4.0 OHV Intake Plenums? | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

4.0 OHV Intake Plenums?

nathaniversen

Active Member
Joined
February 8, 2010
Messages
51
Reaction score
0
City, State
Gig Harbor, WA
Year, Model & Trim Level
1995 Limited
Did Ford have different designs of intake plenums for 95-97 and 98-00? I was recently under the hood of a friend's 98, and even though I didn't have my 95 with me to do a direct visual comparison, the 98 looked a little bit different, and had a different path for the plug wires.

So, are the plenums physically different, allowing the different wire routing? Or was it just an illusion?

If they are different, are there differences in what items connect to it and where, and is one a better flowing design than the other?

I need new intake gaskets, and I wouldn't mind having the plug wires run under the plenum, so this would be an opportune time to switch plenums if there's a difference.
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





I think the 99 was the last year for OHV that used the EGR valve. There are probably other design changes for adding, deleting, moving sensors etc... but I am pretty certain that the fuel rail holes are the same for all years.
 






There are 2 intake plenums used by Ford...

The early model Ford Explorer used an aluminum upper plenum...The later models starting with MY 97 used the black plastic upper plenum...I know the plug wires on the drivers side route through an opening and under the upper plenum...Check the 2 pics...
 

Attachments

  • alumintake.jpg
    alumintake.jpg
    34.4 KB · Views: 1,536
  • P5050154.JPG
    P5050154.JPG
    76.3 KB · Views: 1,512






Thanks raga, that gives me a little hope. I think there's a 99 in a local junk yard, I'll have to go in and take a look.

7 Liter, I knew they had both plastic and aluminum; the aluminum's were exclusively a First Gen thing. My 95 has a plastic plenum that's almost identical to the aluminum version, whereas the picture of your 97 looks way different. It has sharper angles and looks like it was made out of multiple pieces.

Anyway, cool, now I know there are indeed 2 versions of the plastic plenums.
 






Ranger7Ltr's 97 OHV plenem is identical to mine (which is a 99) - He is right in that they had only 2 plenems BUT 2000+ does not have an EGR-thereefore if you do use on make sure it matches your needs. Also there may be slight modifications for where and how sensors are mounted...

He is a pic of the EGR Tube location on 95-99 4.0L OHV:
egrtube1.jpg


egrtube2.jpg



I am interested in possibly mounting an all aluminum one - these plastic ones are crud... leaking from every seam, melting, blowing open, etc...
 












Brandon: Hah, not quite. I've got a black plastic plenum on MY 95.

Raga: Nope, they had 3, one aluminum and two plastic. Aluminum was 91-94, smooth plastic was from 95 to 96 apparently, since 97 to 01 had versions of the blocky plastic one. Here's my 95...

PL-5D2_3865.jpg


Sorry the focus sucks, it's pitch black outside.

Thursday I was able to go back to the 98 I was working on and did a direct comparison of the plenums, and everything topside matched perfectly. Sensors, vac lines, EGR, everything. But I also noticed that your version does look like crud, it looks like it was pieced together and isn't very strong. My 95 looks like it was put together better and is one solid piece.
 






Yep, just what Nathan said, my 95 is black plastic also.
 






Raga, instead of going with an aluminum plenum, see if you can find one of the plastic ones like on Grnmachine and my 95's. Swap them out and see if your truck performs better with one or the other. Performance aside, it looks like our earlier plastic plenums are a bit beefier so they ought not fail as often as you were saying the later ones do.
 






^^^^ I may try that, but I would like to swap in a 5.0L and 4R70W trans more :D:D:D
 






Back
Top