Sports are only a little lighter, and 1st gen 4drs were the lightest 4dr Explorers, so I'm not sure how accurate those times are, I have a friend with a flowmaster exhaust, kkm intake and Diablo chip on his ohv Sport with 4.10's , and he cannot even keep up with our Mounty at all. His mods made a very noticeable difference over stock, but not to 5.0 or sohc levels.
Our 5.0 Mounty will run 0-60 in 8 seconds flat and go through the 1/4 at 16.1-16.2 , I have raced a few friends with Sports (2 of which had mods) and none were even close to even keeping up with our 97' or 00' Mounty, but they were quicker then my 94' 4dr with a bunch of mods.
My truck had a Flowmaster exhaust, Superchip, intake, Borla headers and a BBK TB and a shift kit.....sold the headers and chip later on.
Stock it ran 0-60 in about 10.5 seconds with 3.27 gears, after the mods it was in the high 9's. I've got my friends sport with his mods and 4.10's clocked at very low 9's to high 8's to 60mph on a generation 2 g-tec that I always borrow from my neighbor and is extremely accurate (shows the same times he "got" on the strip in his S4 "R.I.P". and 02' 4.6 Explorer when he and I ran it there)
EDIT -
Alec, you need to get some centerline or weld drag rims and slap on some slicks and see what your truck would run, I'm pretty damn sure you'd run near a mid 14 easily
