I am at an impasse here...both seem to be promising. What I am looking for is something that will help extend the life of my truck while giving it a boost with power and mpg's.

What do you experts recommend?

PS I have a 2004 F150 4.6L V8

 

Neither.

Best bang for your dollar is by far a hand held tuner with tunes built by a tuning shop. There are a pile of threads on this subject. A nice "custom" tune can really wake up your 4.6L. Look into 5 Star Tuning (SCT products), Power Hungry Performance (Edge products) or Troyer Performance (SCT I believe)

I have 5 Star Tunes and they are very nice. Hard to beat the performance gains for about $400.

 

+1 on the tuner BUT LET'S ANSWER THE QUESTION

Ram air is as performance goes better in every way. In an efficient system you are providing very low amounts of compressed air. 1-2 pounds of pressure compared to 8-10 on low spec superchargers. But there's a trade off it collects lots of airborne dirt water and mud making it a poor choice for anything offroad or in the rain.

Our trucks are already built with a cool air intake. They pull air from outside of the engine bay. Any airraide k&n or like wise pull air from the engine bay itself. S&B make an cool air intake that pulls from around the headlight. Maybe just a little better than stock but not really for the money you will pay.

 

is there actually a ram air setup for this truck?

i have seen the faux ram airs, nothing more than a scoop pushing air across the top of the motor. but i have not seen one that got plumbed to the TB.if there is than you do need to consider what gwar said, it will push rain and snow into the filter/TB.

 

I would think that it would be designed to trap water before it got to the air filter. The Firebird and Grand Am had ram air before Pontiac pulled the plug on these cars. Atleast they advertised it as ram air.

 

Well I seen the "bull nose" fiberglass hoods that lay on a custom air box that is kinda like what the 99-02 trans am's use. But it hooked into our factory air box that is attached to the TB.

Besides home made "ram air" I haven't seen anything else...

 

I don't know of a true ram air setup for these trucks, so that is pretty much out of the question unless you build something yourself. I do know that you will be wasting a lot of money if you buy an aftermarket cold air intake. The intake on these trucks is extremely free flowing as is, so there is no need to change it.