Newb

[SgtKilroy]

Hey guys. Just thought I'd introduce myself. My name is James and I'm a Marine stationed in Southern California. I joined up hoping to get some advice for some mods to the ol' Expedition. Details are in my signature, but I really haven't done anything to it worth mentioning. I'd really like to get some improved gas mileage since my wife drives it about 45 minutes one way to work and back every day, and 12 mpg is killing us. It's definitely a street queen, but occasionally goes offroad when she makes sure the curb didn't run off on a tight turn!
If anyone can point me in the direction of a good tuner I have no problem shipping off the ECM to get it tuned.
Shameless plug: I also have a built AODE out of an 04 F150 4x4 for sale locally if anyone's interested. The wife doesn't want me hotrodding the hell out of her vehicle like I do my Duramax. haha No harm in putting it out there right?

James

 

[Nokturnal]

Edge programmer, gotts mod, a good exhaust system, and a full tune-up should get you some extra gas mileage. Oh and keep full tire pressure, makes a huge difference. You could always add in an electric fan also, little work but huge gains. I have a 4.6l 4wd, gotts mod, straight pipe, full tune-up recently, and I just did a 1000 mile road trip and averaged a tad over 20mpg, all highway. Not too bad for a 216k engine

 

[SgtKilroy]

Wow, that's some good mpg. Which edge programmer should I be looking at? I cut open the stock intake box and added a high flow filter. That seemed to help out some, but I still need to make an intake pipe. I want to cut out the cats (4? wtf Ford?...) in favor of a straight pipe or true duals. I'm just afraid of coding the computer. Will the edge take care of this? Also thinking about headers and/or an intake manifold. Any suggestions in those areas? Thanks for the reply!

 

[Nokturnal]

Wow, that's some good mpg. Which edge programmer should I be looking at? I cut open the stock intake box and added a high flow filter. That seemed to help out some, but I still need to make an intake pipe. I want to cut out the cats (4? wtf Ford?...) in favor of a straight pipe or true duals. I'm just afraid of coding the computer. Will the edge take care of this? Also thinking about headers and/or an intake manifold. Any suggestions in those areas? Thanks for the reply!

I'm pretty sure any of the evolutions will give you the same power, they just have extra little features. You can do some searches on here and f150online or whatever that site is and find plenty of info. As for the intake, doing a gotts mod, removing the silencer, and adding a k&n filter is about the best you can do, open filters dont do all that great in these trucks. As for the cats, you can replace the rear two with pipe and just leave the fronts and you won't have any codes or anything because the computer doesn't even read from the rear two. Headers are great on these motors. If you went with a pair of headers to 2.5" piping through some 2.5" magnaflow cats to an x-pipe then to 3" piping with some 3" mufflers of your choice that's gonna be your best bet. I wouldn't waste your money on an intake manifold, it won't do enough to justify the cost. Pretty much all you can do past intake/exhaust, programmer, and e-fans is going the supercharger route.

 

[Nokturnal]

Oh and just thought I'd throw in, if you are up there in miles, the obvious things (spark plugs, wires, coils, etc) can net you some pretty good gains. I'd change out your fuel filter asap also, if it's real old it can kill you're fuel pump. The weekend I got my Expedition I did a full tune up and the truck went from barely running and struggling up hills to a roaring monster.

I did..

Oil change (synthetic motorcraft, 5w-20 I believe is the weight, sells at walmart for super cheap)
Spark Plugs
Wires
Coils
Cleaned Throttle Body and EGR Ports
Gotts Mod w/ new filter
2-Step fuel system clean (service at walmart)
Fuel filter
Everything above the intake manifold got new gaskets
Cleaned IAC
Added a bunch of lucas injector cleaner and upper cylinder lube to gas


Just some food for thought

 

[SgtKilroy]

I just did a mild tune up. Just replaced the spark plugs, synthetic oil, fuel filter, had to replace both sway bar links (factory ones snapped under normal driving!), and I run sea foam through the fuel and oil on a fairly regular basis. I do plan on making some headers and opening up the exhaust to probably dual 2.5" when I get back from this deployment. I'll probably get an Edge programmer before I go though for the wife.
I know this is comparing apples to oranges, but on my diesel, getting rid of the EGR system worked miracles. Is there any benefit to doing this on a gasser? It would make sense to me that not feeding hot exhaust gasses back into the intake would be a good thing...

 

[WHOISMOOTOO]

JUST SKIMMING THRU THE POST MAKE SURE YOU ARENT IN AN EMMISSIONS CONTROLLED COUNTY IF YOU ARE YOU NEED TO GET SOME "HIGH FLOW' cats

 

[SgtKilroy]

Nope. Registered in FL. No emissions checks. Ever. Are there really 4 cats? Or are two of them resonators of some kind?

 

[Nokturnal]

there really are four on some expys. Mine only has two, but maybe it's cause it's the 4.6? idk, but I do know some expys have 4 cats, but the rear two dont get read so you can remove them if you want. As far as taking out all the emissions stuff, you could do it, but you're gonna have a check engine light for the rest of the life of the vehicle though.