1996 Explorer 5.0L intake elbow

[cgrey8]

I need a 1996 Explorer 5.0L intake elbow that routes EGR gas to a valve from the intake, not from a pipe connected to the exhaust manifold. They look like this:


I currently have a 97 Explorer 5.0L in my Ranger. In 97, Ford converted over to using DPFE EGR which requires a pipe from the exhaust manifold up to an EGR valve. So the airway up the intake was abandoned. The 97 and up Explorer elbows look something like this (minus the extender brick welded on):


My intakes have the EGR cavities for routing EGR up, but don't use them. I'm assuming my intakes were left-overs from 1996 when those passages were used. Most newer Explorer upper & lower intakes don't have those casted into them.

So ultimately, I'd like to replace my DPFE-style EGR intake elbow with one of those 1996 Explorer elbows and abandon the tube from the header. For people that were buying Explorer motors for their Mustang or some other application, this elbow was probably one of the 1st things to get chunked since it just doesn't work for most non-Explorer (or Ranger conversion) applications and is a restriction to a beefed up engine since it's a 90° bend in the airflow and only 65mm in diameter.

If anybody has one of these laying around and don't mind letting it go, I could put it to use.

[cgrey8]

I found someone on the EECTuning.org website that had one. He didn't even know what it was to. He bought it for an alternative routing option on his Mustang, but it didn't do what he needed, so it's just been sitting in his garage until he saw a similar post to this one on the EECTuning.org site.

After getting it in hand, there are some things I don't like about it. The main one is that it has a weird taper in it the way it was cast that my 97 Explorer elbow doesn't have.

This is a view from the TB face of the elbow. The square hole you see at the end of the passage is the boss to the EGR where the EGR gas enters the intake airflow. Notice how the transition looks pinched on the sides. The part appears to be completely casted and solid. However it shows lines all in it that would make you think otherwise. Best I can figure is the casting mold was made out of multiple pieces that didn't line up smoothly. The pinch is not as bad as the picture makes it look, but at some point, I'd like to get in there with a small grinder (i.e. Dremel) and smooth that out to look like my 97 elbow which has a very smooth, pristine transition.

The only other difference between the 96 and 97 elbow worth mention is that the EGR flow is perpendicular to the airflow. On the 97 elbow, the boss is angled inward from the external hole at the EGR so the exhaust gas flows more in the direction of the airflow.

It's hard to see the angle the hole makes in this pic because the EGR valve was still attached when I took this pic so no light was coming in from the outside hole. It also appears that ramp right in front of the hole creates a bit of a vacuum across the hole as intake air flows to encourage EGR flow.

But for my purposes, the 96 elbow should work and be a more permanent solution than the copper pipe turned out to be. Although, I was concerned when I test fit the elbow. With the 97 elbow, the valve stood straight up with the diaphragm of the valve pointed straight up. With this elbow, the valve points directly back at the firewall. It get REALLY close to the firewall and AC Box, but thank goodness there is clearance. I'll get more pics of the install once I get everything put together and back running.

[cgrey8]

And I found the next significant difference between the two that I just flat missed earlier:


The 97 and up elbows use studs in the head and are held on with nuts, not bolts:

Notice how thin the back corner is.

It's no biggie. I just have to pickup some 3 3/4" bolts tomorrow. But frustrating none-the-less when you are trying to get a project finished.

BTW, what do you think about the blocked EGR Provision?

There's actually 2 pennies sandwiched between the nut and the fitting the nut is threaded onto. It seems to work. But what are the chances this will give me trouble?

[cgrey8]

So far, the 96 Explorer elbow is working quite nicely. Here are some install pics for anybody that cares.

Here shows that the EGR clears the back firewall fine, but it does come really close to the AC Box. I couldn't get a good shot of it:


In this pic, notice how close the elbow's flat-top of the 96 Elbow gets to the mass accumulator (vacuum bottle):

From what I can tell that flat blade-top on the 96 elbow is cosmetic only. In my case, it causes a fitment issue that the 97 Elbow didn't. I had to back the bottle up to fit so it's only held in by 1 bolt. I don't much like that, but it was a small sacrifice vs making another EGR pipe that was just going to fail again or relocating the bottle somewhere else completely which is a viable option.

