anthony57

I have a 96 ford f150 xlt 4.9l. Has anyone ever built their own cold air intake? Trying to keep it under 50-60 bucks.

unit505

You've got a cold air intake from the factory. If your looking for performance, a K&N drop in or other drop in filter should gain you some MPG's, but as has been discussed here many times, actual HP gains are minimum if at all. I run a warm air intake (taking in air from under the hood) and I love my mpg's (21mpg) and I believe that I gained some throttle response by ridding any of the angled restrictions from the factory cold air intake tube and box.


I use a K&N RF1012 air filter and it has allot more surface area and doesn't have to be cleaned for long periods as compared to the smaller drop in filters. Under hood temps with the 4.9 are no where near high enough to gain any "Cold Air HP". The under hood temps at 45mph are only 10-15 degrees higher than outside air temps. Under hood temps drop to about 5-10 degrees higher than outside air temps at anything above 55mph. You just can't get any better than that. As it stands, the stock intake tube gets air from behind the shielded portion of the grill and headlight assembly. It's still taking in some warm air from the radiator area. Hope this helps. My setup ran about $50 and I truly believe there are gains. The one gain alone is, no more buying paper filters. That should save a considerable amount every year.

If it were me doing it all over again, I'd still do the warm air intake, but I would do the electric fan swap and thermo switch first. I believe that the electric fans provide the 4.9 with the most significant gain out of any of the available mods. Best of all, if you shop the salvage yards, you can grab a set of dual fans for $25 and the fan switch for another $20 and have noticeable performance gains.

anthony57

Can you explain the electric fan swap and thermo switch?

unit505

Well..............theres several ways to go. You can purchase a used dual electric fan setup from almost any mid 90's and up car that was so equipped. I chose a recommendation from another site and went with the dual three wire fans from a Chrysler 300. They fit quite well with homemade mounting brackets that I made from standard metal strap. The controller I purchased from Advanced Auto parts for $17. It has a probe that mounts via rubber inserts into the radiator fins. I do not currently have a working ac on my truck, so I'm running both fans off of the electric fan (thermo) switch. If you have ac, you'll run one fan on the ac switch so you'll have moving air across the ac condenser and the other fan off of the e-fan switch. It'll kick in at a given temperature. Usually about 10 degrees above your thermostat.

All of this sounds complicated, but it's not once you get your hands dirty. Here's a link from a previous post with pics and diagrams included.
https://www.f150forum.com/f10/electric-fan-swap-152094/

You can buy expensive aftermarket electric fans which look cool, but are loud and lack in the area of a usable fan shroud. Generally speaking, factory fans are designed for high cfm and to be quiet at the same time. They also tend to draw less amperage which also helps. Good luck and don't get scared off or talked into spending hundreds of dollars on expensive fans and high dollar fan controllers. My described $50 setup has performed very very well as have others who have used similar salvage yard fans and fin mounted controllers.

Kelton

I just did mine actually, a fan controller and a set of dual fans from a 2000 ford windstar. My fans kick on early, I have them set between 200 and 195 degrees, which is just after the thermostat opens at 190, super simple, and are much more effective. On a hot day, stop and go traffic, a clutch fan in a truck could overheat even when the clutch engages as it should, because its limited to the speed of the crank. I really recommend this upgrade!

Fordboy9

Here's mine, on my 4.9 I made the bracket and bought the aluminum adapter on eBay for $10 I got the blue filter for free from my dads intake on his Colorado. All in all I have about $25 in it, and it will be a lil more when I buy a k&n filter

sylver91

Mine cost just under 50$ to make.

sdmartin65

Unit505 that's a heck of a lot of wiring. Do you have problems with that location when it rains?

Warlockk

Wanted to point out a common problem to watch for with aftermarket intakes. It doesn't effect those of us with speed density systems but for guys with MAF, watch for air tubes with vacuum leaks. I had a Mustang on the computer in class the other day. We were diagnosing poor idle. I tracked a few vacuum leaks but still had one we couldn't find. I set up a smoke machine and pressurized the system. We found several leaks at connectors and a good sized leak where the brand plate was riveted to the intake tube. The leak was post MAF so it caused a lean idle condition. Not enough to throw any codes but enough to mess with short term fuel causing poor idle and mpg. This was a BBK intake, not a eBay setup so check for leaks!

unit505

Nope, I took a piece of black plastic cut from a 5 gallon bucket and made a cover for the controller and it protects it from the weather and makes it look somewhat factory. I'll take a pic of that in a little while and post it. I didn't know what I was doing when I started the electric fan setup and wired in a relay on each fan. One would have sufficed to control both fans since I have no ac at the moment, but it's double protection and when or if I ever fix the ac, I'll have it pre-wired and just have to change the trigger wire from the fan controller to the ac switch, it's right next to the battery and the wiring is very short. I always believe in relays and short as possible wiring. It makes tracing any possible problems easy too.
Edit........Keep in mind, only the wires under the black plastic shroud are for the fans. I've got relays wired for my 400w inverter, my stereo amplifier, my 6" off road lights and my 55w rear work lights. There's allot of wiring and relays under the hood, but again, it's all right there at the battery making any problems easy to trace and repair. So far, I've had one relay failure where one of my fans ran as soon as i hit the ignition switch. The relay was hung. I can't complain since all of my relays have come from the salvage yard. I don't remember where I got the idea, but I've also got a second battery ground pictured that goes to the frame. Had something to do the 3g alternator install if I remember right. Since, at times, I'm pulling 350w from the stereo, 220w from the extra lighting, the e-fans, the inverter, so on and so on, I saw somewhere about adding an extra ground. As you can see, the 4.9 really cleans up good under the hood. There's lot's of room once a few items are moved around and relocated and I could add an accessory fuse and relay box, but it's just more work that I'm too lazy to do.
[IMG][/IMG]
I forgot about the relays for my under hood led work lights. lol
[IMG][/IMG]

Warlaockk, I haven't had any vacuum issues on my MAF 5.0, yet. I'm curious as to which vacuum lines to look out for. I haven't spent the time on my '94 5.0 to really get detailed, but my '95 4.9 has had all of the vac lines replaced when I relocated the vacuum reservoir. I did a warm air intake on my buddy's '94 5.8 as well and can't seem to remember any vac lines that I would have interfered with. Maybe your just talking in general?