Alright so last year I decided I'd like to wake up the V8 in my 98' Explorer so I had a flowmaster 50 series installed and some custom piping taking it out the back through a single pipe. Fast forward about 10 months and I've got the itch to do more. Originally, I didn't plan on doing anything to the truck, but I've come to the realization that I'm going to drive this truck till it can't go another inch.

With that said, I'd like to get some opinions on what else to do. I know I want it to be louder (really loud! ), so maybe a Y-pipe? Headers? I'd also like to know what my options are for lowering the truck a few inches and any suggestions on rims/tires would be helpful.

Any and all suggestions are welcomed, but please keep in mind that this is my daily driver.

Thanks a lot!

 

Only one choice for headers IMO... Torque Monster Headers

As far as loud, a Flowmaster 40 will make it a little louder without making it obnoxious. Do you want a single exhaust or duals?

Also cut out the 4 cats and put in (1) Catco cat on each pipe (covers you for emissions if you need it).

You don't say whether you are 2wd, 4wd, etc, but doing a torsion twist will get you up to 2.5" lower in the front and use Steeda lowering blocks for the rear.

Wheels... that is something you'll have to give us more info on your taste...

 

By the way... Welcome to FTE!!!

 

Thanks!!

Alright, so I'm going to try and answer some of those questions for ya:

I have a single exhaust setup right now...was told duals wasn't possible because of the wheel position/spare-tire position on 98's (could be mistaken because it was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure I wanted duals and was told it was a no-go).

I have zero experience working on vehicles so everything I get done must be done at shops. Could you explain the cutting out the cats and getting catco cats for each pipe?

My truck is a 98' Eddie Bauer V8 2wd. I want to get it low enough to look nice with new wheels (not so low that I can scrap or rub tires).

As for wheel preferences...I like the clean look of 5 spoke wheels (think cobra wheels, etc..) and of course deep dish in the back.

 

OK, let's work backwards...

Here is an my X. It is lowered 2.5" all around and is running on 2000 Cobra R 18" wheels.






The way you lower the front end is to do what is called a torsion twist. Do do this, you loosen the bolts on the torsion bars to take pressure off of them - in turn lowering the front. You basically jack up the front end of your X. Then look under the truck around the around equal to the front doors. You wil notice a bolt coming down in a pocket area at the frame. From that pocket, you will notice a bar that runs to the front end. This is the torsion bar. Loosen the bolt or take it all the way out. Do it for both sides. Let the X back down and notice how the front sits. Drive it forward and back about 50 feet (gets everything back in place). Measure both fenders and see what height each side of your truck is sitting (make sure to do this on level ground).

Next, start on the side that is highest. Put that bolt back in - only putting it in far enough for the bolt to stay in. From there you can adjust the height by putting the bolts back in and tightening them. Tightening them will raise the truck. Go to the lower side and tighten that bolt back in until both fenders are the same height.

Putting blocks in can be a little more tricky unless you are confident in dealing with leaf springs and the pressure they have. IT IS DANGEROUS, so don't just go unbolting things!!!

Whenever you change the ride height, you have to have an alignment done. Any alignment shop should be able to do the work for you and it shouldn't cost that much. A good shop can have your truck lowered in less than a hour with one guy working on it.


On to wheels. Can't help much there, but I would suggest looking through TireRack, EBay, etc, and finding the wheel you want. Then start doing comparitive price shopping from there. I would suggest looking for 18x8 or 18x9 wheels and 255/55/18 tires. That combination looks right and fits without a problem. Your lug pattern you will want to look for is 5x4.5.

Exhaust.

I have seen duals done without loosing the spare tire, but I do not suggest it. The ones I have seen done have had bad bends and just are not helping overcome what duals are meant for. The only way I suggest doing duals is to lose the spare tire.

Your Explorer has 5 pieces in the exhaust right now besides the pipe: it has your muffler and four catalytic converters. I suggest taking the four cats off and running only two. You will run a pipe from your header back to a cat, then from that cat to your muffler. If you run true duals, you will need two mufflers - one for each side. If you run a single pipe, get a 2-in-1-out 40 series or 50 series Delta Flowmaster. From the muffler, the pipe will go out where you want.

I typed this kind of fast (at work), so I hope it makes sense...

If not... ask away!

 

I am familiar with these setups. You can't reliabaly run true duals on them if the rear O2 sensor is located in the rear car assembly. Nor would you want to. True duals are for noise or for extreme high performance applications, and have no real benefits for street vehicles that spend most of their life doing either city or highway driving. The only real benefits would be in racing. A properly designed single exhaust can produce more torque where a street vehicle does most of its driving. Those conditions would be between 2000 - 3000 rpm and under part throttle. A properly designed system will give plenty of performance outside that powerband too.

As far as using Catco converters, you can get better converters than flow more freely for less money. Catco makes their heat shield out of aluminized sheet metal, which is an excellent conductor of heat. So it does not adequately protect your transmission from the heat that radiates off the converters. They use inferior ceramic fiber packing our the substrate, so they rattle loose over time. They are also no more high flow than anything else, in fact less so than amany other brands, since little attention is paid to smooth transitions to allow the gases to pass through the catalyst properly. The result is that the gases billow within the can before they go through the brick and this creates backpressure that is not needed. The air needs to be able to flow smoothly, but the abrupt size changes prevent that from happening.

I don't mean to sound like I am bashing them, but the simple fact is, Catco makes just average converters. There is nothing special about them versus everything else on the market. In fact they have some disadvantages versus a lot of competitive products, and most of it is related to their efforts to make their converters less expensive. They compromised build quality for price. And despite this, they are still not the best value.

