Jakee's 4.0 SOHC Build up discussion and motivation thread | Page 28 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Jakee's 4.0 SOHC Build up discussion and motivation thread

After Camber adjusters, Body bushings, rear sway bar, and brakes are complete, I'll be posting baseline dyno numbers. First things first. Must be safe!


EDIT (11-6-2007)

Let me save you some time by posting the summary to this thread. The thread is filled with a bunch of off topic ramblings. Read on if you want but be warned.

Summary to this thread....

I'm going to attempt to close this thread because the N/A goal is coming to an end. I really lost interest in the N/A goal a few months back, and It just doesn't make sense (from a $/HP perspective) to buy anymore bolt-ons when the force feed options are available for us 4.0 SOHC guys. I would rather save the money to buy a turbo than to keep spending big bucks for little gains. And so, this is what I did, and these are my opinions on how the mod worked out.

The first thing was the intake. I can remember going around in circles trying to figure out which one to buy. The Volant? no, the K&N....wait a minute, the MAC is cheaper? Anyways, I finally decided on the MAC intake because of the cost. All and all, an intake is an intake. You're not going to see a big huge difference between any of them, but I still feel the best out there is the Volant. I believe in a "Closed" intake. In other words; I don't like the idea of sucking hot engine air thru an open filter under the hood. That's just me and the difference between a "Closed" intake and an "Open" is very small. I did, however, see a gain from customizing the MAC intake by closing in the air filter with a trash can....Yes, you heard me right, a freaking trash can that I cut to fit in the engine bay. It worked good and people usually don't notice what it is. They just think it looks cool. Anyways, I also replaced the MAC filter with a Volant filter; cut a 3-1/2" hole thru the fender and placed a Volant filter thru it. No water can get to it, well....not from this area....I then added spectra hoses from the front of the vehicle where the fog lights were for a "Ram air" attempt. I had a couple of aluminum parts machined for a clean install. That was it for the intake.

Next, I believe I ordered the 73MM C&L from hensonperfromance. This housing uses the same electronics but is just a bit bigger than the stock plastic MAF housing. The gain was small, but was worth it. I believe I've found dyno's of a 7 RWHP gain? Not sure, but there is a gain there.

The TB was the next thing. I purchased a 4.6 TB from KBX performance because I heard a guy named James had discovered it to work with the 4.0 SOHC. I later fooled around and half shafted it. Basically, what that does is removes half the rod that the butterfly is attached too. Do a search on "half shafting a TB" or something like that to get more details. I believe this mod really doesn't give big HP; more throttle response than anything but it's worth it.

When I had the TB off, I noticed this big tube right in the way of the airflow. The tube is the EGR valve and the reason it's sticking in there is to evenly vent exhaust gases back in the intake. Do not remove the EGR valve; it actually helps you. What I did was remove the part that's in the way of the air-flow. I have no idea if this helped me, but It felt like it did. The only ill effect I can think of is maybe one side of the engine is getting more EGR flow; however, I haven't seen traces of this on the spark plugs so I believe it's good.

Now for the exhaust....yeah, it's hard to get a 4.0 SOHC to sound good. In fact, I think mine still sounds pretty bad. I started off with the Gibson Cat back and if your looking for a "Slightly louder than stock" exhaust, then this is the one for you. The gain was good and I liked the sound but I wasn't satisfied. I felt there might be just a little more power I could unleash so I tried a higher flow muffler; a magna-flow. I started off by having a custom Y-pipe made. It has 2-1/4" primaries that y's into a 3" single exhaust. The pipes run back a little ways and goes into a 3" magnaflow cat, then into a 2-1/2" magnaflow muffler, and dumps right before the rear axle. The flow is there but the sound.....I hate it.

I also added JBA stainless headers. I have to say that headers are very expensive for the 4.0 SOHC but there is gain, trust me. If your looking for EVERYTHING you can from the engine, add headers to it later on down the road.

Next is under-drive pulleys....This is one of the better mods in my opinion. The under-drive crank pulley works by slowing down the serpentine belt, which in return, slows down all the accessories running off the belt. The result is more power to your back tires. The only problem I had was it slows the alternator down too much. The fix is an overdrive alt pulley and I added one to speed the alt back up. Problem solved. I'm also running a underdrive water pump pulley with no problems what so ever.

