I just bought a 04 f150 heritage 2wd 5 speed with the 4.2 and I was just wondering what are some good first mods to do to either increase power, mpg or just overall looks? Thanks in advance!!!!

 

With a 4.2 I'd go with a Vortech Blower. Decide if you want to slam or lift it. Nothing really increases MPG greatly.

If it were me, I'd start with wheels & Tires, new Headlights, ditch the Step, make sure everything was mechanically sound then put a Vortech on it.

I'm rarely a fan of the chrome grille surround so I'd change that out too.

Start where every want though.

 

Man thats a nice looking truck!- personally, im a purist, so other than the normal maintenance items, and maybe a set of split spoke heritage rims, i would drive it and enjoy it!!

 

Purchased a truck like that for my daughter. Heard they're capable of decent mileage, - the truck she had the majority of time had worse mpg's than the my 5.4L and the 5four was in a SC 4x4. Not sure what you can do there other than drive as easy as you can. That little engine (based off the 3.8L) has to work hard to get that truck going, so good mpg's may be out of the question. I suggest keeping the maintenance up, keep the original cold air intake system and also clean the MAF by hand. Don't fall for the hype and hose it down w/MAF cleaner, -clean by hand. Also don't believe the MAF wires are fragile, they are far from it. You would have to go out of your way to damage them.

Use Motorcraft plugs and the best wires you can find. Also update the O2 sensors. ALL of them , not just upstream if you want good mpg's. The rears ARE NOT just cat checkers. That has always been serious BS (bad info) in the past that people ran with lol. You'll see a lot of those posts.

You can make it look any way you want, so I'll leave that open since I don't have a clue about what your looking for specifically. Increasing power lol. It's a 4.2L lol. If you want power why on earth did you purchase that truck lol. For same price, you could of easily purchased one with a V8. They are all about the same in price. One with a 5.4L might have been a little more, but that's about it. If you were looking for the best in that, that would of been a older lightning, but yea they are at a premium. Well most of them, I just seen a lightning go for 2500 down the road from me. It was rusty though. Engine was original, just looked weathered.

That one I'd leave alone and keep it running good. Since you can't change platforms, - Essex vs Modular easily, your sort of stuck with what you got. My daughter sold hers and went with a V8. She needed to pull a trailer though.

 

nice looking truck, I'd leave it be.

my 02 ex cab 2wd auto v6 did 19 mpg average
best I ever got was a trip to southern Illinois, 23.2 mpg
on the way home I pulled a 17' boat and got 22.4
that was on the interstate doing 75

I should have never traded that truck off.

 

You had much better luck with yours. I updated everything on that truck, it only had 70,000 miles and super clean. 12mpg's was it's better. Attempted trailering 3500 lbs thought it was going fall apart or burn up the trans. Turned the truck around and put a for sale sign on it. Didn't realize how terrible they could be. Let her use my truck for awhile then found her a F250 for a replacement. So much more truck, but about the same mpg's. It would make a good grocery getter though...IMO.

 

Flareside bed, lighting head lights, honeycomb grill, and a lower valance with fog lights.
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