Bolt on power adders
 

I have a 93 flareside with a 5.0 in it. What are some bolt on power adders I can do on the truck that won't break the bank. And how easy would it be installing some gt40 heads from an explorer on it and how much power would I gain? There's tons of the 5.0 explorers where I live at the junkyard

I dunno how much hp gt40's will give you, but its noticeable. Long tubes, cam, gt40 (or gt40p's) and hi flow cat will wake it up quite a bit. if you want to squeeze more power, start with gt40p's and mill them for higher compression, run 93.

The only external engine bolt-on worth spending your money on is exhaust, the whole system including headers is worth upgrading. After that the next best upgrade is the cam, that motor should have a roller cam so this upgrade isn't cheap but it will produce substantial HP gains no other changes necessary. The only downside of these upgrades on the 5.0 is it will do little if anything to boost low rpm torque, but that is the nature of this motor.. all the gains come at higher rpms.

I did a vortech supercharger on my '93 5.8 which helped a bunch. The whole kit was ~$2500 IIRC back then. Possibly you can find a used one on the internet?

Yes, real power from a 5.0 comes from forced induction or revving to the moon.

Go forced induction or don't touch it, till you can bolt on real go fast parts, like heads, cam, higher comp ratio, more cubes, otherwise you will grow tired of the bolt on's as quickly as you became tired of the stock power.

What you can do, is go with more gear in axle, get the sloppy auto trans fixed, definitely add some punch and then when you can drop an engine with real power in there, it'll be ready, if that day never comes, the trans will be better either way.

I don't disagree with the above, but the bolt on make normal driving much more enjoyable. The throttle pedal won't feel broken, and be much more responsive (dunno how much so with a slushbox).

I always favor power over gearing.