I'm curious what all you can do to a V-6 explorer, cold air intake, computer chip, programable computer box, anything realy... wondering what you've seen or done?

 

What people have done or what works.

They come from the factory with cold air intakes and paper filters that flow enough air to meet the engines needs by at least a factor of two.

High performance mufflers do have merrits, but the gains are still small, and if you aren't careful about how you drive, your economy may actually decrease. Some mufflers are loud but offer little gains, there are even some that actually decrease performance. The key to optimizing exhaust performance is proper sized internals with as little turbulence as possible. From there is all about what sound you prefer.

If you run high performance ignition, it doesn't gain you power, but it can help prevent you from loosing power. You are best off with OEM ignition parts unless you want to spend serious money for minimal gains. The best combination for standard performance and economy is Motorcraft coil pack, Motorcraft wires, and either Motorcraft or Autolite double platinum plugs. If you want top end, run either Motorcraft or MSD coil pack, Magnacore wires, and Autolite Extreme Performance Iridium plugs. Again, remember this may gain you no horsepower, but it insures that you don't loose performance due to weak ignition.

Tuners that reprogram the stock settings offer the biggest bang for the buck in terms of cost versus performance. They let you change a number of settings to optimize performance and/or economy.

Other mods require tradeoffs and serious expense, and mostly deal with modifying the engine itself. I'm talking about ports, cams, different valves, altering compression. These mods must often be combined with a tuner.

Then there is forced induction. Whether you choose turbo or supercharger, several things must be kept in mind. The stock motor was never meant to handle boost. In other to do it reliably, you need forged internals and if you want to be able to run on pump gas, you need to lower compression. Forced induction is also best combined with a tuner. Mild boost can sometimes be done without a tuner if a fuel management unit is used, but a tuner still results in better performance. You also need larger injectors and both freer flowing intake and exhaust because the volume of air is changed very dramatically.