I bought the K&N cold air intake. Install is simple once you get the factory fresh air inlet hose off which requires pulling that end of the charge tube away to access the tabs. I made it sound more complicated than it really is. Just use a long flathead screwdriver and you can pop the tabs while pulling on the tube.
Anyways, the sound from this intake is worth the purchase. My butt dyno tells me it feels "faster" but it's likely just the increased turbo noise. However, my goal is to fabricate a downpipe from a Ranger to work with a custom exhaust(that doesn't sound like a early 2000s Honda) one day and then tune for everything.
The CAI doesn't slow the car down so there's that but you're really buying this for the sound and future ability to increase HP once you tune to the increase in intake flow and cooler temps of the air. However, better charge pipes would be instrumental in HP increases.
I will add that the Ranger or Mustang Ecoboost CAI kits will not work on our cars. They route the airbox to the left, if looking into your engine bay from the front of the car versus the K&N kit routing how our factory cold air inlet tubes feed from the right. You can see from the below pics that there is an electrical assembly where the Ranger/Mustang route their airboxes.
You may also notice I had to relocate my JLT oil catch can. Where they instruct you to mount it would conflict with the K&N air box. I simply drilled a hole in the factory strut bar and mount it there. Once I upgrade to the Steeda strut bar I will need to rethink this strategy.
It really is a shame Ford made the implementation and layout of the Explorer 2.3 vastly different from the Ranger/Mustang variants so as we can't carry over any parts easily.
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