Here you can see the penny has discolored under the exhaust heat, but it's not leaking:

[cjcnomor4]

is it me or is the center of that penny bowing upwards?

[cgrey8]

It is...actually they are. There are 2 pennies sandwiched between the header flange and the nut. The flange on the header that the EGR pipe normally seals around is pushing up on the pennies. The heat made the bend more evident. But as long as I don't see black soot, then they aren't leaking.

[MalcolmV8]

I think I moved my vacuum bottle over to the other side of that ridge in the a/c box. Mine too is held by only one bolt.

[cgrey8]

is it me or is the center of that penny bowing upwards?

You had mentioned the "bulge" in that penny before. Check out what it looked like when I pulled the engine last night:

Penny_5.jpg (28.55 KiB) Viewed 7517 times

The penny that was under this one looked just fine. Turns out it was from 1974, when pennies were still made from solid copper. The top one obviously was only copper coated and the inner pot-metal was expanding and contracting so much that it forced itself to bow like that. I replaced this penny with another solid copper penny so this shouldn't be a problem ever again. I just thought it'd be interesting to throw these pictures up since the discussion of the bowing penny had come up before.

[Teddyzee]

Very cool!

[cjcnomor4]

Isn't defacing currency illegal?

[cgrey8]

It probably is. But I don't see the federal reserve shutting down those machines that squish pennies into necklace pendants. So I doubt they are going to care about this infraction.

[MalcolmV8]

wow. I've used a penny as a temp fix before but I always get a replacement nut that has no hole in the top or just cut a round disk of steel about the size of a quarter and weld it on top. That way no surprises down the road like this.

[cgrey8]

So far, even the pot-metal penny has lasted far longer than I thought. But the solid-copper penny wasn't phased by the heat at all and was closer to it than the top one was. I guess it could've been the exposure to the outside cold that made the top one bow like that in the place. Who knows. Regardless, the solid copper penny should last substantially longer than the pot metal penny. If it gives me trouble in the future, I'll find a steel blank or something better to stick in there.

Unfortunately the nut is a fine-thread and finding a line nut of the same thread pitch is nearly impossible without junkyard diving. Finding a solid block-off nut would probably be impossible. My only option would be to put a steel block off in this nut or weld up the nut. If the 2nd round of pennies gives me trouble 6 years down the road with this engine, I'll consider that. It's not a terribly difficult thing to get down there to the provision to replace these if need. But while the engine was out, it was just convenient so I took the time to replace the obviously failing penny with a better one.

[MalcolmV8]

Yeah I have no idea what thread they use on those EGR nuts but I've not been able to find a cap that matches in any hardware store. I have to purchase it online made specifically for EGR capping. That's why sometimes I just weld a cap to the factory nut and save buying the nut online.

[cgrey8]

It's probably a safe bet I'll never need that EGR provision given I have the 96 Explorer elbow option that is working great.

However I don't want to loose the ability to use a tubed EGR in the future so I'm hesitant to even consider welding up the nut. At some point, I may have a compelling reason to upgrade the computer to a newer EEC-V (OBD-II) computer...for instance to run an automatic. And with the exception of the 96 Explorer computer, none of the EEC-Vs support sonic-style EGRs that have a position sensor. As similar as the 96 and 97 computers are, I think they completely ditched the code for the sonic EGR in the 97 computer so it can't even be retuned to use a sonic EGR. The Differential Pressure sensor for directly sensing EGR flow is far superior in detecting flow accuracy and that's what most all the Fords use from about 96-up. There were a number of 94-95 early adopters too. I think the 95 Ranger used it and had a computer that was OBD-1.5 which was almost OBD-II, but not quite. But I digress...

Anyway, it is interesting to know those nuts are available from somewhere on the Internet. Although I'm sure you pay a premium for them.