I am considering a trip to Alaska next summer. Wanted some opinions on towing a small pop up trailer behind my 1996 Aerostar XLT 3.0L. It's pretty gutless and I am wondering if it would be up to the job. Anything any of you can recommend to upgrade the HP...split exhaust, etc? I have 80,000 mi. on it and also would welcome a checklist of things to replace, have checked, etc. Will probably do a bunch of the work myself this winter...some will probably be done by a shop. Any suggestions appreciated...surely someone has gone down this road before :-) Thanks....
Tim

 

Not sure about getting more power out of the little engine. I heard a good exhaust system that bypasses the catalytic converters make a big difference. But that may be illegal in many states, and could make your engine computer throw a code.

You may have heard many times on this list to protect your transmission if you plan to tow a trailer. The best thing to do is to start with a full gentle flush of your transmission and replace the fluid with a good synthetic ATF. Before you do a full fill, install a plate type fluid cooler in place of the stock U-tube cooler. Get the biggest one that will fit between the grill and the AC condenser. Since that's going to take up all the available space, you will have to remove the stock PS fluid cooler, but you can re-route its hoses to use the stock transmission cooler. A lot of people recommend that you also bypass the ATF cooler in the radiator. But I kept mine with the new plate cooler.

 

Your tranny is your main concern.
Also be sure your brakes are good and your suspension can support the tongue weight.
Check your cooling system out. The fan clutch. coolant etc.

I don't see how you are going to get any more power out the the little engine that could. I'd say drop in a 4.0 but you only have 80k, that's remarkable.

 

pop up trailer under 1500lbs total weight
brakes on trailer, Aero brakes barely are up to the job of stopping the van
quality proportional brake controller such as a Prodigy

put in a 4L 2 core layer radiator

change to a quality real synthetic ATF in tranny, Mobil 1 ATF is easiest to obtain

add a bottle of Lubeguard "Red" to tranny, NO other tranny additives

xlt90 has you on the right course but I would bypass the inradiator cooler, they dump too much tranny heat into the engine on hills

make sure brakes, engine and cooling system are perfect
parts and quality repair shops are few and far between on this trip

new quality shocks such as KYB, Koni or Tokina all 4s

air bags and sway bar in rear

NO towing in OD 4th on hills, in headwind, under 50 mph

just came back from 2000 mile vacation with my tow beast Aero 4L AWD
fun passing semi's on the hills and the shocked looks on the drivers' faces as I went sailing by. I could hear them stick their foot in the big CAT turbo after I went by. Even passed some Turbo Power Stroke new Ford Super Duties on the hills.

 

Tim:

All these are sound advices, but I won't do any towing with a 3.0L. That little engine is barely enough for the van alone. I know since I own both a 3.0L short van and a 4.0L extended one. I can tell that 3.0L will have trouble even on minor hills.

Anyway, I took that Alcan highway to Alaska a few years back, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it greatly. Just make sure your passport is current, yes, passport, not birth certificate. Birth certificates are no longer sufficient tender at the Canadian border.

 

dang there's alot of nay sayers on here bout the 3.0.... i love mine!! i get plenty of power, and enjoy driving my 93 3.0 xlt extended all the time. sure it's not as fast a a suped up civic, but i prefer it over my parent's 4.0's... best advise i'd give you is that something wasn't done right if you feel its gutless.... i can easily romp on mine with pplz in it and still go well. and i'm chillin at 114xxx. the previous owners of my aero towed the same style of trailer your talking about, never had any complaints.

my best advise about towing is this: don't EVER floor it, nor try to pass people going up a crazy grade, you'll just burn out/over heat your tranny. accelerate slowly and smoothly from red lights, keep PLENTY of space between yourself and the car in front of you, make sure everything on your car (cooling, susp., brakes, etc.) are in good working order, stay in the slow lane as much as possible, and remember: the points in your trip that will ad the most stress to your aero is when you first start to go, have to stop suddenly, or are driving in really hilly conditions. once the trains going, it stays going.

p.s. 3.0 gets better mph than 4.0...

 

also change rear end lube
use Amsoil SGO 75w90 of Mobil 1 75w90

run a 3" duct tube from below front bumper to just below alternator to feed cold air on the alternator. the extra electrical load overheats the already hot Aero alternator
Home Depot has 3" flex drain tube in sections

couple gallons of DEET and mosquito killer spray
the no-see-ums come right thru the screens on tents and popups

 

I pull a 15 ft fibreglass boat with my 3L. No..... I cant pull past Aston Martins but it gets me there steady. I have also had the boat fully loaded with camping gear for 9 yes nine people in the van & canoe & still done 1200 km round trip, no problems.

