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99 5.0 Upgrades

Knoxfan

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November 14, 2002
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City, State
Pekin, IL
Year, Model & Trim Level
99 XLT
Hey all! I've been checking this site out for a few weeks now and I decided to join. You guys put up some really great tips! I do have a question. I have a 99 XLT. I put a K& N Filter and a Magnaflow muffler on it. My buddy had a 2002 F250 Super Duty and he kicks my ass in a 0-60. I'm going to order my Superchips tomorrow. Does anybody have any more suggestions?

Thanks,
JZ
 



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1. cut your airbox in half. if the 99 is like my 96, it has a 2" inlet on the air horn. that is not big enough.

2. do a search on "throttle cable mod." your throttle cable may be stretched, not letting your X run at wide open throttle.

3. you didnt say how much money you wanted to spend, so: $600-700 full porting job with chevy valves on your GT-40p heads will gain you 40-50 hp. (no, thats not a typo.) $250 will get you a cam, which can also gain 25hp-up. FRPP is re-introducing headers for your X, so keep an eye out for them. nitrous can gain you as much hp as you care to have.

i assume your buddy has some mods on his superduty. my 96 5 liter would stomp my friends F250 clatter-stroke 0-60 back when i was stock... but of course he was stock too...
 






welcome to the site!

I SERIOUSLY doubt a 99 X has throttle cable slack.. mines a 97 and still doesn't have any... you can check anyway, but I wouldn't do the mod unless I was 200% sure there was signifigant slack. 25% or more.


I can't say about the cam and heads except that around here.. those are eye popping prices. Its much much more costly here to get those things done. the power gains of such are considerable however. It would be the path I'd take over a chip had I the copious funds required for such.

my personal experience (and I may be wrong.. it depends on where you live I suppose) that the 5.0 has little to no mods for it for cheap, and the cheap ones dont do much/anything for the engine at all. the exhaust and intake are good starts. the headers would be a nice addition too..

another item you may want to look at, depending on how big your wallet is.. is upgrading your rockers. Theres a guy on the forum now claiming a 14 sec. 1/4 with a few grand in mods just at a glance... 347 stroker, rockers, and a few other things that I can't remember.

superchip is nice, but its going to firm up your shifts, and will require premium gas. Just so you know.
 






I was actually looking at the air box on it. It does seem a little restrictive. The port is right behind the headlight? My X is running 10.56 in a 0-60. It just seems like it has more life than that though. I'm curious about the heads though. They don't seem to be that expensive. I'm trying to stay low budge., but you know how that goes! I'm ordering my programmer tonight, hopefully we'll see a difference with that.

KF
 






you may want to start off with the small mods, definatley the air box or maybe an entire air intake kit including a tube. If you plan to keep it natrually aspirated. headers cats muffler would be next. but since you already hav ethe muffler.. and the stock cats are high flow.. I'd just do headers.. unless they wont bolt to your stock pipes.

are you 2wd or awd? 10.5 is really good.. the most I've gotten in years is 12
 






Originally posted by DarkFox1
another item you may want to look at, depending on how big your wallet is.. is upgrading your rockers. Theres a guy on the forum now claiming a 14 sec. 1/4 with a few grand in mods just at a glance... 347 stroker, rockers, and a few other things that I can't remember.
X-BOX is the one with those mods and no charger. He lives in my city and I think he ran a 14.9 at 92mph.
 






Originally posted by Knoxfan
I was actually looking at the air box on it. It does seem a little restrictive. The port is right behind the headlight? My X is running 10.56 in a 0-60. It just seems like it has more life than that though. I'm curious about the heads though. They don't seem to be that expensive. I'm trying to stay low budge., but you know how that goes! I'm ordering my programmer tonight, hopefully we'll see a difference with that.

KF
ummm..you and Darkfox definitley got lemons, you guys are slower than Explorers with the ohv V6.
Knoxfan -
Our 5.0 Mounty will run 0-60 in 8 seconds flat and clear the quarter at 16.2. Fast enough to beat a Durango R/T and a Civic Si the last time I was at the track. I can't figure out what would be wrong on your guys 5.0's to make them run so slow, and I even went to our dealer with a list that Darkfox emailed me and they didn't know either as they havn't heard or seen anyone having problems like that with 5.0 Ex/Mounty or 5.0's in general considering it's about the best built small block ever.

