5.0 EFI upgrades

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I have a more generalized thread on my swap in here, but I’m kinda done with that side of things and want to focus on the motor. I ended up with a motor out of a 98 Explorer and am trading the fuel rail and electronics for a set from an 00 so I can make things easier. The original plan was to swap stuff over to essentially make it an 00 engine and just drop it in and go. That lasted until a spark plug broke off in the head and after several hours of patiently working on it, broke an ez-out. So the heads came off because I broke bolts in the other head. Also had a couple water pump bolts break, so I’m thinking I’ll pull the timing cover to deal with those. Have all new stainless bolts for putting things back together. Amazingly the cylinders still have beautiful crosshatch in them and only one or two have a couple light scratches.

Because of recent injuries, it’s going to be a slow process working on this for awhile, which brings me back to my desire to do some upgrades for better performance. I already have a set of Torque Monster headers for it and it will be getting a custom stainless exhaust. I also know someone who should be able to tune for whatever I do to it. But that’s about where my knowledge largely ends. I’ve heard of things like roller rockers and improved cams and such, but I have no idea what all of my options are for improving performance or what is worthwhile and what isn’t. Ideally I want to be able to run this mostly on 87/89 pump gas. If I have to I’ll run 93 and I’ve been noodling on the idea of eventually adding a fuel cell for high octane gas (93 or higher), but such a thing would be awhile down the road. It’s going to be more of a dd/toy rather than pure race truck, but I’d like to wring whatever power I can out of it. Trying to go with e-fan and electric power steering as well.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Be careful with the stainless bolts. They need some type of anti-seize to prevent galling.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Be careful with the stainless bolts. They need some type of anti-seize to prevent galling.

IIRC, it’s only certain stainless grades that are a problem, but yeah. We have a lot of rust problems around here and I’m an old hand at this game. Pretty much any bolt I can get away with replacing with Stainless, I do. That’s prevented a lot of repeat problems when something has to come apart again. I get tired of using Smokey the Blue Tipped Wrench sometimes. Be less of a nuisance if I had a garage to work in. My current Ranger workshop is a 10x10 pop up canopy

 

[don4331]

Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?

Your current block is good through 500hp with a good tune, but Ford heads need help.

Aluminum heads will allow at least a point more compression, which means new pistons.​

Stroker cranks are actually quite inexpensive, especially if you are buying heads. 331 adds 10% more power through additional displacement...​

Too many cams make power by move revs into stratosphere - good for bragging on internet, not necessarily ideal for a dd truck. But there is a happy medium out there, where you can get a bunch more power without it spinning like an F1 ICE.​

​

Then there are superchargers and nitrous...​

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?

Your current block is good through 500hp with a good tune, but Ford heads need help.

Aluminum heads will allow at least a point more compression, which means new pistons.​

Stroker cranks are actually quite inexpensive, especially if you are buying heads. 331 adds 10% more power through additional displacement...​

Too many cams make power by move revs into stratosphere - good for bragging on internet, not necessarily ideal for a dd truck. But there is a happy medium out there, where you can get a bunch more power without it spinning like an F1 ICE.​

​

Then there are superchargers and nitrous...​

Someday I’d like it to be a 331 with possibly a supercharger and such. I’m just kinda looking for what can possibly be done short of a rebuild basically. I have the heads off and will have the timing cover off. It’s staying EFI. It has GT40p heads. I already have headers. I have no idea what would be worthwhile to do short of pulling pistons to do a 331 kit. Not experienced in having a motor that far apart and I don’t really have the budget to get that involved.

 

[racsan]

A cam can help things, lower rear gears can help too.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

A cam can help things, lower rear gears can help too.

Truck had 4.10s but the axles are getting changed to 3.73s, I want the fuel economy bump, as little as it will be and I really don’t think the 302 will care much one way or another. 3.73 axles are limited slip and disk brake, so an upgrade.

 

[racsan]

3.73 is always a good choice, decent balance of performance/economy.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

@fastpakr

 

[fastpakr]

@fastpakr

Do you really want to use my advice after the nightmare of my swap? I might be worth listening to more as a cautionary tale.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Do you really want to use my advice after the nightmare of my swap? I might be worth listening to more as a cautionary tale.

