99 explorer 302 for Gen 3 coupe

[Jeff Kleiner]

I believe it is a cost effective way to get a good base to start with. I'm using a 5.0 HO from a 96 Explorer in my MK4 build. (Keeping the EFI) Picked it up at the junk yard for only $300. The parts for them are plentiful (stock and performance) and switching to a carb is not that difficult from what I understand. As mentioned before, the GT40 intake and heads are sought after stock parts and you could offset the cost by selling them.

Risk is you can't be sure what your getting from the junkyard until you open it up.

Note that the GT40p heads did not come into use until midway through the 1997 model year. Up to that changeover the Explorer 5.0 used iron GT40 heads; better flow than the E7E head from 5.0 mustangs but not as good as the P. Due to the different spark plug angle the P head can pose header clearance in some cases. Tere is a lot of misinformation regarding the Explorer intake; it is often touted as being equal to the GT40 and Cobra units however the numbers say otherwise.The '93 & '94-'95 Cobra intakes, as well as the GT40 flow ~11-12% more than the Explorer on average. Here are some numbers from flow testing Edelbrock did on the various OEM intakes some years ago. The first 8 numbers are each runner, the bold number is the average.

Runner CFM
Intake 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, Average

Mustang "H.O." 5.0: 123 140 142 145 119 139 133 150 136

Explorer: 169 180 176 180 177 177 183 183 178

GT-40: 186 202 202 204 182 197 198 201 197

'94-'95 Cobra: 184 200 197 198 186 206 206 207 198

'93 Cobra: 187 203 200 200 188 206 207 208 200

That said either version of Explorer head and the intake offer some improvement over the 5.0 Mustang pieces.

Hope that helps clarify things!

Jeff