Stumpalump

Turn the bass to half and crank up the volume. You are overdriving the preamp stage with all that bass stoping the main amp from doing it's job. It should sound clear at full volume and then just back it off a tad for the cleanest sound. Try setting it to your ears by not looking at the bass level and you will be suprised at how well a factory radio can be tuned. Volume up and tone controlls down.

I haven't notice too much glare comming off the dash. Did you or maybe a detail shop put Armor All on the dash? Thats a big No-No. If you think it may have been coated then look into how you can get it off. Alcohol? I know mineral spirits wont hurt the plastic dash but that stuff stinks. Try a scotch bright pad on the dash to scuff up the shine before you paint it but if you do paint it then paint it a flat color for sure.

One more K&N story. I meet a K&N rep at an off road trade show. We discussed the air filter competition and the conversation turned to oil filters. K&N also makes the best oil filters if you race. They have a thicker can material and a nut on the end drilled for safty wire. The wire is required by some of racings santioning bodys. I use them on my off road rigs because the can can withstand a little more abuse like a rock ding or a broken driveshaft hitting it. The K&N rep told me that a Mobil One filter has the same exact filter material inside the can and if you want the best filter for a car then buy the Mobil One filter and save some cash. Preety cool of a K&N rep to be so honest. I've noticed that my Mobil One oil stays clear for many more miles of use with one of the mentioned filters.

Lots of folks are out there trying to knock off the world leader in aftermarket air filtration. I've used them on go-carts, dirt bikes, boats, jeeps, trucks and cars for ever. One failed from using a non aproved cleaner. My best results came from running one on a modified Honda XR-250 dirt bike. We ran hard for days in extream dust. That thing had 1/4" of crud on it but to my suprise cleaning it had no effect on performance. The oil wicks out onto the dirt actually making the dirt part of the filter. Moral is to not clean them. I put one in the wifes car with RTV silicon to seal the box up. The car had 80K on it so unless it sees 150k I'll never unseal the box. One thing I have noticed over the years is that new K&N filters have less oil from the factory on them. I allways add a quick light coat of extra oil. Some folks have run K&N on modified engines in a stock smallish airbox that will cause too much air to be forced thru the filter. This will pull some oil and possible dirt thru them. The modified Duramax turbo crowd had this problem. I still say they are the best but watch out for some that come with an aditional piece of foam sealing tape. They use the tape to make a particular filter fit more than one airbox. Bad plan, bad design and shame on K&N for selling a fitter that needs foam tape to get it to seal in the box properly. The Edge allready has from the factory a provition to add cold air. If you pop out the side tube that breaths hot underhood air you will find a perfect oval port. Just so happens that standard dryer duct fits perfecty. Run this duct straight down to the fog lamp delete cover opening or if you have foglights then cut and make a small ram air flap just under and behind the air dam. Instant cheap direct cold air induction. Some have laughed at my design (Lex) but it works great. You could spring for the nice aluminum dryer duct or shop the aftermarket for somthing fancy. Marine supliers also have all kinds of scoops and vents if you have foglights and want a trick scoop on the bottom. No cold air kit will beat this setup. The factory airbox is more than big enough especialy with a K&N. No need to worry about water because the airbox is also ported to a small behind the grill opening. No vacuum means no water will get sucked up the large duct you added. Still want more?? Remove that large plastic box on top of the boot going to the throtle body. Plug the ports even with the boot to smooth airflow. Holesaw on plywood makes quick plugs but just make sure you buy new clamps and seal it all well with RTV. The black box is nothing more than a noise muffler for the intake. It causes tubulence in the air stream so smoothing it helps like on the high $$ aftermarket tube style intake systems. Mine is just a well loved beater. It's a company car that is low on the pecking order for mods and is driven hard. I use the free jiffy lube air filters and vinly dryer duct. Driving it like the gas is free because it is too me I get 23.0mpg with the cold air I made for it. Great vehicle!

I've been driving in the mountains and must say that I like the transmission now. If you take it out of overdrive on a long mountain grade it will automatically keep down shifting to maintain your speed. If I crest Vail pass at 60 and kick it out of overdrive then it will downshift to 5th. If I just keep coasting faster it will shift to 4th when it hits about 64. Let her roll and it will shift tio 3rd all by itself to hold you speed constant. It's just like cruise controll holding your speed but keeping you slowed down instead of at speed. Very cool. it works on small hills also so give it a try and you see how it works.

