Looking for some more power out of my 96 5.0L Explorer

[1997XLTRollover]

Hey guys, I'm on a quest to get some more power and hopefully in the process more MPG's out of my 96 5.0. I've done a bunch of searching and had a few questions I can't seem to find the answers to.

I see the Mac intake is different for the 96 and was reading something about the 96 intake manifold being different than any other year? Is this the case and if so could a 97-01 Mac intake fit my 96? Also would a different MAF and TB do me any good?

Future Mods I already have plans to do:

Electric fans
4406 swap
Maybe a CAD swap if I get ambitious

Mods already done:

Torque Monster headers
Synthetic fluids
Cusom catback exhaust with a Magnaflow muffler

Maintenance done:

New plugs/wires
Brandy new 306 (all new seals, with a complete engine rebuild, new crank and cam sensors)

 

[Dono]

I think your about done.
Maf or TB won't make any appreciable difference till the motor starts moving more air.

At time of rebuild, that would have been the time to look at head, cam, intake. Stroking while your at it to increase low end would have helped. Nothing reasonably cheap about any of it.

How about coming to the dark side with a supercharger or turbo? I really don't have a reasonable answer for you.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

I think your about done.
Maf or TB won't make any appreciable difference till the motor starts moving more air.

At time of rebuild, that would have been the time to look at head, cam, intake. Stroking while your at it to increase low end would have helped. Nothing reasonably cheap about any of it.

How about coming to the dark side with a supercharger or turbo? I really don't have a reasonable answer for you.

I want a reliable daily and didn't want to screw around with cams or porting or any of that. I thought about it, but it was more money and can create more issues. It was my DD so I had to throw an engine together fast so just did a solid stock rebuild. One cylinder was worn so bad it had to go 30 over to clean it up hence the 306.

I took a look at the Mac intake on my 99 and it's pretty drastically different than the 96. I'm not sure it can be made to work very easily. Looks like the 99 throttle body is different than 96, and the 96 has the temp sensor in the intake and I didn't see one on the 99. I suppose the 99 TB and intake could be swapped to my 96 and put the 96 stuff on the 99. But that doesn't help my temp sensor issue.

Is the TB on the 99 better than the 96?

 

[1997XLTRollover]

Thinking maybe a new TB and or MAF or maybe an intake elbow and maybe one of the 1" EFI intake spacers between the upper and lower intake. Are any of these worthwhile mods?

 

[danwaters]

The best thing is going to be aluminum heads to bump you up. I bought the trick flow kit with heads cam and upper intake. 140 hp increase I can't wait for!

 

[Dono]

I hear you on the stock rebuild. You did the right thing.

I'm in the same boat with my dd, so I understand completely.

Your best option would be to get a short block and slowly build it, but if it were me, I couldn't go thru all that expense when you have a fresh motor in there now.

I'm sure its no slouch, being a fresh motor.

I say be happy. Anything to give you any real hp will be big money, and more risk of unwanted downtime and fitment issues.

 

[biff9703]

I agree with Dono. I did a 347 build starting with a used shortblock, and it took months. You might gain a little with a custom tune, but I doubt you would even feel it. I am at 15.5 mpg around town, and I don't think there are any ways I can improve it. That being said, my truck is great fun to drive, but there was a lot of down time and a lot of expense, not to mention bloody hands from working in such tight spaces. I also had another car to drive in the interim. Best of luck to whatever you decide.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

I hear you on the stock rebuild. You did the right thing.

I'm in the same boat with my dd, so I understand completely.

Your best option would be to get a short block and slowly build it, but if it were me, I couldn't go thru all that expense when you have a fresh motor in there now.

I'm sure its no slouch, being a fresh motor.

I say be happy. Anything to give you any real hp will be big money, and more risk of unwanted downtime and fitment issues.

Well come summer I'll have my Mustang as a backup daily. So the ex could be down in the next month or 2 when the salt disappears. So anything that could help fuel mileage and power at the same time is what I'm after. Especially because I'm jumping up to 31's and don't want to do a gear change.

That's why electric fans and the 4406 swap will be coming at some point. I'm wondering if a tune is worth the money now that I've opened up the exhaust. Also if the TB and such are different from year to year and maybe one was better than the other. There are hundreds of Explorers in my local junkyards so I can get pretty much anything off any year for cheap.

 

[97exploder19]

Potentially, how much hp and/or mpg could E-fans achieve? Im contemplating the swap too.

 

[Dono]

Truthfully, the stock clutch fans are pretty efficient.

Not a huge gain to be had.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

Truthfully, the stock clutch fans are pretty efficient.

Not a huge gain to be had.

Really? That fan is heavy as hell, I have to believe that sucks a fair amount of power and in turn fuel.

 

[Dono]

Yea, I don't know what to say. Just my experience.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

Yea, I don't know what to say. Just my experience.

I have half a mind to pull it off and do a long highway trip to see if there is any difference. That would be a decent test.

I just can't believe headers and a catback are the only worthwhile mods on these trucks, is the 96 TB, MAF and intake really that good? Does anyone know the difference between the 96 and 97-01's? My 99 is a completely different looking setup but without ripping the throttle bodies and such off to measure I won't really know.

 

[Dono]

I have half a mind to pull it off and do a long highway trip to see if there is any difference. That would be a decent test.

