Digitalgp
Elite Explorer
- Joined
- February 13, 2018
- Messages
- 221
- Reaction score
- 53
- City, State
- Hudson valley
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- ‘15 XLT
There was previously a thread on here regarding this cold air mod for the stock air cleaner which can be seen here
www.explorerforum.com
Not sure how many people have done this besides this person, but I've been contemplating doing this for awhile. For those not familiar the mod involves drilling a series of holes in the black plastic backing of the front grill to allow a direct path for cold air into the intake rather than the air having to be drawn up from in front of the radiator. If you ever notice the turbocharged explorer interceptors all have this area open behind the grill.
I was a bit nervous at first about hitting something important like the crash sensor or a support piece, but did my homework and glad I went through with it. I first removed the fresh air duct from the air box and slowly drilled my initial holes. I made a total of 24 holes about 1/8" each (smaller than the person in the original thread) and as you can see in the first pic I had a little oopsie and made one of the holes out of line, but its ok the holes cannot be seen unless your up close peaking in between the grill bars. Second pic shows the area I drilled the holes right under the first skinny bar (for us '11-15 base/xlt/limited guys). Now for the part your all waiting for....did I notice any difference in performance or fuel economy? Yes, although minor. Performance wise it has slightly more pickup after you hit about 40mph. The biggest difference was that is has noticeably more pull in overdrive at those speeds and can hold in gear longer before it needs to downshift. This helped out with the fuel economy a little. I can safely say am averaging about a 1-1.5mpg increase. I could say in some cases a full 2mpg increase, but that may be a stretch. With my normal everyday driving where I would be in the 18mpg range & I am now safely in the 19s & even low 20's. Haven't had the opportunity to take it on a long highway trip yet to see if full highway mileage has increased any. Keep in mind this is also in conjunction with a k&n drop-in filter. I would imagine those doing this on an ecoboost application would yield better results although I am not sure how this would work out with the different grill design on the sport or '16-19.
Air intake mod increases fuel mileage and performance
Well I don't know what the cold air kits do but all I did was drill 9 holes 1/4" in the front grill and my mileage has increase to 23-25 MPG. I have a 2012 explorer limited and have tried a lot of things and can't believe the results this has given me. I don't know if I can add a picture but I...
Not sure how many people have done this besides this person, but I've been contemplating doing this for awhile. For those not familiar the mod involves drilling a series of holes in the black plastic backing of the front grill to allow a direct path for cold air into the intake rather than the air having to be drawn up from in front of the radiator. If you ever notice the turbocharged explorer interceptors all have this area open behind the grill.
I was a bit nervous at first about hitting something important like the crash sensor or a support piece, but did my homework and glad I went through with it. I first removed the fresh air duct from the air box and slowly drilled my initial holes. I made a total of 24 holes about 1/8" each (smaller than the person in the original thread) and as you can see in the first pic I had a little oopsie and made one of the holes out of line, but its ok the holes cannot be seen unless your up close peaking in between the grill bars. Second pic shows the area I drilled the holes right under the first skinny bar (for us '11-15 base/xlt/limited guys). Now for the part your all waiting for....did I notice any difference in performance or fuel economy? Yes, although minor. Performance wise it has slightly more pickup after you hit about 40mph. The biggest difference was that is has noticeably more pull in overdrive at those speeds and can hold in gear longer before it needs to downshift. This helped out with the fuel economy a little. I can safely say am averaging about a 1-1.5mpg increase. I could say in some cases a full 2mpg increase, but that may be a stretch. With my normal everyday driving where I would be in the 18mpg range & I am now safely in the 19s & even low 20's. Haven't had the opportunity to take it on a long highway trip yet to see if full highway mileage has increased any. Keep in mind this is also in conjunction with a k&n drop-in filter. I would imagine those doing this on an ecoboost application would yield better results although I am not sure how this would work out with the different grill design on the sport or '16-19.
