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| Pro intake tube fix for less than 50 bucks! |
So I have had a few questions about my ford intake tube for the cheapo shop truck. Hands down it has been the fix that has made the most improvement over everything else we've done to our little truck. With a little time you can engineer one too and save booku bucks by not buying the plastic oem replacement tube.
Early ford engines like ours (EEC IV controls our little 1993 truck) use a Mass Airflow Sensor to measure air into the the throttle body. This measurement is a key factor in determining fuel trim throughout the RPM range and any unmeasured change post air sensor can cause a number of running issues including misfires, rough idle, and poor fuel mileage. Ours had gotten bad enough that it was spitting check engine light with a recurring o2 rich code. Often times the factory plastic intake tube is the culprit for these after-MAF leaks in early ford vehicles (especially rangers and explorers). Replacements do exist, but they are limited to a factory style plastic reproduction tubes and the price tag is well over 200$. Often times It's hard to justify such an expense on a 25 year old truck, just to have it fail again not too far in the future. Even the cheap chinese intake kits cost over 100$ and used multiple clamps to create a janky series of cheap chrome tubes, definitely not our style.
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| Stock leaky cracked junk vs. our garage engineered fix |
Enter the handyman's solution, build your own! The only fancy tool involved in our intake fix is a welder, and because of the light nature of our fabrication any small welder will do. Summit racing got the nod for parts, and the shipping times rivaled amazon prime so we were able to get our little truck back on the road in no time at all!
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| At this stage I just stared for a minute and pretended I was piping turbos.... |
We started with some of the cheapest silicone couplers we could muster. Spectre 8751 (3in to 2.5in reducer) ended up being able to stretch over our 2.75" throttle body snout without issue and Vibrant Performance 12700 would couple our new tube to the MAF bolted to the Ranger's airbox. A single 3" 180 degree exhaust mandrel bend (SUM-623009) would provide more than enough tube to connect the dots. After shipping our cart totaled $48.42, a much more acceptable alternative to 200+ dollars for the off the shelf fix.
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| Tubes cut, fit, tacked and ready for finish welding |
From there it was a simple process of cut,fit,shape,tack and repeat. For more info on working with mandrel kits look here at our jeep exhaust build (How to Build an Exhaust in YOUR garage!). If it's your first time working with tubing angles don't be intimidated. In our rush to get this done before meatloaf came out of the oven NO measuring devices were used and it still fits great!
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| We don't call it Flip Flop Fabrication for nothing |
After finish welding our final little hack for this project was the 5/8" tube for the vent going to the oil cap. I didn't have any tube that fit, nor was I satisfied with a straight tube edge. For it to be proper it would require beadrolling a lip into the tube to retain the hose under any kind of pressure. While there are a number of DIY beadrolling techniques for the home handyman dinner was getting cold so out came a jeep 4.0 water pump inlet tube from the parts pile. The tubing size of the jeep heater hose is identical and the end comes complete with a nice proper beadrolled lip. If you don't have a giant jeep parts pile like I do it is dorman part #56398. It should only set you back a crisp 10$ bill from rockauto and there is enough straight section of tube to fit PERFECTLY where you need it. All finished up, we slapped on some ace hardware satin black and got it on our truck while meatloaf was still steaming.
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| Jeep inlet tube hacked into place |
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| Shiny parts for junky trucks! Don't mind that comanche, its just in the process of getting a mopar 360 swap, but that's for later.... |
Our final intake tube fix is both durable, cost effective, and permanent. The perfect trifecta for the budget minded. Be sure to subscribe for more updates and new project cars coming soon!
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| Back to parts hauling duty with a smooth running 4.0! |