 

I have a 1996 Aerostar, 4.0 L. 150k miles. I use it for towing my 1997 Ski Nautique, about 3000 to 3500 lbs. boat and trailer. I put about 150 hours of use on my boat this year, most of it short trips from my house to the local river, 8 miles round trip, 500 foot elevation change. Many trips a year. I also have gone on longer trips, Portland Oregon to Lake Shasta, several times, sometimes in hot weather. I did have to have the cylinder head gasket replaced in Redding, Ca, at around 114k miles, but the van made it down there even though I started having problems a about a hundred miles north of Redding. All in all, I have been impressed with this van and its towing.
Watch your following distance. When climbing hills, let the motor rev a little, do not be afraid to use a lower gear. Do not use the AC in hot weather. If the engine starts to overheat, turning on the heater will pull some heat off the motor. Uncomfortable, but if it gets you there so you can deal with the problem, it was worth it.
Change your fluids often. I just use conventional dinosaur based oils. I try to avoid full throttle shifts when towing.
Make sure you have working brakes on the trailer.

 

Might be an issue with mountain roads. I pulled a 2000 lb 16' trailer behind my wifes 3.0 Aerostar for 2000 miles around Lake Michigan. We never used OD. Could smell a hot oily/ATFy smell. I decided to get the F150 (below) to haul that trailer after that trip. The weight was within recommendation, but the cross section area was too big and the wind resistance must have been the killer. Little wind resistance with the pop up though.

Redline ATF in the tranny and Redline oil wouldn't be a bad idea in the crankcase.

 

The 3.0L is a nice engine, but it just doesn't have enough bottom end grunt to do any real towing. It can get the job done, its the tranny you need to worry about, but since the sifting is adaptive to the engine, a weaker engine will work a tranny harder than a more power engine. On the exhaust, I can tell you two things. Removing or bypassing the cats will gain you no real power. upgrading the rest of the exhaust will gain you some power, but not much. So don't replace the exhaust to get more power. Only bother upgrading it if it needs to be replaced anyway.

 

Thanks so much all of you for your input. Sounds like I have some decisions to make. I lean toward the fact that the 3L is underpowered and stressing it may not be a wise decision. Alaska is a long way from home to have problems for sure. The way this thing drives and rides is great. Economical also...I want to have it around for a long time. This is one great forum...I don't come here alot but when I do show up hat in hand looking for help on a problem...the response is always beyond expectations. Thanks again....keep on Vanin'..........
Tim

 

I've gained a little power on my 3,0L with removing catalyst (changed for a "strait" flame stopper) much more in enlarging and polishing intake manifold. Modifying hexaust increase HP but decrease lower torque, and torque is just what you need; for example if you go down in diameter you increase torque but you loose HP. One thing can be done is modifying the two ports connexion under the tranny bell: the left port is in right angle with the right one, in fact the right side shuffle scavenge the left side port, but the reverse is not true, you can increase a little torque here in installing an "Y" connection between the two ports, so each port scavenge the other, and when hexaust valves open the depression "suck" the cylinders of each side; it's commonly used in races cars and motorcycles.

 

I second most of these recommendations, though I never add any additive personally.

 

Have you run a dyno test to verify a power increase? My 4.0L still has both factory cats, and just replacing the catback gave me excellent gains. If you remove the cats, you may free up some top end power, but the cats can actually increase bottom end torque. The logic behind this is simple, though conditional. Basically, the unburned fuel and air heats up and expands as it passes through the catalyst, increasing exhaust velocity, which increases exhaust scavenging, with increases engine efficiency, which = torque.

A port and polish is inferior to velocity intake. One is easily made by making the intake ports smaller, by a factor of about 20%, and making the intake rough. This increases volumetric efficiency, which increases torque. It also improves fuel atomization, which increases torque, HP, and fuel economy. Polished ports seem to make sense, but in reality, the penalize performance. Many people feel they increase performance because they do well on flowbenches. But flowbenches are not an accurate way to measure actual horsepower. They also fail to measure the effect of boundary layers, which will slow down the incoming gases, and will also separate the fuel from the air, which adversely effects the combustion. Many articles can be found on the internet of the benefits of roughened intakes and high velocity designed for street vehicles and towing applications.

You are absolutely right about that factory y-pipe however, the design Ford used is cheap, and does not scavenge well. 2 viable solutions are to either use a smoother y collector, or to use a dual inlet converter. The y collector is the better choice from a performance standpoint, but requires slightly more room to make the connections. An even better solution would be to use some sort of merge collector. On the 3.0L, the y-pipe is 1.75" These pipes should be brought into a 2" section with the O2 sensor located in it, then reduce down to 1.75" before increasing back to 2". This alleged choke point, if properly designed and configured, will actually increase both torque and horsepower across the entire powerband. Strange but true. In fact, Dynotech has developed merge collectors for some of their headers that do just that.

However, for what this individual is looking for, increasing engine performance is the least of their worries. They need better cooling, and probably suspension modifications.