Another good mod is a electric fan. I went with the flex-a-lite 180 and haven't had a problem yet. Very good quality pc.

The best mod, in my opinion, is a tuner. I went with a SCT XCAL II that I picked up from hensonperformance. I think this changed my truck the most and I'm very pleased.

I believe this about sums it up. Every pc of info I just typed here is on the net, and most is right here in this forum, but I wanted to compile some of it for reference purposes....

I made a goal at the begining of this thread, but I'm really not interested anymore. It doesn't make a hill of beans to have high dyno numbers, but it is nice. The only dyno I had sucked; I made 189 to the rear wheels. I'm thinking I'm a bit higher than that but I'm not worried about it.


Next project......TURBO!! and I'll probably do a baseline for this. If so, I'll add the baseline dyno here so there will be N/A results.
 



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Wrapping exhaust is not usually recommended for street vehicles because it can trap moisture in against the pipes when they cool down, accelerating the corrosion/rust process. Most header manufacturers void their warranties for that reason if you wrap their products.

unless they are SS steel
 



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unless they are SS steel


True, but even a 400 series (ferromagnetic) SST can corrode..400 series stainless is corrosion resistant, not corrosion proof. 300 series (non-ferrous) would be the way to go (303, 304 or 316L) but you'd probably have to get custom built ones. Making 'em out of 304 would be a ROYAL PITA!!:p:
 






Looks can be deceiving. That's the STOCK Y-pipe. Yes, that is a magnaflow Y-Pipe welded to the stock Y-pipe.

Cats? What cats.

As far the rusting. I will bet anyone of you guys $100 bucks this thing wont rust in the next year. Anyone?

I would NEVER wrap headers with this wrap but the exhaust pipe is a different story.
 






Thays just your OEM Y-Pipe thats been wrapped, will do nada, except maybe heat up your cats and take them out, not a good idea jakee, IMO

Like I said, there are no cats, only the outer's. This will get me the same thing you paid 200+ bucks. Trust me spindle.
 






Wrapping exhaust is not usually recommended for street vehicles because it can trap moisture in against the pipes when they cool down, accelerating the corrosion/rust process. Most header manufacturers void their warranties for that reason if you wrap their products.

I've read the articles about why wrapping your headers is not good. However, rusting problem? Its the metal being heated to a temp that the headers material can't withstand. If any moisture is created (I highly disagree) it will be burned away in the first minute after turning the engine on. Moisture and heat don't mix. I deal with metals EVERYDAY. Part of my job as a Manufacturing Engineer.

What I've done here was cut the stock Y-pipe in to 3 pcs, gutted the cats, and welded everything back up. Painted with High Heat ceramic, let dry for a day, wrapped pipe and painted again.

What did I gain from all this? An exhaust that I feel is quality looking and functions pretty good. I don't see any problems with it as I'm moving on to the next step.
 






Hmm, if it actually does quiet it down, I may have to give it a try. Mine is insanely loud inside the cab. I have a few hundred feet of exhaust wrap sitting in my parts room, so maybe it'll be a weekend project.

Oh, Jakee, I'm also running an e-fan now. I did the Taurus fan mod that lots of the Mustang guys do, and the total cost was around $120. 2 weeks now and no problems whatsoever. Here's the link to my write up on the e-fan. http://www.mysporttrac.com/MySportTrac/projects/EFanInstall.pdf

Count down, 2 weeks til planned nitrous dyno. :D
 






Hmm, if it actually does quiet it down, I may have to give it a try. Mine is insanely loud inside the cab. I have a few hundred feet of exhaust wrap sitting in my parts room, so maybe it'll be a weekend project.

Oh, Jakee, I'm also running an e-fan now. I did the Taurus fan mod that lots of the Mustang guys do, and the total cost was around $120. 2 weeks now and no problems whatsoever. Here's the link to my write up on the e-fan. http://www.mysporttrac.com/MySportTrac/projects/EFanInstall.pdf

Count down, 2 weeks til planned nitrous dyno. :D


Awesome! Thanks for the info. Can't wait to see what yours is going to do. Good luck!
 