The best value is a converter that has technologically advanced washcoats applied to the brick, has all stainless steel construction, the best warranty, and attention to flow. I suggest you look around before deciding on a Catco.

 

Catco is just as you say - really no better or worse than the average cat. I suggested them for the simple reason they are a name most can find easily and cheaply for a standard build and not get talked into something by a shop they really do not need that would cost twice the price. I've run Catco's for years on stock to lightly modified engines and put 100,000+ miles on them and not had problems out of them yet. Yes, they are a standard off the shelf company, but unless someone is getting into more than stock/light mods conditions, they would work for their application.

I do disagree though that you cannot run true duals on an Explorer in a positive setup. I am in the process of building one for my Explorer now. The problem is to do it in a way that will be beneficial, you have to leave the spare tire off - a simple thing many are not willing to do (and for good reason). In a position such as mine where I do not necessarily need the spare, you can build a true dual setup and see a benefit for it - especially if you do not have a stock engine and are supercharged. The setup I have now is (2) Catco's (one on each side) coming into a 50 Delta FM, then singling 3" out. The cats are farther back than in standard position and I had to move the rear O2 sensors back because of it. It is not the setup I wanted at the time, but then I could not afford to drop the spare. In any rate, I have not had any problems pulling the O2's even farther back than they were stock. I have not had to tune differently to accomodate the length or distance in that case.



off topic...

Bear River, I notice you are in Utah. I might stop by sometime to see what you have available as I will be needing some things when the X is back and I finish the setup I am doing.

 

Do you suggest ordering wheels with tires already mounted? I've been to a couple wheel/tire shops and for some reason they are apprehensive about putting wheels on my model Explorer. One shop said they wouldn't put on ANY new wheels and the other gave me two options for wheels...needless to say I declined.

Obviously if I ordered wheels with tires already on them...I could put them on myself.

As for lowering it a couple inches: The place I need to go to is an alignment shop? I was under the impression that I would need to buy lowering springs, but from what you wrote it seems as if I won't.

 

Many shops are apprehensive about putting anything on an Explorer that does not match stock size, etc. It is a shop issue and not one for an Explorer. You will see thousands of Explorers with different wheels. I would keep shopping around with different shops and see what you can find. Talk to them about what they sell, what services they perform, etc, etc. You can 'usually' find better deals on wheels and tires on the net, but many times you can find a shop that will make you a good deal also. I've done business with Les Schwab lately and they have been superb on deals and service I needed done.



No, on a 2wd you do not need different springs. A torsion twist is all you need to do. Takes me around 5 minutes to lower the front on an
Explorer...

An alignment shop can do all the lowering work for you. Anytime you mess/change something having to do with the suspension/ride height, you need to have the alignment checked.

 

Haha want to make a trip to TX soon? Thanks for the information. Nice to know I can cross an expense off the list.

Do you know if wheel/tire shops will fit tires to rims I bring in? I'd say the chances of me buying wheels on the internet rather than in a shop are about 99%. I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy to find tires that will fit, choosing which wheels I want is another story so... if I buy wheels on the internet and take them to a shop to buy tires, would they put tires on them and put them on the truck?

The wheels/tires issue doesn't seem too complicated, but I'm still undecided on what to do for increasing the sound. Headers are expensive, but that certainly doesn't disqualify them. How much louder would it be with the monster torque headers (since apparently that's the best kind)?

For the removal of the 4 cats (and replacing 2 of them with aftermarket cats)...where would I get that done? I imagine I would buy the 2 cats online and take my truck somewhere to get the work done. Will a muffler shop do this type of work, because I had a great experience where I got my previous work done.

 

I wouldn't mind coming to Austin... Haven't been in a while (I''m originally from TX)...

Yes, you should be able to find a shop that would mount tires to wheels you bought elsewhere. That shouldn't be a problem.

Getting the sound on the exhaust you want is hard for me to say over the net. I know what tone and volume I like and what I consider loud, but that could be totally different and not enough to you.

If you have a shop you have had good service through and liked the job they did, I would start there and see what they say. Whether or not they will cut your 4 cats off and only replace it with 2 or whatever - that is another story. Some will do it, some won't. There are a lot of emissions laws and other factors that are federal and state specific, so that is something you will have to check around for. 5 years ago I could give you a name of a guy that had a shop in Dallas that was perfect, but he has retired and moved on.

Talk to some of the local shops and see what they will do for you. Then come back here and let us know what they say. I know we have some other members from Texas here - plus there is the Texas Chapter. I'm sure someone is around your area and can recommend good shops for you.

 

Well, I like my cars/trucks to be really loud. I'm a huge mustang enthusiast so that influences my thoughts on how a V8 should truly sound.

Thanks for all the help! Hopefully I can get some work done soon and show you just how it turned out!


Edit: Come back to Texas, you know you miss it!

 

You noticed I put a condition in my statement of reliably running true duals. The catch is the O2 sensor location and configuration. If you have seperate front O2s for each bank and seperate rear O2 for each banks, running true duals is easy. Still don't know of any real benefits other than the sound, but its fairly simple to do.

If you have only one front O2, or a single rear O2, then it gets more complicated. Which setup you have depends on the year and the motor. In general, if your vehicle has only one monitored converter bank (the single rear O2 sensor setup) you have to go with a false dual or an X-pipe.

 

Yes they will. Just don't tell them they are for an Explorer. Just have them mount the tires and put them in the back of your Explorer. Then you can put them on when you get home.

The reason tire shops won't mount anything but stock tires/wheels is because of the infamous Firestone problem of 6 or so years ago. Shops are afraid they will be sued if something happens.

 

Thanks! Alright that would work, but I wouldn't be able to put them in the back...subwoofers are taking up a lot of space