Finally had the chance, and $, to get a few mods done to the engine! Not much, but a good start. I put her in the hands of the best local tuner in town, he does some great work. After finding 3 burnt up plug wires (no wonder it ran like crap...), he fabbed a custom Cold Air Intake, and dyno tuned the computer on a Mustang Dyno. Unfortunately I didn't get dyno numbers before the CAI....but I do have dyno numbers from after CAI/before custom tune, and final numbers after the tune!
Before: You can see my A/F was all over the place. Timing was way off too.
After custom SCT X3 dyno tune:
So, just from the tune I gained 40 ft/lbs and 30hp. Final numbers were 215 rwhp @ 4400 RPM and 273 ft/lb @ 3500 RPM. Not bad for an old BII. Now the 5.0 can really breath through those TM headers with the CAI, it feels like a totally different truck and just flat out screams. Acceleration is super smooth and shifts are much firmer. The X3 is right up there with the best mods I've done so far, I should have done this years ago!
I've been driving the heck out of the Bronco II this winter, it has been great getting familiar with it again. Daily driving wasn't really in the plans a year or two ago, but now that I got the Mustang, the BII is my winter transport.
With well over a foot of snow the day after Christmas, the BII was a beast on the road. Slapped in the hubs and 4x4high and away she went. Even had time to make a few runs around and do donuts in the un-plowed parking lot.
Also recently took her out to a little offroad site about an hour from here called Little Moab. It is mainly just a big pile of slickrock out in the west desert and is frequented by lots of rockcrawlers. Got to mess around a bit, put in the lockers and shoot the guns.