Cheap thrills

[J. Kennedy]

The older I get the more I become CONVINCED the cheapest solutions not only provide the most bang for the buck, but are also the most effective.

I have a V6 in a heavy vehicle and I accept that FORD stand for Fast Only Rolling Downhill. But recently, I spent a total of $2.08 and it has been the best money I've ever put in a vehicle.

My wife is shorter and has trouble reaching the gas pedal. After putting on pedal extenders, I noticed a little slack in the cable. $ .29 for a small hose clamp on the end, and she has not stopped raving about the difference in performance. She said the first time she got her head pushed back in the seat! No good reason for it, but it seems like the shift points changed. Really works well.

Been wanting to do the swiss cheeze thing for a while, but not fond of sucking hot air from the engine bay. Today I bought a length of plastic dryer tubing for $1.79. I had to relocate some wires and the little black box (What is it? Relays?) from behind the headlight. Popped a hole about 3" in the side of the filter cannister, ran the tube to the hole behind the headlight. HOLY AIR FILTERS BATMAN!!!

I don't know about real HP, but in seat of the pants feel, it really moves! Shifts easier, revs easier, takes hills no problem. All this time I thought the tiny V6 was struggling with the weight of the truck, but IT WAS STRUGGLING TO BREATHE!!! I cannot reccomend this enough.

What were Ford engineers thinking with that crazy 1.5" hole in the fender?!!?!?

 

[NoBoundaries]

Let's see some pics of your work! I think we all can appreciate cheap tricks with big results!

 

[rickcar]

Yea, I wouldn't mind taking a peek at some pics either!

 

[swak6287]

where behind the head light did u put the tubing? i thought the headlight will block the air, not makeing it more air going in

 

[Gage]

Hole

Ford has a factory air silencer behind the ps headlight. Yes it is about 1.5" Input. If you remover this it opens it up to about 3" oval or so. It will help!

I don't know about the v8 i have the SOHC. But they did something close on Mustnags and f150s.

Good luck

 

[guggy]

J.Kennedy or Gage

Please post some pics or give a detailed layout on how this "super air induction" is done . I'm very interested on doing this as my next mod.

Every little bit helps.

By the way J Kennedy have you noticed an increase in milage yet buy doing this ?

Thanks.

 

[kps36]

About the throttle cable. This is a known trick for the Ford Rangers. If you put the new cable 'stop' (in your case a hose clamp) at the top of your gas pedal, you might have noticed 2 cables, on my Ranger there is only one, the 'other' cable is the kick-down to the tranny that activates when you stomp it. You have altered this by shortening only the throttle cable. You must put another clamp stop on the kick-down cable also to match it up. What this in effect does is eliminate the 'lag' caused by stretched throttle cable over time. It puts back that new car pickup again.

 

[FitzMatt]

Re: Hole

Originally posted by gage
Ford has a factory air silencer behind the ps headlight. Yes it is about 1.5" Input. If you remover this it opens it up to about 3" oval or so. It will help!

I don't know about the v8 i have the SOHC. But they did something close on Mustnags and f150s.

Good luck

Do you have any pics of the air silencer?? I have one on my '92 right? I looked around, if you are looking at the engine from the front of the truck (so its facing you), the air box is on your left next to the battery right? now if you look at the air box, is it near the bottom on the right side (next to the engine, away from the tire)??

I have been wondering this for a long time but can never seem to get a straight answer

J. Kennedy, how did you attach the tube to the opening?? and did you run the tube so you just get air from the grille?

Matt

Thanks fellas

 

[J. Kennedy]

pix & commentary

Answering some of your questions:
*It is a piece of dryer tubing running from behind the headlite to the side of the air filt.
*The headlite does not "block" the air. It is not a "Ram Air" type set up. It only allows the air filt another scource of air in addition to the fenderwell.
*I did not notice an air silencer, only some tubing inside the fender.
*The only hard thing I had to do was relocate the little black relay box a little to the front and right.
*I dont know about mileage yet, I should have tracked mine before doing this.
*I did not have to use any adhesives, it just wedged in there.