This is a great idea.

I will say getting that stock fan off is typically a knuckle buster. Not having to deal with that is awesome.

I have come to the conclusion that there are not a lot of mods to be done that net you a very small gain. Each thing you do helps a little bit, but I wonder if you ever really see a cost return.

I am seeing pretty good gas mileage (For a heavy old truck), I'm not sure what gave me the best gain. I know the headers really helped. It seems when the turbo went in, gas mileage went up. I'm not sure if it was the turbo, or the tuning that did this.

The 4406 will help a bit. A couple of members have installed manual hubs along with the 4406 so that the front drive shaft doesn't spin at all. That would have to help as there is less mass to accelerate from a standstill.

I wish I had some good ideas for you. Maybe my expectations have just been too high from each mod.

How about tires? More of a non aggressive tire with slightly more psi will give you a gain by reducing rolling resistance.

Early summer I'll be installing a 347 with slightly higher compression. Rotational mass will be down from the factory motor, and compression will be about .6 higher. I 'Think' this will net me about the same mileage as I am already seeing as long as I drive nice.

I'm betting that physics kinda comes in to play. The truck weighs this many pounds, rolling resistance is x amount, wind resistance is so much.....so it takes y amount of energy to move it. That equates to about 20mpg. Any changes are small.

I'll be keeping an eye on what your thoughts are on an e fan once you have done some testing.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

First I have to get my engine running right but before I rip it all apart, I wanted to see what mods might be worth doing while it's apart. I'm getting about 10mpg and maybe 11.5 highway. Something is majorly wrong. Every so often it stumbles and wants to stall but then seems ok. Only does this once every week or 2 and I drive the truck daily.

I'm thinking vacuum leak because the engine is all brand new. It now has 1500 miles on it and should be broken in enough that fuel mileage should not be 10mpg anymore.

 

[biff9703]

Wow! That is bad fuel mileage! My 347 did good after the initial install, and I only lost .5 mpg with the aluminum heads. The valves are larger, but the previous GT40 heads netted me 16 mpg in town with the iron manifolds. Now, with the bigger valves and TMH I'm at 15.5 mpg. I also took out all the AWD stuff and rebuilt and installed a rear drive trans. Sorry I don't have any interstate mpg numbers, haven't been on any trips lately. I think you need to make sure you don't have any vacuum leaks. I also think a tune would help, but I had that easy. My son did the tune for me, and he's way smarter than me. Mechanical engineer and a big time car guy. Wonder where that came from.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

Yeah something is drastically wrong with my truck. Step one is to get it aligned because that's off. Fix my cracked radiator and then see if I can find some vacuum leak. That's all I can think of that would cause such horrible mileage. Weird part is I don't hear anything when the hood is open. Maybe it's that large that it's not even whistling. Who knows, it never does seem to end.

 

[Dono]

Id hope with a fresh motor you should be able to get over 20mpg in good conditions. I'm sure you will find the issue fairly easily.

What your seeing for mileage is terrible, as you already know.

Hows your idle? Vacuum? How do the plugs look?

I don't envy you, you have some troubleshooting to do.
It always feels good once you find the issue though.

edit: Part of your bad gas mileage might be the cracked rad. If one of the temp sensors is reading wrong it will stop the trwnny from going in to overdrive, so you are revving higher on the highway than you need to.

I found this out the hard way on the highway on christmas day. I kinda trashed my motor in the process of my rad leak, but didn't have a ton of options at the time. Anyway, that's a whole different story of my own misery (or opportunity for a 347).

 

[1997XLTRollover]

Id hope with a fresh motor you should be able to get over 20mpg in good conditions. I'm sure you will find the issue fairly easily.

What your seeing for mileage is terrible, as you already know.

Hows your idle? Vacuum? How do the plugs look?

I don't envy you, you have some troubleshooting to do.
It always feels good once you find the issue though.

edit: Part of your bad gas mileage might be the cracked rad. If one of the temp sensors is reading wrong it will stop the trwnny from going in to overdrive, so you are revving higher on the highway than you need to.

I found this out the hard way on the highway on christmas day. I kinda trashed my motor in the process of my rad leak, but didn't have a ton of options at the time. Anyway, that's a whole different story of my own misery (or opportunity for a 347).

Good question, I should probably pull a plug and check it. Idle is ok, doesn't jump or anything, although at times I feel like it could be a little smoother. I think at times it runs more rough than others which leads me even more so into thinking it's a vac leak.

I have an ultra gauge and it reads 190-196, once warmed up it never goes above or below that. Tranny doesn't seem to be slipping in OD. I did check and it seems to be locked as it should be.

The only non factoy thing I did was only used 2 coil pack bolts because my intake manifold bolts were shot so I had to go to Lowes and get regular bolts without the stud on them. So my bracket just sits on top of the 2 intake bolts. Could this be causing a bad ground for the coil packs?

EDIT: Haven't checked vac yet, but that's going to probably be the next step.

 

[1997XLTRollover]

So nothing guys? I'm shocked there aren't any bolt on restrictions on this engine short of the exhaust. TB and MAF are good? Intake is good? etc? Is there really nothing worth upgrading?

EDIT: Especially on a 96 because I see some differences physically in these parts vs the 97+ trucks. Are they only physically different but the same internally?