[Cactus Smasher]

Straight to the point, I’m swapping a ‘96 Explorer 5.0 into my ‘86.

I want to retain the serpentine belt system and all its accessories. I don’t see that as a problem, other than finding power steering and A/C hoses that will work. But if there’s some hidden problem in doing so, I don’t have to. Has anybody done it with explorer parts?

I’m not sure if the Explorer cast aluminum oil pan will fit the bronco frame. Looks like it might? Also looks like it could not. Anyone know for sure before I find out the hard way?

I’d like to use the Explorer intake, obviously it’s better. Any issue there?

All I have to do for the ignition is pull the DIS thing out and stab a distributor?

I’m seeing mixed information about all this. Just trying to figure out what’s going to work.

 

[Doosenberry]

I don't know if he's swapped one into a Bronco, but I know @Kingfish999 has swapped one into his F250. Perhaps he can help answer some of your questions.

 

[BigBlue 94]

I would consider trying to make the EDIS ignition work. Its significantly better than a distributor based system.

Otherwise, yes, swap your distributor and sensors over to the explorer engine. I believe you will need a steel distributor gear for the roller cam in the explorer 5.0.

Does the intake face driver or passenger side? I cant recall. I did see the other day that the 5.0s in grand marquis, town cars, and crown vics point to the driver side like a truck would.

Does your 86 have the air box sitting on the drivers side valve cover? That may pose some routing issues.

 

[Kingfish999]

not sure how far you want to get into swaps and stuff. but it gives some good oprotunities, especially with how poor the 86 EFI and wiring is.

do you have a C6 or AOD? would you consider swapping to a 4R70W? would be a pretty good upgrade for either. stronger, wider gear ratio, more reliable than an AOD. gives overdrive and converter lockup than a C6.

the accessory drive on the Explorer are actually pretty cool. nice and compact and pretty easy to work on. has a 130amp 4g alternator. no smog pump. A/C condensor can used if you needed. the PS pump isnt amazing but seems better than the old C-II pump. it has a remote reservoir which is nice. one issue is that it is soo compact that a mechanical fan will be too far from the radiator and will need an e-fan swap

the intake i really like being sleeker than the truck intake. it faces to the passenger side normally but it can be flipped if you change the wiring. if you want to retain EGR, its done internally in the intake instead of a tube.

the EFI on them is really good. its EDIS so you do not need a distributor. its OBD-II. its MAF. its sequential instead of batch fire. its tuneable.

i love how reliable my F250 is with my full Explorer 5.0 4R70W EFI swap.

there are some issues to overcome. nothing too bad

i kept mine passenger side faced intake and jsut ran a open element air filter. one day ill get un-lazy and mount the PCM better but its fine there after i waterproofed it. even with my e-fan swap i have SOO much room to work on the front. this is jsut my temp engine untill i can finish building my 347 for it. ill finish some other things when i swap it in

 

[Cactus Smasher]

I don’t want to get super electronic with it. I planned on keeping the ‘86 wiring and controls. I just had the AOD rebuilt recently, so I’m keeping that for sure.
Disappointing to hear I may need an electric fan swap. I myself prefer the mechanical fan.

my 86 has the air box on the driver valve cover. I hate that. So that’s another reason I’d like to use explorer intake.

 

[Caddylackn]

Since you have an AOD, you may need to flip the upper intake 180 degrees (Throttle Body to the right) around so the AOD TV cable will reach and operate as before, and remove the throttle body (TB) elbow. The position of the TV cable is critical to the position of the throttle cable for an AOD. So whatever you do or fab up, the relationship of these two components to each other needs to be the same.

What Kingfish999 did in his pickup may not work for you, unless you have a longer TV cable. His throttle cable pulls from the front of the motor. The stock TV cable will not reach.

What I did is: fab up an extension arm on the throttle body bracket arm, as my explorer TB rotates the wrong way now (being my intake is mounted backwards for an explorer, but normal for a Bronco) I screwed the extension arm to the bottom of the TB turning linkage so the throttle cable and TV cable pull the TB open from the back side of the motor, same as your stock Bronco one now. Once, the engine is installed, and I know the arm length doesn't need adjusting, I will weld the arm to the TB linkage. Now I will not have to move the air cleaner, or ducting.

I have got mine fabbed up in the garage, but not in the bronco yet, I will try to take a photo later. It would probably be easier to just get a longer TV cable in hindsight. and have the throttle cable and TV cable pull from the front....

 

[Cactus Smasher]

I did not realize the intake was able to be turned around. That might definitely help.

i’m pretty familiar with the AOD myself so I’ve got that under control.

I asked about this on FTE and a couple of Facebook Ford groups but nobody was quite sure about the Batch Vs Sequential injection. Will the HO motor run properly using Batch injection?

 

[Kingfish999]

it will be OK. the way Ford fired the injectors means it can handle both firing orders with not much issue. 302 and 351 are wired the same way.

i really think you are loosing a good opportunity to convert to the Explorer EFI. even if you do not use the trans. perfect time to convert to MAF, sequential, OBD-II, EDIS and have a wiring harness thats actually modern. make the engine run much better, able to diagnose better, probably better fuel mileage, more reliable, able to support engine mods better

but i understand wiring scares people. i myself think the 86 EFI is just very poorly done and an afterthought for that generation of truck. even the early Bricknose wiring is pretty crappy. i would either go carb myself if it was my truck and didnt know as much about EFI as i do.

i never tried to use the Explorer pan but it would PROBABLY work. i usually jsut buy a new truck pan

 

[Cactus Smasher]

I wouldn’t even really be scared of it. It’s just that when I removed the exploder 5.0, I didn’t grab anything else. And admittedly cut through the wiring harness in a few places(mainly the transmission end of things I believe). I did not plan on using any of that. So I didn’t save it or take it.

