I have a 2000 E250 with the 5.4 and am looking to get more get up and go out of it. In the older engines you were able to change the cam and do other internal mod's to gain torque and horsepower. All I see available for the newer engines is headers, tuner chips or programmers, throttle body spacers, air intakes and maybe true duals.

As far as the headers I really don't see any application specifically for my van. I see other posts about putting them on but what did you use? Options are long tube or shorty, what manufacturer did you use, what vehicle will also fit them, what trimming was required to fit, did you wrap the tubes to hold in the heat and did you use the existing exhaust pipe, custom catback or duals.

I realize additional torque and horsepower is usually at the cost of lost mileage but have any of you found the happy medium where you get the power but minimized the loss?

 

There are some interesting reports for upgrades for this specific engine at the "4.6/5.4", "Performance upgrades" Forums of FTE.

65F1005.8 has also done some things lately to his 5.4 which he has described in this Forum.

 

I bought my van with a bad rod a rebuilt the engine so my build is a little extreme for a running van/truck.

98 5.4L .030 over, stock replacement PI pistons, stock forged crank, stock rods.

-decked the block .040 to raise compression from 8.9-9:1 to 9.5:1
-PI heads, Cams, Intake (should be all 2000+ trucks or 99'+ mustangs)
-Pacesetter Long tube 97-03 f-150 5.4l headers ( I'll describe mods needed later)
-True dual, catless exhaust with Trush welded 2.5" mufflers
-Electric fans
-modded and heavy duty transmission
-SCT programmer (only available for a custom tune) must have for my PI swap
-electric fans
-working on a CAI right now and would like a bigger throttle body.

as for cams the cost doesn't out weigh the benefit for my application, as in get up and go and tow like a sun of a gun. that is PI cams, PI cams will help a non-PI out alot though. most of the intakes available are also made for high rpm lighter vehicles, and are very pricey.

Header install:

1. pull engine
2.bolt the the driver side header to the head and begin to grind away on the motor mount, it takes a serious amount of grinding and I dented the pipe of the primary to help clearance the mount and ground some more. the mount still retains plenty of integrity to go into a a race car. after making the mount clear some small dinks in the pipe were made to help it clear the mount perch and it was ready to install
3. bolt the driver side header on for good.
4. install the engine with the passenger header laying in place, two man operation.
5. bolt the passenger header on, pry the dog house lip back a hair so it doesn't vibrate on the header, make a minor dink in the primary to clear the frame above the spring seat
6. mount the vacuum line rack that is in the pass. wheel well to the body so it is not touching the header,
7. EGR pipe: use a 01' f-150 5.4L pipe, drill a hole in the primary and weld a pipe with a 20 degree bend into the hole and weld a british standard fitting (basically a metric AN fitting) the the pipe with the egr pipe screwed onto it.
8. filled my old egr manifold fitting with weld and plugged up the factory header egr port.

I don't wrap my headers becuase I have seen it make headers basically rot away from rust, even with painting as a preventative measure.

shorties will not work becuase of the cab design they will hit the floor board, everything must stay below the head flange.

My E-250 super van with 3.73's and my mods gets 14/17-18hwy fully loaded.

 

Ya' know, I would like to have done mod's similar to that but I'm not of the mind to pull the engine for a few pounds of torque and a couple of miles per gallon. I'm impressed with what you've done but I have to ask. If it didn't already have a bad rod would you have done the same to it.

I'm still considering the headers and duals though. I pulled the doghouse and can't really see the problem with a set of shorties. Seems like there's quite a bit of room. But, I'm not about to go buy a set and find exactly the problems you mention unlesss the price is really good. Don't want to have a custom catback only 'cause you're not really gaining much but sound. Like you I figure if there's a will there's a way.

Thank's for the input.

 

the problem is the primaries that loop up on the shorties, the come beyond the valve cover height which is where the cab sits, there is only about 2" between the valve cover and the cab, allowing for space between both the primary won't fit. if you find some that stay low it will probably fit, but i couldn't.

If my van was running good stock I probably would have done the PI heads, cam, intake swap and left it at that. I think your van already has the PI stuff though. I did the headers mainly becuase I was going to have to buy a manifold and I refuse to buy manifolds and I was wanting them anyways.

 

I never gave the tubes a thought. I was thinkin' the collector location but I see what you mean. The loop in the back two raises up to have equal distance for all the tubes. I would think that anything that would fit wouldn't be much better than the stock manifold.

Maybe I'll take back the thing about the custom catback and take what little rumble I can get. A dual outlet Flowmaster and custom 3" pipe work might be in order.

 

Be prepared for alot of rumble inside the van. Mine was very loud. I am insulating it now and I can not hear it at idle anymore.