CrumpledWastebasket
Member
- Joined
- September 3, 2016
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Hot Springs, AR
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2010 Eddie Bauer, 4.0
Finally completed my 2 year quest to break 20+MPG in my 05 Sport Trac! On the last tank, I got just over 20MPG, with only city driving, and the truck currently has about 110K miles on it.
Thought some of you guys may be interested, so I'll detail everything I did below.
- drilled holes in air box
I drilled many, many holes in all 4 sides of the factory air box, as well as removed the "snorkel". I'm sure you could bypass this step by simply buying a CAI or something similar, but I tried to spend as little money as possible on all of my mods, so I stuck to drilling holes.
- NGK Iridium IX Plugs
Swapped out the factory Motorcraft plugs for a set of NGK Iridium IX plugs. Wires are still the original Motorcraft ones, with approximately 110K miles on them.
- removed the resonator
I feel like this was one of the most important steps. I'm no expert in exhaust mods. Heck, I hardly know anything at all about exhaust mods. But I heard that the mufflers and resonators in the mid-2000's Explorer's were extremely restrictive - so I cut the resonator out, and bought a pipe/clamp kit from O'Reilly to connect the muffler back to the end of the tail pipe. Cost $6.99, plus tax. The sound stayed roughly the same, though it may be slightly more raspy.
- fuel system cleaner, new filters everywhere, new fluids everywhere
I use a bottle of Fuel System Cleaner about once every two months or so. I changed my oil to SuperTech 5w20 (rather than using Motorcraft 5w30 like I had always done in the past), replaced the oil filter with a Motorcraft filter, changed the differential fluid with SuperTech 75w90, replaced the transmission fluid with SuperTech Mercon V, replaced power steering fluid with SuperTech Mercon V, and replaced the serpentine belt. (I also replaced the alternator around this time with an ACDelco 130a model - but I don't believe that is relevant.)
- Performance 87 Octane Tune
Finally, I bought a SuperChips Programmer, and flashed the ECU with the Performance 87 Octane tune. This seemed to give the truck quite a bit more power, but didn't seem to affect the MPG much.
All in all, I spent about $50 doing all of this, if you don't include the SuperChips Programmer. About $410 if you do include it - but I really don't think the tuner is necessary in order to get these MPG results. For the extra 4-5MPG, these mods will take quite some time to pay for themselves. But I happened to have the extra money at the time, and thought I'd take a risk and see if I could hit my goal of 20MPG. So glad that I did - the truck drives like a dream now!
Thought some of you guys may be interested, so I'll detail everything I did below.
- drilled holes in air box
I drilled many, many holes in all 4 sides of the factory air box, as well as removed the "snorkel". I'm sure you could bypass this step by simply buying a CAI or something similar, but I tried to spend as little money as possible on all of my mods, so I stuck to drilling holes.
- NGK Iridium IX Plugs
Swapped out the factory Motorcraft plugs for a set of NGK Iridium IX plugs. Wires are still the original Motorcraft ones, with approximately 110K miles on them.
- removed the resonator
I feel like this was one of the most important steps. I'm no expert in exhaust mods. Heck, I hardly know anything at all about exhaust mods. But I heard that the mufflers and resonators in the mid-2000's Explorer's were extremely restrictive - so I cut the resonator out, and bought a pipe/clamp kit from O'Reilly to connect the muffler back to the end of the tail pipe. Cost $6.99, plus tax. The sound stayed roughly the same, though it may be slightly more raspy.
- fuel system cleaner, new filters everywhere, new fluids everywhere
I use a bottle of Fuel System Cleaner about once every two months or so. I changed my oil to SuperTech 5w20 (rather than using Motorcraft 5w30 like I had always done in the past), replaced the oil filter with a Motorcraft filter, changed the differential fluid with SuperTech 75w90, replaced the transmission fluid with SuperTech Mercon V, replaced power steering fluid with SuperTech Mercon V, and replaced the serpentine belt. (I also replaced the alternator around this time with an ACDelco 130a model - but I don't believe that is relevant.)
- Performance 87 Octane Tune
Finally, I bought a SuperChips Programmer, and flashed the ECU with the Performance 87 Octane tune. This seemed to give the truck quite a bit more power, but didn't seem to affect the MPG much.
All in all, I spent about $50 doing all of this, if you don't include the SuperChips Programmer. About $410 if you do include it - but I really don't think the tuner is necessary in order to get these MPG results. For the extra 4-5MPG, these mods will take quite some time to pay for themselves. But I happened to have the extra money at the time, and thought I'd take a risk and see if I could hit my goal of 20MPG. So glad that I did - the truck drives like a dream now!