 

[Cactus Smasher]

And honestly the only reason I am trying to run fuel injection at all is because it has it. If it was carbureted, i’d be sticking with the carburetor. When it comes to off-road reliability, I’m a firm believer in the old adage of less is more, The simpler the better.

 

[BigBlue 94]

@Gacknar had SEFI on his 347 stroker. Might be able to find some of his old threads.

 

[Cactus Smasher]

King, what were you able to use for power steering hoses?
I just finished assembling the engine over the weekend, so now I’m focusing on preparations and parts needed for the actual swap.

 

[slimpartywagon]

King, what were you able to use for power steering hoses?
I just finished assembling the engine over the weekend, so now I’m focusing on preparations and parts needed for the actual swap.

what power steering pump are you using? If the one from the explorer, you will need the explorer hoses and possibly adapter fittings for the gear box

 

[Cactus Smasher]

All explorer engine and accessories.
all bronco everything else.

 

[Kingfish999]

so i am using a 4-bolt Superduty gearbox which uses o-ring seals instead of flare like stock bronco gearbox. i think i took a newer F-series 5.4 PS hose and bent it to work. but i would not be surprized if you can use a bronco PS hose and bend it to fit. think the Bronco and Explorer PS pumps use same outlet.. i used a torch to heat the metal to bend it easier without kinking

a custom hose might not be a bad idea either

theres also a PS pump mod you can do but it involves swapping internals from a Superduty truck. i did it in my truck but did not notice much it helped some but nothing too crazy. people claim its good when doing hydroboost or hydrosteer. but it might help if you are unhappy with the Explorer pump. seems the pics in the thread are down. really the only part you need to change is the oblonged housing the wains rub against, the Superduty has larger pockets for more fluid

Explorer PS Pump PSI and FLOW modification

Seems the opinions are 50/50 when it comes to the capabilities of the Explorer power steering pump and it's ability to effectively turn large tires, handle ram assist, and actuate hydro-boost. Personally, I am running 35" tires and an 11" ram assist connected to a 4x4x2 box. At idle, I have to...

classicbroncos.com

pic of an idea what inside a PS pump looks like

 

[GetBent4x4]

I personally would use the bronco intake and keep the AOD linkage setup. My transmission in my AOD bronco (235k) has been more reliable than my 5.0 explorer. I have a GT40P 5.0 explorer with the 98+ updated 4r70w. It's a 2wd daily driver and that transmission has been out of that truck 3 times now at 313k miles. The previous owner had it rebuilt (not sure to what degree or how well but it shifted great till it blew it's internals on the interstate and pushed all the fluid out at 290k. The seal before that leaked at 280k. And the previous owner rebuilt the transmission at 190k. I put a junkyard unit in with 190k and it shifts ifty and I have to pay attention to not make it start to slip. I get good gas mileage and it has no problem keeping up with 2022 speed of traffic. So that's a plus. The aod does neither of those; but the bronco does weigh 1k lbs more than the explorer and is a full width half ton truck. They are practically the same transmission so if you want to put in the 4r70w try it and see what happens. Worse case you can always go back to the AOD if you keep all the parts. The AOD doesn't usually fail via front pump seal; the 4r70w does. In explorers, panther cars, etc. I came across many that said their vehicle failed like that. An AOD will have valve body or shiftng problems when it fails. Which is kinda nice because you can limp it home instead of big explosion happening at 65 mph and traffic flashing their lights behind you because you spraying everyone's windshield with burnt atf. The explorer is my "beater" vehicle so to speak. I like the engine and the obd2 maf edis efi; but I'm on the fence on the transmission. I think a lot of the 5.0 explorers were junked for a bad transmission. All the non wrecked ones I came across were quite oily underneight when I looked them over. Most of the engines were nice but I did see some that looked like sludge city with no oil changes so who knows what happened there. I always considered the 4r70w to be on leveling playing field with the GM 4l60e. Great transmission till it fails with no notice. You can rebuild an AOD with 4r70w internals. Now that would be something I may consider.

 

[Cactus Smasher]

If it really comes down to it being highly difficult, I’ll use the bronco intake. But until that happens, I plan on using the explorer stuff. I feel that it’s a little better designed and will solve a couple of other issues.

 

[Cactus Smasher]

More on this fan situation,
Is the mechanical fan really pulled that far back with the explorer water pump? How much of a spacer would be needed to get it back where it needs to be?

I will not do an electric fan under any circumstances.

 

[Doosenberry]

Here's a comparison to a mustang 5.0 water pump to give you an idea. Maybe not apples to apples as I don't know if there's a large difference between the mustang pump and a Bronco.

water pumps - Explorer 5.0 *VS* SN95 Mustang 5.0

I have a timing chain cover, waterpump (F67E-8505-BB) and balancer/crank trigger/pulley that originally came on my Ford Racing crate motor about 8 years ago. (Edelbrock water pump from my '90 5.0 Mustang on left, Ford Racing crate engine water pump on right) Plans change and I now want...

www.corral.net

 

[Kingfish999]

ahhh. good e-fans are great. its really the way to go. cheap e-fans are trash. also lets the waterpump last longer since there is less load on the bearings

on top of the pulley flange being mounted several inches closer to the engine, the fan and fan clutch are also tighter than the trucks

in the end when i first did the swap and started driving around, the engine would not cool well at idle, the gap was too big. so i went e-fan and loved it since

i did do alot of catalog searching to try and find a fan clutch that would thread on to the waterpump threads and have an alow it to stick out alot more while using a fan that would move adiquate air. i think i found one for a dodge but in the end i decided to do the e-fans. i didnt want all that load sticking out that far where it might kill water pump bearings quickly.

Explorer

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