Explorer Intakes

If you are lucky enough to find an upper and lower Intake set from a 1995+ Ford Explorer 5.0, they can be a very economical way to upgrade the anemic factory 5.0 HO intakes. Just for comparison's sake, here are the flow specs on some of the more popular replacement intakes:

• Stock 87-93 Intakes: 136cfm
• Unported Explorer Intakes: 189cfm
• Unported Cobra Intakes: 199cfm
• Unported GT-40 Intakes: 200cfm

The following link is part of the Edelbrock home page and gives flow numbers for most of the popular 5.0 intakes.

Intake Flow Chart

BEWARE: This test was conducted by Super Ford magazine and was done at 25" of vacuum while the industry standard is 28" of vacuum. All flow numbers in the chart must be multiplied by 1.06 to obtain numbers that are comparable with advertised flow numbers you may have seen. This is how I obtained my 189cfm figure for the Explorer intakes. By the way, note how evenly the Explorer flows comparing runner-to-runner!

1. Lower Intake:

• The Explorer intake has no hole for the ACT (Air Charge Temperature) Sensor. You pretty much have two options here: Drill and tap a hole for the sensor or relocate the sensor. I ended up drilling a hole for the sensor and would recommend this over moving the ACT.
  • NOTE: SN-95 Mustangs do not need to perform this modification as the ACT was located in the factory airbox anyway.

• You'll have to swap over all related hardware from your stock intake (i.e. temp guage sender, and hard coolant lines.)

• The lower intake itself doesn't have a return port for the EGR coolant flow, so you again have two options: Drill and tap for a return port or block off the supply port on the coolant lines.
  • NOTE:On vehicles using a Cobra upper (or any upper that does not utilize engine coolant to cool the EGR spacer) this modification is not necessary.

2. Upper Intake:

• Swap the four throttle body studs from your stock intake onto the Explorer intake.

• At the back of the stock intake, there are three vacuum ports (FPR, Emissions, and vacuum tree). At the back of the Explorer intake there are only two. What I had to do was: Using a plastic vacuum "Y" and some scrap vac hose, I had to split one of the ports to feed both the FPR and emissions.

• Two of the other vacuum ports on the intake are a little too long, so using a cutoff wheel, trim them to the desired length.

As for the installation, that's pretty much it. The intakes will clear a stock hood and are a HUGE improvement over a stock intake. Another thing that's nice is that you can re-use your stock "5.0 HO" name plate for a sleeper look!

I hope this helps out and if anybody has any questions or corrections, please drop me an e-mail.

I'd like to apologize for the poor quality of these pictures. Unfortunately, I have since sold the intakes, so these pictures are all I've got!

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