Intakes and valve covers

[Dirt Rooster]

Howdy ranger enthusiasts,

I'm finally dipping my toes into the automotive world after 29 years on the earth, 10 spent as an aircraft mechanic. I have found myself a pristine 2000 ford ranger with a few aftermarket upgrades, overall a great ride. I've also found myself a 2000 explorer shitbox to steal an engine from. So far, I've pulled the 5.0 like a caveman with the help of my impatient side and a sawzall. I've disassembled it and everything looks better than expected. My plan is to rebuild this engine using a few non-stock options.

My main question for this thread has to do with valve cover height and intake options. First off, I would love to transition to roller rockers in my valve train. How much difference it makes, not sure but the setup seems to make more sense to me. With the rockers I've been looking at, it looks like it requires a bit taller of a valve cover. Does anyone know if a taller valve cover would interfere with anything in the engine bay? I'm expecting a bit of a tight fit near the heater box but I'm just not sure. I'd imagine taller valve covers might mess with my intake manifold as well, which brings me to my next question. I realize I might be able to get away with an intake spacer of some kind, but what if I wanted to swap the entire manifold to something of my choosing? Would going away from a stock manifold be a "PITA" to deal with as far as rigging up the air inlet tubes, throttle cables, etc?

I really appreciate the experience I've seen on this forum so far, thankful for any help given.

FYI, the valve covers I'm looking at are summit P/N SUM-G3322. 3.9 inches tall on the outside measurement.

 

[19Walt93]

Before spending a bunch of money I'd make sure it will be street legal in your state when it's done. NH uses the Gordon Darby OBD II testing system on anything 96 and newer. If you put a stone stock 2000 Explorer V8 into a Ranger and kept every bit of the emissions equipment, it wouldn't pass because the VIN on the registration wouldn't match the PCM. Obviously it would still meet the emissions standards but that wouldn't be good enough.
Assuming the EPA isn't leaning on your state, it seems like you have an ideal donor. I run roller rockers in my Mustang under Ford Motorsport finned aluminum valve covers, I had to rework the oil baffles and run 5/16 thick valve cover gaskets. Taller covers should fit your truck easily, I have a 351 in my 93 with 1.7 roller rockers under 70s'/80's steel covers. I believe the Explorer intake should make decent power but you'll want a little more cam- at least a stock Mustang cam if not something a little bigger- and that will mean different valve springs. I think a 2000 Explorer came with GT40P heads so header or manifold choices may be limited. The first Explorers with "P" heads used really restrictive tube headers, the next year they got manifolds that still looked odd but flowed better.

 

[Dirt Rooster]

Okay, cool. Thanks for the info! Thankfully I live in a free state where emissions aren't a thing (at least in my county). That's good about the valve covers, I do like the idea of using the roller rockers over the plain bearing ones. I also do have the GT40P heads. It seems to make finding the right exhaust headers sort of a nightmare, between not knowing what will fit in the ranger on top of the limited selection for the P's. I do plan on sticking to the P heads if possible though. If I can get a new intake manifold that would be ideal; as long as it's not too much work routing everything around and to this new intake. Like I said, pretty new to the car world so I'm trying to learn.

 

[rubydist]

The only issue you should have with somewhat taller valve covers is that you may need a spacer between the lower intake and the upper intake manifold. Fortunately, these are not expensive and easily available, and also tend to help low rpm torque.

The stock Mustang GT cam is not really any better than the Explorer cam, so finding a B303 would be a much better choice unless you want to go to a custom cam grind. The GT40P heads have very weak valve springs so those need replaced no matter what you do with cams.

 

[19Walt93]

There's a tremendous difference between an Explorer and Mustang cam- the Explorer has about a 118 degree lob separation and the Mustang has a 110 separation, that makes a drastic difference. If you're going further, I'd pick the E303 cam over the B303, more likely I'd end up with something from Comp.

 

[rubydist]

Walt you are right about the E303 being much better than a B303 - I fat fingered that when I put it in.

However, you are wrong about the Mustang cam - the stock Mustang GT cam has 115 degree lobe separation which is too much for a 302, that is why the E303 is a better choice. The E303 has 110 degree lobe separation.

 

[Tech-man]

I used Motorsprt valve covers on my build, Explorer intakes with a 3/8" spacer. A 1" spacer was too much, the upper intake was hard into the wiper motor. Even with the 3/8" spacer its very close to the wiper motor. I drilled and tapped the pcv ports on the bottom side of the upper that hang over the driver's side valve cover. All good now.