Well we picked up our 2000 v-10 EX last January and have loved it ever since then. My wife actually daily drives it back and forth to work. Glad she only has to drive like 20 miles round trip. We keep doing more and more towing with it and now I have gotten to the point where I want to start to doing some upgrades to it to make it handle the loads a little better.

We are normally towing our 26ft TT or a 24ft trailer with our jeep and pop up camper on it. The EX does good but I'm sure It could do a little better with some upgrades.

I have seen posts about people using the springs out of the super duty trucks to get a little more spring rate and a little bit of lift. There are a couple of super duty trucks out at the local junk yard. How can I tell what code the springs are in these trucks? Would this help out with some of the weight handling? Or would I be better off with some air bags in the back?

Also what would you all recommend for shocks and tires on the EX? I know I have to run a stiffer tire cuz of the weight of it and have been told it pushes me into the load range E tire choices but don't know which ones everyone prefers under their trucks. Ours does see some offroad driving towing our jeep off the road and to certain places where traction might be needed.

Mainly I'm just looking for some suggestions for things to help out the towing aspect and maybe even some performance items that will help out the v-10.

Thanks,
Ben

 

Welcome to the EX forum and family CLE!


Suspension mods are a whole world unto themselves with these rigs, in my opinion the best plan is to make a plan first, them work towards that goal. Decide if you want any additional lift, and how much. But keep in mind that the bigger tires that would look great under a lifted EX will effectively reduce the gear ratio and rob you of towing performance. So if planning to lift and run taller tires AND tow also include some new deeper gears in the budget. The V-10 LOVES deeper gears and getting to an effective 4.30-4.56 ratio will have it ready to tow the heaviest of loads happily. If you are happy with the stock (or current) ride height and just want a bit of rear squat help when towing then the adjustability of air bags might be the right choice for you. Also you should be using a Weight Distribution hitch on both of those trailers, that will help to maintain the EX's handling and well.....Weight Distribution.
You can get dozens of AT tire recommendations here, but I think you will see that the major brands get a lot of love. Skip the cheap stuff if you want quality and durability.
On the driver's door jamb there will be a sticker that shows the spring codes on the EX/truck, it will be a set of letters. Your V-10 EX should read "CCGG" under the SPRNG heading, meaning that your wagon came from the factory with C code front springs and G code rear springs. Some '00 rigs didn't have all the info filled out on the sticker, check yours. Ideally you will want to find a donor truck with either V, W or X code fronts and B or C code rears IF you choose to do a full spring swap. I run modded X codes and modded B codes on my V-10 EX and gained about 4" of lift over stock.
Mods to the V-10 for improved performance are limited unless you really want to spend a lot of money and do some serious machine shop work. I run a set of the Banks long tube headers, which are expensive ($900-ish) but they do free up the exhaust nicely and improve throttle response a bit across the RPM range. I tow heavy with my EX and feel that the headers did improve the towing performance some, nothing huge but better than stock. I also run custom tunes from 5Star Tuning (a site sponsor who really knows these V-10s very well), the tunes adjust the timing and fuel curves to get a little more from the motor but their biggest attribute is the changes to the trans strategy, which makes a big improvement for towing. I use the 87 and 89 Octane Performance tunes for my towing instead of the Tow tunes, I found the Tow tunes to be too aggressive for my liking. The Performance tunes work great for me, I use the 87 Perf tune for flat land towing and load the 89 Perf tune for tow trips through the mountains. But the single biggest performance and towing upgrade I've made has been the change to deeper gears. As mentioned earlier the V-10 loves deeper gears, it like to rev and makes it's best power at the higher RPM deep gears move it up to. V-10 EXs either came with the more common 3.73 gears or the sweet 4.30 gears from the factory. The difference is very noticeable with some weight on the hitch! I went from 3.73s up to 4.88s and with stock-ish sized tires it pulled like a locomotive, now with my 35" tires it has an effective 4.39 ratio and handles our towing work very well. Our EX currently serves as our dedicated tow rig for our 11,000lb TT, we pull all over the Eastern US and log between 3 and 5 thousand towing miles a year with it.

 

Thanks for all that info. Think i may have to jack up the rear end to see what kind of gears i have in this truck. Got a buddy that has an EX the same year as mine and he gets better mileage out on the highway than we do. Guess im just gonna try and build it up as a good tow rig and just make it look good after that. I have the passenger front door that has some rust on it and there is some rust around the wheel wells that i would like to take care of as well. Oh and along with finishing up the exhaust manifold gaskets. Still have driver side to do as i already did the passenger side back in february.

Definitely a lot of info on here to start going thru for these trucks. Glad i joined up.

 

Those manifold studs are real treat! What method(s) have you used successfully to remove the old studs so far?

 

Actually I was able to use the stud puller to get a couple out. After that I ended up welding nuts onto the broken ones and using stud puller again to remove them. Wasn't to bad once I figured out what exactly to do.

 

You should be able to get your axle code from the sticker on the door jam. Grabbed these from another thread but should help.

31 — 3.73 non-limited slip, F-250/Excursion
C1 — 3.73 limited slip, F-250/Excursion
32 — 4.10 non-limited slip, F-250
C2 — 4.10 limited slip, F-250/Excursion
33 — 4.30 non-limited slip, F-250
C3 — 4.30 limited slip, F-250/Excursion

Tim M

 

I heard that some 2000 models didn't have the information on the sticker. Try this site.

https://www.etis.ford.com/home.do

It will give you some good info about your vehicle.
Tim M

 

My 2000 does NOT have the gear info on the sticker. I got to crawl underneath to find it out.

 

Yea my 2000 doesn't have anything on the door jam for the axle code. Will just have to jack it up this weekend and spin the tires to check it out.

 

Try the link I posted earlier. I put in my VIN and it showed my gear ratio and a bunch of other options that came with my truck.

Tim M

 

So apparently me Ex has the 4.10 gears already. Looks like I can spend $$ elsewhere.

 

That is interesting as I only though the Excursion came with 3:73 or 4:30 gear ratio


Tim M

 

I'll have to check the door sticker but the link you posted says otherwise.

 

Well looks like I have 3.73 gears. Guess I will just be adding some air bags and making the truck a good stock height tow rig.

 

n3wpv, is your EX a 5.4? 4.10s came is most 4X4 (maybe RWD ones too....?) 5.4 rigs.