I finally got around to more tuning of this Ranger & noticed the air intake hose/ pipe looks to be less than optimal. Was full of fuzz & other crud from old filters & patches of gunk. (Cleaned the MAF & its body.) Also looks a bit leaky where Ford slit the ends, which probably isn't too crucial except for dusty gravel driveway. Anyway, if those jet-like nozzles in the middle do something more than quiet the air, I'll search for a new OEM hose. Or do a really good patch job. Otherwise, it looks fun to dabble with alternates for this 2nd gen job. 1st simple notion is to see how it runs with 3" flex exhaust pipe from unaltered MAF's location. Next is as I saw in some ad for a commercial OBD2 CAI setup using a cone filter where "gen 1" battery was. Which on this generation could actually be cool air most of the time. I wouldn't dare spend around $400 on that unless I had a lot more power goodies than duals, but easy to cobble something up.
My main goal is to keep it sensible & well-tuned for hard work. More top end on the expressways would be a blessing, but not at expense of its city use or engine cleanliness.
Any opinion for this older low miles Vulcan?

 

PS, cleaned the OEM hose with a LOT of hot water in laundry tub, so not in a hurry.

 

My opinion on intakes is if you are going to do one, buy a well researched commercial model. I like AFE personally, but Volant makes great ones too. Stay away from oiled filter elements, especially K&N.

 

I'll tend to agree with you about K&N in particular. I have a large cone filter I used to fiddle with. Was never on an auto long enough to put much wear on it. I'm also aware of a long article on MAF linked from Read 1st links above. OTOH, this is a Vulcan long forgotten by those companies like Volant. In any case, anything not oiled filter should be better than what it was. & a simple one probably no worse than a leaky OEM hose. OTOH, that thing looks incredibly sleepy with 2 ~1" orifices in the middle. So a larger smooth diameter could be too slow.
I suppose I could find email addies for Volant & ask about it. The older Vulcan may not be as thirsty as one running E85. It did seem to snap the idle up faster than I've ever heard after the cleaning. OTOH, I can't imagine a 182 CI V6 being happy with such tiny inlets, esp now that I've had a few hours to sleep on it. I'm still going to need to be gentler on the gas this week with an icy day around here. Looking forward to that.

 

I spent many, many hours kicking around the web looking for sources of basic air hoses to fit this thing. The best I found was on a Honda Del Sol forum of all places. I'll admit those things are kinda cool, but I'd probably want a 'Busa in place of the Honda engine. Trade one sloppy bike engine for a better. Or anything non-Honda that would fit. Anyway, he cut up a 180 degree mandrel bend from JCWhitney & painted it with plain high heat ceramic inside & out. It ran almost cold when thier AEM or Iceman intakes were hot to the touch in 70 degree weather. How To: Make your own cold air intake
I also emailed AFE tech FWIW. LMCTruck has nothing useful listed that I could find. I would prefer to keep cost cheap, just want to keep my engine clean, esp after I got laid off from making axles & have time to tinker cheaply.

 

The stock ranger airbox flows plenty of air for a stock tune more or less. If you really want a bump in power, then get a bama engine programer. Bama, an intake and exhaust can get you around 20 extra ponies. The programer is the secert to getting the most from the intake and exhaust as it will adjust air/fuel ratio and timming. Waves did bama with an intake and exhaust on his 3.0 and was pleased with the results, not only pleased, but surprised. I also agree you should get an intake that is engineered for your application, as pipe size, degree of bends, angles all come into play for the most air flow with least amount of resistance possible. Can even speed up flow and change density of in comming air. These compaies do alot of R&D to get you the best results, it is a science to do it properly. I also agree to stay away from K&N as they don't filter as well as some of the others. Also ford mafs don't like oil on them. I've had good luck with AEM brute force intakes with dryflow filters. On my 06 focus st, I picked up 8 hp with the AEM system. With the intake and a tune, I got 15 hp increase. On my 04 ranger 4x4 with the 4.0 and 5 speed manual. I started out with 167 rwhp. I added an AEM intake, underdog pulley, jba headers and a gibson dual sport catback. That bumped me to 179 rwhp. I then installed the bama 93 octane hp tune for a net result of 199 rwhp. That was a 32 hp increase at the wheels. Base line torque at the wheels was 201, net torque gains at the wheels was 246 foot pounds. With the bame I had gotten a total of 32 hp and 45 foot pounds of torque with the other mods. I also used syntheic fluids in the drivetrain, mobil 1 in the engine and royal purple in the tranny, t-case and rear diff. This was done on a mustang dyno, which I hear say isn't the most accurate, but is what they had. I wished that I would of kept the dyno sheets. I wouldn't know how to post them, but I could of sent copies ha ha. I still don't even know how to post pitures, I'm a computer idiot. Anyway, my point is that the proper tune makes all the difference in the world when installing mods on these modern engines. I had the 4.0 cammer engine, but I know there's gains on a 3.0 as well. Waves said his butt dyno felt pretty good on his 3.0 with bama and his other mods. He had most of what I had except for the udp's and headers. They also make udp's for the 3.0. There use to be a guy here on the forum that sold the pullies. He had an online ranger store called jusines modified or something like that. He hasn't posted for a long time. He also was a sponsor here, but I haven't checked the list to see if he still is or not. I had over 2 grand in mods on my 04, I'm not going to get that crazy with my 09. "O YEAH", I had an e-fan as well.

 

Huh, think I need to print this thread for this truck's files. Anyway, with the cleanup, it's driving like a Lincoln. I had to remember to punch it in traffic as I kept marveling at its take-off. I drove it quite a bit today hopping from store to store searching for Toyota parts that my bother's little thing needs. Darn Toyota. Simple job takes a week.
Still, nobody online seems to carry anything of that hose not universal for this particular truck. At least the hose from the airbox to the core support looks as stupid as they ever were & the same dimensions. I even have a spare for that one. This lil buggy may be worth waking up a bit with headers & such eventually. After the cleanup, it seems to have finer low throttle control, so I probably won't squawk it as I did early last month when I was ticked off about something. I ddin't even rev it hard.

 

I would leave the stock hose alone. The "restrictions" in the factory intake are nor for noise reduction, but rather to help build up some speed in the intake. It's probably not the best way to go about it, but a larger intake will not gain any real power if it slows the intake speed down or introduces heat soak.

 

I do figure on leaving it alone except for fixing its leaky ends & a heat soak issue of a rubber pad worn through where it sits above the radiator. That one's easy. Aluminum foil tape is good stuff for that. Sticks better than duck to a duct. Wel foil tape IS duct tape... It's the hose ends distorting that might eventually force the issue. Maybe a booster/ pusher efan would cool it some more after I yank the condenser coil in the Spring. The engine runs well within temp specs whenever I randomly check it via IR gauge near the incoming rad inlet & along the hose, thermostat, etc., although I did get an ECT code last week.
I got an email from AFE tech. Even with the newer Rangers they leave the stock hose alone & he suggested thier stage kit would work fine for me ('98 - up 3.0l). I have no big complaints of Ford's airbox, which that would replace.
I suppose I'll get around to calling up Russ Milne Ford soon.