I've read the articles about why wrapping your headers is not good. However, rusting problem? Its the metal being heated to a temp that the headers material can't withstand. If any moisture is created (I highly disagree) it will be burned away in the first minute after turning the engine on. Moisture and heat don't mix. I deal with metals EVERYDAY. Part of my job as a Manufacturing Engineer.

I've spent the last 15 years as an Eddy Current ASNT Level III in NDT dealing with materials, material properties, fracture analysis, failure analysis, stress corrosion cracking..etc. I'm also an Aerospace Engineer and Physicist so I'm not just shooting from the lip. You're right, any moisture will be evaporated in the first minutes after the engine is started. It's moisture (condensation, water from rain, snow, etc.) that is held in against the pipes by the wrap for the 8 hours the truck sat BEFORE you started it that is the problem. Add in any salt content that might be in the water and you've got a nice recipie for corrosion.

Hopefully your ceramic paint job has absolutely no scratches down to bare metal, or that's where the corrosion will start first.
 


















I've spent the last 15 years as an Eddy Current ASNT Level III in NDT dealing with materials, material properties, fracture analysis, failure analysis, stress corrosion cracking..etc. I'm also an Aerospace Engineer and Physicist so I'm not just shooting from the lip. You're right, any moisture will be evaporated in the first minutes after the engine is started. It's moisture (condensation, water from rain, snow, etc.) that is held in against the pipes by the wrap for the 8 hours the truck sat BEFORE you started it that is the problem. Add in any salt content that might be in the water and you've got a nice recipie for corrosion.

Hopefully your ceramic paint job has absolutely no scratches down to bare metal, or that's where the corrosion will start first.


I live in Texas. No salt unless I drive into the ocean.

The Paint has no scratches cuss I painted (A few coats), let dry for 24 hours. Wrapped and painted again, let that dry for 24 hours. I appreciate the concern you have for me but I feel I'm okay. If it rusts, oh well. I bet it won't start rusting in the next year. And if it starts rusting 2 years from now I'll have around 5-10 years before I have to worry about it.

I too work with materials everyday all day and have been for the last 10 years. I know stainless will rust depending on what kind.
 






Jakee, whats the purpose in leaving the cat housings?

When I originally started planning this I was going to add a High flow cat like I said. The problem was that there's not a lot of room after the magna flow Y-pipe and the last sensor. because of that I went ahead and threw it on there just to see if I would lose any low end torque like some suggested in here. huh? not!

I kept the housings because it must appear to be stock from the outside.
 






Because he did not want to spend 200+ bux for a real y-pipe

More like 300+.

Like I said in the other thread spindle, I talked with the guy on the phone that makes these random tech pipes. I'm half tempted to call him right now and ask if he has EVER made one with 2-1/4" pipes like you said you have. Good way to find out if you're telling the truth?

Auto1st - What size is your random Y-Pipe?
 






More like 300+.

Like I said in the other thread spindle, I talked with the guy on the phone that makes these random tech pipes. I'm half tempted to call him right now and ask if he has EVER made one with 2-1/4" pipes like you said you have. Good way to find out if you're telling the truth?

Auto1st - What size is your random Y-Pipe?

Jakee your a real Hoot:D
$280 shipped from underdog performance.
 
























Look who's talking spindle. It's your goal to piss me off.

and obviously I have, that is not my intent.
jakees buildup has not produced any numbers, nor any usefull mods.
you been talkin for months, about your buildup, your getting ripped off by some CC company, going to get turboed.
Yet overall, nothing has really happend with the buildup.
How much longer do you intend to drag jakees buildup out?
You drive a 2.5 ton brick, you will never get into the 14s, you will never see 210 RWHP N/A, produce the numbers, and the results of how you reached said acheivement,if you ever do. deeds jakee, not talk.
All are awaiting your end result, will this be in mos. or years?
 









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Spindlecone, a while back you said you were through with this thread, yet you continue to return return with more of your negativity; its not wanted .
 






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