New 2008 Limited project truck

[Bazz270]

Keep in mind that Gen4 Explorers arent a real hardcore offroad ones...not like the Gen2 for example.

2.5" and higher spacer lift always better to be equipped with UCA upper arms.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Good day Greg,

I have 2006 limited EXPLORER and I am planning to make it off-road SUV starting with limited budget. I like the lift you'd done to your EXPLORER.

I am planning to add 3" spacer for the front. Do I need to change the upper ball joint?

TAWFEEQ..

A 3” spacer will definitely add substantial stress to the ball joints on your upper control arms especially. I have found that Supreme Suspension makes lift spacers in various sizes. I would opt for one of the ones that provide a little bit less lift in order to prevent wear to your chassis components.

If you must go with the 3” spacer for the front end, I’d almost certainly recommend the custom made tubular BTF Fabrication uni-ball upper control arms, found here:

06-10 Explorer Uniball Upper Control Arms

Our uniball upper arms offer more articulation and strength than stock arms and replace the weak upper balljoints with heavy duty 1” FK uniballs. Made from 1.25” 4130 chromoly tubing, these arms are slightly longer than stock to maintain proper alignment on lifted explorers. Arms are...

btffabrication.com

I plan to add these in the future, but they are custom built to order, and at $600USD + shipping, will add significant cost to your build. Best of luck!

 

[Conestoga Actual]

A 3” spacer will definitely add substantial stress to the ball joints on your upper control arms especially. I have found that Supreme Suspension makes lift spacers in various sizes. I would opt for one of the ones that provide a little bit less lift in order to prevent wear to your chassis components.

If you must go with the 3” spacer for the front end, I’d almost certainly recommend the custom made tubular BTF Fabrication uni-ball upper control arms, found here:

06-10 Explorer Uniball Upper Control Arms

Our uniball upper arms offer more articulation and strength than stock arms and replace the weak upper balljoints with heavy duty 1” FK uniballs. Made from 1.25” 4130 chromoly tubing, these arms are slightly longer than stock to maintain proper alignment on lifted explorers. Arms are...

btffabrication.com

I plan to add these in the future, but they are custom built to order, and at $600USD + shipping, will add significant cost to your build. Best of luck!

Ditto, I agree. I did a 3"/2" leveling kit from Supreme, and replaced my 11 year old struts at same time. Also did BTF UCA's at same time. Took a little while to get all the parts together (and a bonus check to provide enough budget). Hardest part was waiting to get it, but I love the stance. Only downside is now I have to really pay attention to the height in some parking garages in Philly.

 

[Ghazitm]

The Rancho Quicklift struts have been discontinued. With adjustable damping the ride quality is greatly improved over stock. I suggest looking into the strut spacers available from Supreme Suspension, for both your front and rear struts. I purchased my rear spacers from Supreme, and have been pleased with the results. I will message you privately with a photo of the upper control arm ball joint angle. My plan for the near future is to get the aftermarket uniball upper control arm set from BTF fabrication, which corrects the angle of the upper ball joint due to minor lifting.

Good day Greg,

I am planning to add 3" spacer for the front. Do I need to change the upper ball

Keep in mind that Gen4 Explorers arent a real hardcore offroad ones...not like the Gen2 for example.

2.5" and higher spacer lift always better to be equipped with UCA upper arms.

You are right.
I am trying to go as far as the EXPLORER can handle being off-road SUV. Push it to the edge of its ability.

 

[Ghazitm]

A 3” spacer will definitely add substantial stress to the ball joints on your upper control arms especially. I have found that Supreme Suspension makes lift spacers in various sizes. I would opt for one of the ones that provide a little bit less lift in order to prevent wear to your chassis components.

If you must go with the 3” spacer for the front end, I’d almost certainly recommend the custom made tubular BTF Fabrication uni-ball upper control arms, found here:

06-10 Explorer Uniball Upper Control Arms

Our uniball upper arms offer more articulation and strength than stock arms and replace the weak upper balljoints with heavy duty 1” FK uniballs. Made from 1.25” 4130 chromoly tubing, these arms are slightly longer than stock to maintain proper alignment on lifted explorers. Arms are...

btffabrication.com

I plan to add these in the future, but they are custom built to order, and at $600USD + shipping, will add significant cost to your build. Best of luck!

Thanks Greg for the advice.

The look of these control arms extracted all excitement from my heart, but the cost extinguish all that.
I will plan to do this upgrade once I get the money.

 

[Bazz270]

With 2.5" lift installed and before ive used the UCAs ,my regular upper moog control arm balljoints lasted maximum couple to six months..first they started to show up by steering death wooble ,increased by mileage,then the balljoint housing became loose until the ball fall apart the control arm (i was very lucky and this happened in low speed)

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Magnaflow exhaust kit before and after video:
(Apologies for the poor sound quality/clipping due to the limitations of the microphone that was used)




I also just had to drop in a new alternator. Despite recently changing out the battery, my voltage at idle was measured at 13.7V, the lower limit of what is acceptable. For reference battery voltage should read 12.4V with the truck shut off, or from 13.8-14.8V at idle. After installing a new 130amp alternator, voltage at idle now reads 14.8V, which gives me some peace of mind for an upcoming long road trip in the cold Canadian winter.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Added backup camera functionality to my aftermarket Pioneer headunit, using the generic Pioneer camera. Fairly easy, clean installation.

 

[Robert A. Grams]

first off, awesome rig!

Word of advice with 4th X. be religious with oil changes! change the tranny fluid, transfer case every 60k and the diffs at 80k. the engines need regular maintenance ( ignore ford service intervals they are BS) but they will go 200k+

good luck and were all here for support!