Knoxfan - how do you like you Magnaflow on your Ex? How does it sound?
 






its not feasible that our vehicles could be lemons. I dont remember a time where my truck was ever faster than 10.. I checked my 0-60 for the 1st time back in 98 down at my highschool.. it was 10.. almost 11 then. the trucks always been that fast.

I know I'm not halucinating these times, I'm just beginning to wonder if some of yall are ;)

it could be driver error, I mean I may be just a really bad driver... aside from that its not feasilbe that a vehicle can simply be a "lemon" I've never heard of a vehicle just being prone to illness.

it is my understanding, according to ford, and the peer pressure I receive from my friends/family.. that everything my truck does is normal, and that it is in top running condition. The only reason they give for the slow 0-60 is "you bought an suv what do you expect" "you're asking too much of it" and "its a ford, get used to it" which I've found myself saying recently because of it.. it makes my dad mad cos he tihnks I'm being "ungrateful" my parents simplyt say "be glad you aren't walking or bumming rides off your friends"

90% of the people I talk to (and you know I tal kto everyone I know about this) says that 12 sec. 0-60 is acceptable for an suv, they tihnk even 20 seconds would be expected from such a vehicle. so I dont know what to think anymore except that its just the way it is and cannot be rectified.

I did not time the 99X I test drove's 0-60.. the only trhing I really noted being unusually improved was the transmission.. and its my understanding that there were signifigant changes made in the 4R70W between 97 and 99.. although I'm not sure what. the 99X seemed as fast as my mounty.. if not a bit faster because of the transmission.
 






Originally posted by DarkFox1
its not feasible that our vehicles could be lemons. I dont remember a time where my truck was ever faster than 10.. I checked my 0-60 for the 1st time back in 98 down at my highschool.. it was 10.. almost 11 then. the trucks always been that fast.

I know I'm not halucinating these times, I'm just beginning to wonder if some of yall are ;)

it could be driver error, I mean I may be just a really bad driver... aside from that its not feasilbe that a vehicle can simply be a "lemon" I've never heard of a vehicle just being prone to illness.

it is my understanding, according to ford, and the peer pressure I receive from my friends/family.. that everything my truck does is normal, and that it is in top running condition. The only reason they give for the slow 0-60 is "you bought an suv what do you expect" "you're asking too much of it" and "its a ford, get used to it" which I've found myself saying recently because of it.. it makes my dad mad cos he tihnks I'm being "ungrateful" my parents simplyt say "be glad you aren't walking or bumming rides off your friends"

90% of the people I talk to (and you know I tal kto everyone I know about this) says that 12 sec. 0-60 is acceptable for an suv, they tihnk even 20 seconds would be expected from such a vehicle. so I dont know what to think anymore except that its just the way it is and cannot be rectified.

I did not time the 99X I test drove's 0-60.. the only trhing I really noted being unusually improved was the transmission.. and its my understanding that there were signifigant changes made in the 4R70W between 97 and 99.. although I'm not sure what. the 99X seemed as fast as my mounty.. if not a bit faster because of the transmission.
It's easily possible that you have lemons, in another post one of my friends parents have replaced their engine in their Lexus LS430, a new trans, various electric gremlins ect., and Lexus is basically the best vehicle you can get, yet he got a lemon and so did you.

I know I'm not hallucinating cause my times are from the track and on g-tec. You can't beat a geo, yet I can beat an R/T at the track and a lot of other cars.

Put it this way your 5.0 Mounty with 3.73 gears is slower than my 94' ohv V6 Explorer with stereo equipment and 3.27 gears, how do you explain that?

And who ever is giving you information on suv is a dumbass plain and simple. I can't think of any suv right now that is 12 seconds to 60 except for Hummer H1's. Even an Xterra and the older Pathfinder were faster than that and they were about the slowest suvs you could buy. Ummm. New Explorers and Mountys run 0-60 in the seven second rang and quarters in the high 15's. Escalades and tahoes run about the same. Ect ect.

Whoever you talked to knows nothing about suvs or they wouldn't have said that.