I’d still be interested in hearing it. I know there is a ton of stuff available for the 302, but I’m sure there is plenty of possibilities of problems because of that

 

[19Walt93]

What transmission are you using? If it's and AOD or a 5 speed the overdrive ratio is about .7:1 and that changes the effective final drive ratio. In overdrive 4.10 gears act like 2.87's and 3.73 act like 2.61's. You'll be turning 2000 rpms on the highway so be conservative in your cam choice. The Explorer cam is the same as the one in the 95 351 I used with 1.7 roller rockers to boost the lift a little. Especially if the budget is limited, I'd leave the 4.10's and the Explorer cam assuming it's in good shape and get some 1.7 roller rockers because they'll help a little and are relatively cheap. The GT40P heads are good street heads if you're not looking for 6000 rpms, I'd get a couple of carbide bits and smooth the ports without grinding off a lot of metal. You could have the heads planed .010 or .015 and gain a little compression without causing an intake manifold alignment problem. Stainless bolts are great as long as they're good ones and as long as you never have to drill one out.

 

[fastpakr]

I'm running a '99 Explorer GT40P engine with no changes to the short block. Cam is a Comp Cams 35-510-8. Similar duration to stock but a decent jump in lift. Valve springs and such were provided by Alex's Parts based on the cam specs. Roller rockers are Scorpion SCP-1021's. Those required new valve covers because they were too big for the stock units. The best option I could find to solve that problem was the Spectre 5018 polished aluminum set. I didn't like any of the cheap stamped covers I could find, and these were less than $100. Unfortunately, they're -REALLY- tall. I already had a 1" Edelbrock intake spacer installed, but even with that they barely fit under the GT40 upper intake. I had to tweak a few fittings for the upper to clear. The only thing that I haven't resolved is making the EGR tube from the OBX headers connect to the valve on the upper.

The system runs well. I'm just frustrated that I've still got a rough idle and 16-18 inches of intake vacuum. The cam specs don't really explain that. But there's certainly no shortage of power available.

There were all sorts of problems along the way, but those are a different story that could be avoided entirely by making sure the parts you're installing are actually what you ordered.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

What transmission are you using? If it's and AOD or a 5 speed the overdrive ratio is about .7:1 and that changes the effective final drive ratio. In overdrive 4.10 gears act like 2.87's and 3.73 act like 2.61's. You'll be turning 2000 rpms on the highway so be conservative in your cam choice. The Explorer cam is the same as the one in the 95 351 I used with 1.7 roller rockers to boost the lift a little. Especially if the budget is limited, I'd leave the 4.10's and the Explorer cam assuming it's in good shape and get some 1.7 roller rockers because they'll help a little and are relatively cheap. The GT40P heads are good street heads if you're not looking for 6000 rpms, I'd get a couple of carbide bits and smooth the ports without grinding off a lot of metal. You could have the heads planed .010 or .015 and gain a little compression without causing an intake manifold alignment problem. Stainless bolts are great as long as they're good ones and as long as you never have to drill one out.

I’m running the entire Explorer drivetrain. Engine, auto trans, AWD transfer case, axles, the works. The same thing we did to dad’s one Ranger, sans axle swap. I’m trying to take mine a step beyond with tweaking the motor and trans. Dad’s ran great with 4.10 gears, so I don’t see any reason why with some performance tweaks I won’t be happy with 3.73s.

I have some carbide bits, was going to take a close look at it all, did not really look like there would be really anything that would need to come off.

Roller rockers sound like a possibility

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I'm running a '99 Explorer GT40P engine with no changes to the short block. Cam is a Comp Cams 35-510-8. Similar duration to stock but a decent jump in lift. Valve springs and such were provided by Alex's Parts based on the cam specs. Roller rockers are Scorpion SCP-1021's. Those required new valve covers because they were too big for the stock units. The best option I could find to solve that problem was the Spectre 5018 polished aluminum set. I didn't like any of the cheap stamped covers I could find, and these were less than $100. Unfortunately, they're -REALLY- tall. I already had a 1" Edelbrock intake spacer installed, but even with that they barely fit under the GT40 upper intake. I had to tweak a few fittings for the upper to clear. The only thing that I haven't resolved is making the EGR tube from the OBX headers connect to the valve on the upper.

The system runs well. I'm just frustrated that I've still got a rough idle and 16-18 inches of intake vacuum. The cam specs don't really explain that. But there's certainly no shortage of power available.

There were all sorts of problems along the way, but those are a different story that could be avoided entirely by making sure the parts you're installing are actually what you ordered.

Could the spacer maybe be causing the problems with your setup?