I have over 275k on mine, it still runs great so I can attest to this!

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Finally got around to adding an amp and sub box to the stereo system I’ve had in progress.

Amp is a Pioneer DX-975 5 channel I got from Crutchfield. At only $420CAD, it’s a pretty great price : performance ratio for up to 1000w of power. I used ferrules and heat shrink for all the wire terminations. The most difficult part of the install was routing the 4 gauge copper wire from the engine bay through the firewall grommet, and terminating the speaker wire connections as the set screw terminals are quite deep, and angled downward. I placed the amp behind the second row bench seat since I have never used the third row.

The sub box is a JL Audio ported bass wedge with a single 10” W0V3 I’m currently borrowing from a friend until I can get myself one of their single 10” H.O. Wedge loaded boxes with a single 10” W3V3.

The only item remaining on the list is to install the wired sub remote gain adjustment knob somewhere on the driver’s side of the dash. Will update once again when that’s completed, I ran out of time and daylight.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

I added an amp mounting panel, and cleaned up some wiring. To make the panel, I cut a small “L” shaped bracket out of 22 gauge steel plate, drilled a hole and mounted it with one of the passengers side second row seat bolts. I drilled two other small holes in the metal plate to mount a piece of MDF that I cut slightly larger than the amp’s footprint. I then screwed the amp to the board with the 4 provided Philips screws. 1/4” wire loom and zipties were also used to clean up the speaker wiring.

Rear driver’s side view:

Rear passenger side view:

The amp now sits firmly underneath the rear of the second row seats, and is essentially hidden completely when the 3rd row is folded down.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Doing some suspension work at the moment:

- front sway bar to frame bushings
- front sway bar end links
- rear sway bar end links
- rear sway bar to frame bushings (look like they’re gonna be quite a challenge to access)
- rear upper control arms, there appear to be 2 pieces per side, one has a forked end as well as round fitting at other end, the other has a round bushing fitting at both ends.

So far I’ve installed the Moog 2-piece polyurethane bushings at the front sway bar to frame mount. Fairly easy to access with both front wheels off and the truck up on jack stands. It took some PB blaster to remove the 2 bolts per bracket. They’re noticeably better quality than the stock rubber ones. Please note they are also driver/passenger side specific, with the driver side of the sway bar having a defined ridge the bushing must be carefully located around, this ridge fits in the center of your new 2-piece poly bushing. I greased the mounting bracket with white lithium grease and a light coat on the inside faces of the bushings as well to minimize squeaking. Anti-seize was used upon bolt reinstallation.

Old vs. New bushing:

Passenger side installed:

The difference in ride quality is already noticeable, and I’m sure will improve yet still once the end links are installed.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

I started getting a P0430 code, catalytic system efficiency threshold bank 2. Since I’ve already replaced the factory manifold/gaskets and installed a Magnaflow cat-back, it’s likely that my 16 year old cats are becoming plugged and starting to fail. I’ve noticed slightly worse highway fuel mileage, rougher cold starts, and a mild shudder/misfire sensation (despite no misfire codes thrown) at highway speeds between 100-110km/h, especially when on cruise.

I ordered a set of Magnaflow catalytic converters from Summit, and a pair of upstream and downstream oxygen sensors from RockAuto. This was definitely the only remaining choke point in my exhaust system, and I’ll update on improvements once I get the new set bolted up.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Update:

Truck definitely sounds really good right now. It’s as though the new cats brought out the best in the cat-back exhaust kit. I don’t have any data yet on fuel mileage effects, but sound has definitely improved, engine revving seems faster, and acceleration at all rpm has also improved. I’ll wait for a longer road trip to get some mileage/fuel efficiency data. I’m still typically running Shell 91 V-Power with the SCT X3 Brenspeed tune.

 

[Greg_DonWindsor]

Swapped out all my spark plugs as the odd skipping feeling around ~105km/h had not resolved. My E3 diamond fire 3.70 plugs had about 56,000 kms on them. The passenger side bank (bank 1) definitely looked a bit more worn. See attached images below.

Driver’s side bank 2 looks pretty good, normal wear and tear, nothing outside the ordinary.

Passenger side looks to be a little more worn and darker in color. Cylinders 2 & 3 were missing some metal at the tip suggesting either running hot (lean), the spark arcing out to the side of the plug as opposed to the ground strap at the tip, or possibly an intake manifold gasket leak, or worn/leaky injectors.

The ground strap on the plug from cylinder 2 was so brittle I could break it off by hand. This close up shows the bit of metal that’s melted on these 2 plugs. This issue will need to be investigated further. For context I’ve been running a Brenspeed 91 octane tune via their SCT X3 programmer, and almost exclusively Shell V-Power 91.

All plugs were replaced with Champion Double Platinum at a not insignificant cost of $25CAD/cylinder, almost twice as expensive as any other plug option. It’s running very well at the moment, but I’ll need to diagnose the cause of the lean/hot condition that is excessively fouling the plugs in bank 1. I have always displayed a CEL with lean condition codes for both banks that I always assumed was resultant from the K&N CAI kit flowing more air. My old 2000 Explorer displayed the same issue with an aftermarket intake installed. I may clean the MAF to see if there’s any effect, but unmetered air via an intake manifold gasket leak could also be the cause of the lean condition, especially if fuel trim isn’t properly correcting for it. This suggests there’s a good chance the air is coming in downstream of the MAF.

If anyone has any experience with the above issue feel free to chime in by all means.