Hi All, I have a 1994 Eddie Bauer Bronco with a 5.0 and 142,000 miles on it. I love it, its the 3rd Bronco I've had, but the 1st with the 5.0. It is very anemic. It's stock, and I cant help but think that if I upgraded the horsepower I would get better gas mileage ( 12-13 mpg now) . Im a fan of horsepower, but not a fan of engine swaps, IE 5.0 to 5.8. Any Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

I had an 89 with the 5.0 in it, and yah I agree it was under powered and the gas mileage was horrible.

Not sure if there's a throttle body, on an intake upgrade you could do. I had full lenght headers on mine, that helped a little.

 

First make sure the thing is in top tune with no codes and that you have 40psi at the fuel rail all the time including while driving. If the exhaust is stock drop the whole works and replace it with something else, longtubes will produce best results and milage gains but even shorties with new pipe behind them is better than the original Y-pipe and cat setup. 1.7 rockers will also help the motor breath better and don't overlook the axle gearing particularly if you have larger tires on it, the 5.0 is no TQ monster and needs more mechanical advantage to perform, 3.73 to 4.10's wouldn't be out of line with 31's for example.

 

I have a 91 5.0 and when i got it about 7 years ago it got 12-13 mpg. I went on a mission to get better mpg.I did a complete tune up ,including advancing the timeing in small increments till I got it to rattle(labor knock,detonation ) then back off the timing till it went away ,did this with the gas that I was going to run . Changed the muffler to a free flowing one. Got it to 15 mpg. The next thing I did was to lose the mechanical fan and replace it with a Taurus electric fan and the mpg went to 17. that was two years ago and now it averages 16. I have read here on the web and many comments from friends that the 5.0 in these trucks have no power. Well I don't know about that but I ran it at the local mud bogg on their fast track (200 ft of red dirt graded smooth) with plane old street tires and a open diff in two wheel drive and it turned 5.03 which I did not think was two bad for a street driven truck that weigh's 6,000 pounds.
My .02
Kenny