Looking down into the headlite well, you can see there is plenty of room for fresh air, isolated from the grille and engine bay.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=1719875&a=13220297&p=50109577&f=0

Here you can kind of make out the black box under the tube.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=1719875&a=13220297&p=50109579

The dryer tube runs almost in a straight line. The housing is still connected to the fenderwell.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=1719875&a=13220297&p=50109580

Here is a pic of the throttle cable. As you can see there was 1" of slack. I had to put a trim clip at one end of the spring and a hose clamp at the other. I have no kick down cable under the dash. Mine is under the hood, on the throttle body bracket and seems to be fine.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=1719875&a=13220297&p=50109586

 

[J. Kennedy]

Hole-y

Oh yeah, and I was going to drill the airbox hole using a "hole saw" drill bit. That would have been neater. Instead I just used a 1/4" drill bit, making holes in a 3" oval I had marked. Then I used a drywall saw and just tore thru it. The dryer hose wedged in snugly.

It looks like the hardware store is becoming the auto parts store!

 

[Bmxboy]

Wow - Thank you so much for this helpful information. As we you are reading this post, i am driving to my local hardware store to pick up the supplies to do this conversion to my "96 explorer.

Carl

 

[jjue]

Yep, seems as if more people are realizing that opening the airbox inlet is a much better idea than an airbox with more holes. After about 1 month's worth of driving, my '97 Mountaineer V8 has improved it's two-lane highway driving from 18 to as much as 22 mpg, including driving 65-75 mph and passing at least 10 vehicles. In town, I'm getting about 14.5 mpg, up from 12-13. Since then, I've had as low as 12 mpg when my foot was in it (5000 rpm shifts) due to heavy traffic and impatience on the road. =) Anyway, I also noticed that when passing that most of the time, I don't have to lock out overdrive so that the transmission can kick down from 3rd to 2nd every single pass. I now reserve that for passing at least 4 vehicles at once.

 

[guggy]

ANY SOHC PEOPLE DONE THIS

Just wondering if any of you with SOHC motors have done this and have pics. or any tips they can give me ..


Thanks

 

[todd_c]

It looks like it should be easy for the SOHC with the square airbox. There's already a large hole in the box where the stock tube goes in, and a matching hole in the front of the engine compartment. Shouldn't be too tough to make up a larger diameter tube as a replacement. Hmmmm.... Sounds like a project for this weekend.

-Todd

 

[Quick]

I guess I don't understand what you guys are talking about when you are talking about the gas pedel cables.

I look at my peddels and notice the one on the right (I think) seems to be longer with some slack on it than the other one.

What did you guys exactly do? Cut the one with slack and clamped it back together making it tight like the other one.

If anyone would like to go into detail about this I would be a very happy guy..

So, enlighten me with your wisdom and make Quick understand.

 

[Gage]

Wait!!!

Don't "cut" anything! They put the clamp on the end where the slack can be removed, it is still there with out the clamp!

Yes i have a SOHC and it does have an air silencer if you lift up the filter you can see a tube that points to the PS headlight. Get rid of it! Yes this will alow more bugs and stuff but if you have a K&N just clean has i do once a year.

It will have to come out from the front. i recomend that you remove the corner marker light.

Sorry no pics!

 

[guggy]

Gage

I'm wanting to do this dryer tube induction on my 98 sohc .

I read that you removed the silencer , did you also add a dryer hose with a 3-4 inch. hole in you air box ?


I understand about drilling a whole in the side of the air box but should i also remove the air silencer tube ?

Thanks

 

[Gage]

tube

No i did not use the the dryer tube induction. The problem is that the tube is not smooth, Useing this will indeed get cold air in but it may have what they call eddie currents in the tube and cause turbulance. If i was going to do this i would use PVC.

I don't know about the two inputs on the air box? It might do something weird being that the inputs will be at diff. locals and diff. size dia.

My guess! Try it, If it don't work make sure you can undo it!!!!!!!

Let us know what you deside and how it works.

 

[J. Kennedy]

Turbulence? The rougher the tube and the more angles on the engine side of the air filt create turbulence. BUT If you just need more cool air, the dryer tube on the air side of the air filt will cause eddies, but it all gets smoothed out by the air filt itself. By the time it gets to the MAF, it is as smooth as it would be stock.

For my application, PVC would not bend or flex enough to get around all the wires, metal, & plastic. It was not a 100% straight line from the air cannister to the headlite well.

 

[FitzMatt]

I'm sorry but I'm a bit confused (and have been for some time now). I noticed that everyone in this thread, except for Quick and myself, has a 95+ Explorer. As to the question of the air silencer, do I even have one??

Thanks

Matt