92 f150 5.0 EFI into A 97 Ranger?

[Project97fiveO]

can this setup be used, has anyone done this swap? im worried about clearance of the intake manifold... and how can i make the efi work in the ranger??? any knowledge is greatly aprecciated! thanks all

[Erics88]

Clearance will be a issue. I don't think that you would ever get the motor low enough to clear. I would use your motor, Explorer upper lower intake,and mustang harness and ECU. There isn't to much splicing to the main ranger harness. I found out first hand though, if you go fuel injection, try to keep the engine as stock as possible. Unless you just have money and time to blow. Good luck and you love it if you do the conversion.

[rojam18801]

sure it will fit, anything will fit. all you need is time and a really big hammer. will it look stock, NO. a ranger with a v8 is not stock. if the hood won;t close, take it off. problem gone. or if you really love your hood, put a scoop on it. why do it the way everyone else does it, do it your way. it's yours, do what you want to do! will it fit, heck yes it will fit. that's what makes a hot rod and show car....the old trucker

[cgrey8]

Another way this has been solved by others is to do a body lift. Get the body up about 2-3" above the frame so the added height of the F-150 intake won't be a problem with the stock hood. I think Adam M. did this with his 5.8L F-150 swap and to compensate for the body lift, he lowered the suspension using lowering front spindles and a flip-kit on the rear leafs. He's got it where it looks lower than stock even with the body lift. Although I believe even he admits that if he had it to do over again, he'd have used a Mustang style intake to avoid all that headache.

[usmcrp1044]

Not that I know a thing about EFI, but I remember hearing that using a truck upper w/ a car lower is the lowest setup you can get. Anyone have a way to check that out?

What about the front dress (belts/pulleys) Wouldnt that be longer or is it the same setup from mustang to truck?

[widetireranger]

Why not pull the upper unit off and install one from a Mustang or Crown Vic? The truck upper is just taller. Just my opinion....LOL.

[Erics88]

These guys are right. You can make anything fit. You didn't state if it was 4wd so I didn't think about the body lift. But, I'm in to the sleeper look, so that's the way I think. On the issue with the EFI intakes. The upper and lowers will not interchange. The trucks have a square, rectangle ports and the cars have oval, or round as with the GT40 intakes. 5.0L Explorers (and Gen 1 lighnings) also have the GT40 style intake. I think that it was Bob Glidden that used the truck intakes for his 5.0 mustang in his early days of 5.0L mustang EFI drag cars, but think he had a 4" cowl hood also. If you look though, Holley's SystemMax intakes are like the lower truck intakes. If you could find the Holley upper, you mite be in business. Go carb. Less problems.

[cgrey8]

As far as intakes are concerned, the Explorer upper/lower combo is really hard to beat on any 302 or even a moderate 331/347 stroker. It flows more than the stock GT intake does in stock form, is lower profile than the F150 dual plane intake, and produces a LOT of torque. They are good to over 300hp in stock form. If you port the lowers, they are good to nearly 400hp. Here's a document from Tom Moss of TMoss Intake Porting where he did a side-by-side comparison of a ported Explorer intake against a lot of aftermarket intakes.
Street Engine Intake Ramblings.doc

In every case, the Explorer intake produced more torque up to 5500 RPMs. After that, the Explorer intake started to fall off fairly quickly and the aftermarket intakes showed what they were made of. But for builds where you are only running to 6000RPMs, the Explorer intake will give you the best performance all around from idle-5500 and the best AVERAGE HP from idle-6000, although the aftermarkets do win in MAX HP. But we all know (or should know) that its average HP that means far more than MAX HP numbers.

[Erics88]

If you decide to use the Explorer intake, I have a couple of them for sale.