BA/Mustang-Heater-Tube-Assembly-w-o-Coolant-Tube-86-93-50-58

charlievanpelt · April 17, 2016

Ryan87LX said:
It's called a Heater Tube Assembly. I suspect you'll have a hard time finding one, but the Mustang ones are reproduced now: https://lmr.com/item/LRS-9424BA/Mustang-Heater-Tube-Assembly-w-o-Coolant-Tube-86-93-50-58

Yeah the Explorer part is discontinued from Ford. Do you know if the two are interchangeable, save for possibly some slight modifications?

Ryan87LX · April 18, 2016

charlievanpelt said:
Yeah the Explorer part is discontinued from Ford. Do you know if the two are interchangeable, save for possibly some slight modifications?

You would definitely have to modify; in what way I couldn't say.

You can also just use heater hose the whole way - you'd just need to get the right fittings to match everything up.

charlievanpelt · April 18, 2016

Ryan87LX said:
You would definitely have to modify; in what way I couldn't say.

You can also just use heater hose the whole way - you'd just need to get the right fittings to match everything up.

True, the only problem with heater hose would be deleting the temp sensor.

Turdle · April 18, 2016

The "Mustang" version seems to be a pretty close fit, looks lie longer 1/2" heater hoses to the heater core would work, as long as they don't kink. You'll need to make that bend on the end out of rubber hose , but I bet it is doable.

James p Smith jr · April 2, 2018

tktrain said:
The upper intake on the 5.0 has two water hoses that are about 1/4" running to it. Is there a benefit in not reconnecting these? Alternately, are these keeping an essential system active or efficient? I have heard that these should be kept in place on the TB spacer on Fox Mustangs. I would assume the water heats the UIM, defeating the purpose of using the phenolic spacer.

Is this the correct way the two water hoses connect on upper intake 97 exployer 5.0? They are the ones beside each other. Curved one goes to PVC Valve. ??

Turdle · April 2, 2018

Although it looks wrong, as if the coolant will enter the vacuum tree, I think you got it.

Mine looks a little different but the coolant lines do attach there

James p Smith jr · April 2, 2018

Thanks Turtle.

I just put in a salvage lower intake, thermostat, water pump and radiator. Two bolts broke one one each head. Luckily I drilled them out and tapped new threads. It’s my sons truck and I was worried because he zip tied accelerator linkage on by throttle body and engine shot up to 4000 RPM,s and the oil was milky. Well his truck has been sitting a while and a oil and filter change with no problems.

5.0 Upper intake water hoses

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