I have just obtained a 1988 Ford 15 passenger van, with the fuel injected 351w, 3 speed automatic, 3/4 ton & 3.54 gears. I am a motorhead, and like to play with stock engies to get a little more power & efficiency out of them. Fords are a little new to me, and this is the 1st fuel injected engine I have had a chance to "play with".

I am a missionary & will spend a lot of time in central Mexico with this van, where gasoline cost over $2.25 a gallon! It is also aound 6300 ft above sea level. I will use this as a "people hauler", climbing mountains & at times, towing a trailer, that I would estimate around 7000 lbs. max.

I understand a lot about the fuel injection & electroics, as well as engine rebuilding, head porting & polishing, and general low cost performance tricks. I am wanting to improve the effeciency of this engine, and make it be able to "get out of it's own way" .

With the thinner air being in the clouds, I am thinking of the common mods like opening up the exhaust with some headers, glass packs (ha, you can tell I am an old timer!) head porting & polishing - just to knock off the rough, and a good street/towing power chip. I want to keep the fuel injection & the van will be using low octane fuel. I have thought about a Compucam, but have heard the stocker will run good with a little head & exhaust work. I am planning to "freshen up" the engine with new rings, bearings, etc. The van has a dual exhaust connected with a crossover before the cat, which is where the O2 sensor is, then chokes off into a single into the muffler, then splits back off to duals.

I am thinking I can polish the heads pretty slick on the intake, like the exhaust, since it is port fuel injected. I know on a carb or TBI injection, you need to leave the intake ports a little rough.

Can anybody recomend a good power chip? I want a snappy throttle response & good low to mid range torque & maintain good fuel economy.

I have also heard, again conflicting reports, that opening up the exhaust will cause the exhaust to rush past the O2 sensor too fast, causing the computer to richen up the injectors, and killing fuel economy. Any thoughts or experiance?

I hope I have covered all the bases of what I am working on, where it will be used, and how it will be used. The van is in decent running condition, except it idles way too fast. I want to keep the engine basically stock.

Any expertise & advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

Tim