Rhetorical question, Farley; but why in the wide wide world of sports didn't Ford cast the 5.8 EFI manifolds with the same innards as the 5.0 truck manifold? The 5.0 truck intake is a thing of beauty. Basically a Holley Systemax lower. With a little port matching it should howl.

There's no way the 5.8 intake could feed any kind of performance engine. It's freaking junk.

Surely it has something to do with Uncle Sam and the EPA.

 

Dont know the reason but I do agree. I guess they were just dancing around like a bunch of kansas city ***$@* (I love blazing saddles!) Not a slight to Ford.

 

+2.. classic case of too many chiefs and not enough indians if you ask me. I have long said somebody ****ed up and got the 5.0 and 5.8 intake designs mixed up in production, the 5.0 motor simply can't use the giant intake it has and TQ output suffers as a result. For example the 5.0HO motor has always made more TQ even with a bigger cam, that tells me the truck intake should be more the size of the HO or 5.8 intake. And since both truck motors use the same heads there's no reason the 5.0 and 5.8 versions should be different at all except that the 5.8 lower has to be wider.

Incidentally the Holley intake is widely known in Mustang circles to kill low rpm TQ, they say don't go there unless you have heads big enough to flow 400+hp and even then the powerband is above 3000rpm. Of course that's on a 5.0 and a 5.8 with the same heads will make good power at much lower rpms, so an intake based on the existing 5.0 truck intake would have left a ton of room for better heads and cams.. which this motor needs badly.

 

Hopefully the truck upper helps add a little grunt vs. the Systemax upper because it's what I'm gonna be using the trickle down 302 going into the Bronco.

I have seen some of the Mustang jocks talking about fitting an Explorer 5.0 intake, supposed to be a much better manifold than the HO, etc.

 

Echo echo echo

 

Runner length is about the same on all these intakes, there might be an inch difference one way or the other but that won't really be noticable as per the other thread.

The HO intake is the better match to a 5.0 with stock heads, it will produce more intake air velocity over the usual rpm range and that translates into more TQ. As with all Ford castings the lower is the restrictive part and the front and rear runners flow a bit less because of the kinks in them, but that can be fixed with a little porting.

The Explorer intake matches the GT40 heads really well and porting the lower matches it with with ported heads. These higher flowing parts begin to raise the powerband however with good TQ beginning at 2500rpm on the 5.0 so it doesn't make for a great truck motor unless it has lots of gearing and maybe a high stall converter.

And the data I have seen would seem to indicate the Performer and GT40 intakes deliver almost identical dyno numbers but the Performer produces faster acceleration which is credited to the superior lower intake design.

 

Conaski I have a 351w stock lower will a 5.0 ho upper bolt right together

 

They may bolt together, but the ports are nowhere near a match.

 

You could use the whole 302/5.0 intake if you got a intake spacer adapter.

 

No.. not at all... bolt holes aren't in the same locations.

 

I always wondered about the poor 5.8L EFI intake. I believe that Ford did this because this engine was a truck engine at the time (Late 80's) and there was no "performance" version planned so why design one? Plus it fits in everything Ford installed it in with out mods. As you know the vans get tight in that area. One reason no other intake will fit a 5.8L when installed in van.


As it is I just sold my '88 E250 van so I don't have to "worry" about why anymore. LOL!

 

Is it possible to bore new holes?

I thought there was a guy on the forum who milled out a 351 lowwer to match a 302 upper. I'll see if I can find the thread.

 

Umm, I think it's the other way round. Which came first ? The chicken or the egg ?

 

David did this on his 351W build: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...d-project.html

 

Perfect. I haven't seen this one but I did see the one UNTAMED did. I'm supposed to go get a 5.0 upper today but the weather here in NC is crap so I might wait.