And it's not driver error b/c in an auto vehicle you just floor it, thats it, how could someone mess up on that? We also used to have an 97' 5.0 Mounty and it ran 0-60 in about 8.4 seconds and through the quarter at 16.4***, explain that please?:)
 






Originally posted by DarkFox1
I SERIOUSLY doubt a 99 X has throttle cable slack.. mines a 97 and still doesn't have any... you can check anyway, but I wouldn't do the mod unless I was 200% sure there was signifigant slack. 25% or more.
they all vary. mine (96) had lots of slack. yours is a 97, and from what i saw in your pictures, you had none. there was another guy with a 2000 on that thread (i cant remember who) that had slack. basically, there is no year cutoff. you just check it, no matter what year you have. and if it has ANY slack, it can only help to take it up. it is a free mod, and helps alot if it needs it. there is no way to determine if it needs it or not until you look.
 






its got to be driver error.. theres no other solution. it can't be a lemon because if it were you could fix such things by replacing faulty parts. all a lemon is is a compilation of bad parts, theres nothing "wrong"with the vehicle.. its not like a voodoo curse or something.

maybe I'm not doing something right.. I dont "torque brake" as one person refered to when I get my times.

it is a 2wd 3.73 LSD (d4 axle code) with the 98 spec. engine I assume basedon the fact that it has the gt-40P heads and had the box intake instead of the large cone one stock. but I have a grille guard thats stainless steel, talilight guards, and a full system, plus I have full power options that the truck came with,excluding climate control and the floor console mount computer system. the premeium audio.. and my heavy self.. theres probablly a lot of additional weight thats not helping out at all. This weight addition has been also suggested as the cause of all my problems by the same people that insist the problem is the fact that its an suv.

no the people that say this do not own/like suvs, they say they're "land barges" or even call them "short buses" because they think every suv is an excursion I assume. According to the stats I looked up, the explorer is about 2 foot wider and 16" longer than a mustang... not wat I'd call a land barge by any means.

another factor could be age.. 5 year sold 69 almost 70k miles on it.. its probablly just wearing out.. they dont make cars like they used to.

god.. I had no idea a tahoe and escalade could pull a 15 sec. 1/4.. thats impressive. I thought for sure at least one of them would be slower than our trucks.. I mean the tahoe is nowhere near as areodynamic, the escalade either.

james, ya, its definatley worth looking at, but I mean, my truck has like none.. I'm not sure what causes it... I mean if its not year specific I suppose it could be owner related and the way they drive?
 






I have to agree with Darkfox about the lemon issue. At least I hope I didn't get a lemon! Where I seem to loose most of my time is between 2nd and 3rd gear, it really hesitates there. I live in Illinois and it was really warm out when I tested it. Humidity is a ***** here! I thought the Superchips would take out the hesitation in the shift making it hook-up better. Just a thought. What about the MAS? Any thoughts?


saleenEXP- The Magna-Flow sounds awesome! Deep tone w/o sounding too annoying at interstate speeds.
 






from my understanding the MAS only really needs to be upgraded when you're doing massive upgrades to the engine. based on the price of them.. I would definatley wait on one of those lol, troll sells one for like $400


btw knox, a good site IMO for prices is trolls.. www.speedfreak.cc he sells a variety of parts for the 5.slow and even if you aren't in the market, its a good list to just look at and check your pricing and such for future reference.

it takes you till 3rd and 4th to get to 60? uuh, my truck is at 65 by the bottom of 3rd. when I floor it it runs my 1st and second gear for the entire 12 seconds the truck takes to get up to the speed.... I thought everyones truck did this..
 






Yeah DarkFox, my mistake on the gears, your right. My X shifts into 3rd about 55 MPH.

I'll wait on the MAS upgrade. Doesn't sound like it would work too well with the upgrades I'm doing. I'm just pist that my X isn't running like it should. When I take off hard, it seems like a dog until it shift into 2nd. I wonder if the throttle cable is the problem? I have no clue. I'm just pist about my friends diesel beating me by a full second! :mad:
 






dog? mines like a zombie.. its moving.. but its biologically dead. hehe

I am yet to make a good 0-60 vid.
 






Sounds like you and I have the same issues. What are your 0-60 times?
 






used to be 14.. but then I found out my tire pressure was at 22.. bumped it up to 32.. keeps running 12s.. can't seem to get a better time.
 






I was thinking about tire pressure the other day. My tires do seem a little low. I need to check them and add some air and try it again. I just ordered my Superchips about 5 minutes ago. Can't wait!
 






yea heh, but.. I'm still in 12s.. I mean its great it took some time off.. but its still slower than almost every other person on the board, not sure why.
 



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Are those 2WD or AWD? Mine is AWD and I'm not sure if I like it.
 






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