This what I did to fix poor reception if you want that also.http://www.fordedgeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2451 Edit: Link no work so heres a copy and paste: FM reception is garbage . I bent mine so it stands up straighter but I noticed it unscrewed like a regular antenna. A standard length replacement looks like it will screw right on. Auto zone type places stock them. EDIT: I picked up a nice stainless one about 26" from Auto Zone today for $6.99. I had to cut the threads down a little to get it to screw in far enough for my liking but it helped and looks just fine. Not to tall and goofy like I thought it would.

This has become urban legen. Lots of other websites have dicussed this and tried it. From what I have read it adds great benifits to an old engine with dirty injectors and intakes. It seems to help a bunch at first but then the gain stays weather you use acetone or not. It just acks like a good fuel injector cleaner.

Has anybody dove into the transmission controller electronics to see if we can wire in a toggle switch to manually select the gears we want? It would be nice on the long downhills here in Colorado.

Sorry ,just read it two or three times! I left my split mufflers open for a time to reduce back pressure. It was a little loud so I pinched the seams closed. I can tell a sizable difference now that they are all closed up and quet again. I think I will pry them back open a tad to find a good compromise between noise and performance. I hate the noise but like the power. Dangit.

The exhaust comes out of a nice fat header/down pipe. It's then fed to an intermediate pipe that has been flattened and restricted before the flex joint. This would be a nice place to just have a round pipe installed. After the flex joint is a can that looks like a standard muffler. Don't be fooled here! It's 99% straight wide open pipe with three small tiny rows of holes drilled in for some type of small resonance dampaning. It has zero restriction so don't think you can replace it with a high flow muff because it's basically straight wide open pipe. The ehaust then travels back and splits into two mufflers and out. If you look at the pinch seams on the mufflers you can see that you can easily split them open by the y pipe entrance and pull out the packing material. It can easily be pinched back together and tack welded. Very cheap better sounding ,free flowing mod. The wife even said wow when she drove it. Real chezzy but free mod. My next choice would be to straight pipe the restriction under the cross member but go to 2.5" vs factory 2.25" into a 2.5"free flow muff then straight out one side of the back. Use all in 2.5" pipe and a 2.5" flex joint. Add a resonator after you drive it to see if it needs it. Personally I will never do anything for looks so to split a perfectly good pipe into two so you can have dual tips is somthing I can't comprehend but thats me. A muffler shop can do any of this cheaper than any cat back system. The next best thing imho for "looks" would be to straight pipe from the head pipe back to a flex joint and then back to dual muffs in the rear and out. This would be quiet and not much more money if you have a good custom exhaust shop in your area. Search online local muscle car and hot rod clubs for recomendations and then haggle a good price. This would be way cheaper than shipping in a cat back and then having to install it. The most important thing is to not forget a flex joint in any system you use. I don't know if a cat back system has one or not but if they don't include one then steer clear! This engine has a very expensive looking exhaust manifold catalitic converter combination that may cost a fortune. Without any type of factory style or after market flex joint this type of manifold will crack. Don't let a muffler shop rig you up a free flowing exhaust with out one. Or don't let a cat back company sell you somthing that does not include the pipe under the crossmember and a new larger flex joint. Your factory one will be 2.25 " and if you are spending the money to go to 2.5 then you will need this joint also. In summery with a little knowlege and a decent muffler shop in town you can get a great free flowing non cracking system that will be better and cheaper than any after market cat back system available. Or do like me and just mod up what you have to help it out on the cheap. Any thoughts, coments, additions, rants or selling points for a true catback and what they actually include are more than welcome!

FM reception is garbage . I bent mine so it stands up straighter but I noticed it unscrewed like a regular antenna. A standard length replacement looks like it will screw right on. Auto zone type places stock them. EDIT: I picked up a nice stainless one about 26" from Auto Zone today for $6.99. I had to cut the threads down a little to get it to screw in far enough for my liking but it helped and looks just fine. Not to tall and goofy like I thought it would.

Do you have any idea what the factory spring rate is? Do you know what the spring rate of you new springs are? Have you heard of anybody cutting a little of the stock springs? I've done that before with great results and I can have your stock springs if I screw mine up . Right?

I think the ridges that have the most effect are the ones in the air boots and air box themself. Going from a 1 1/4" snorkle to a huge in comparison duct would still be an advantage. Especially since now it's added to a high pressure zone of the vehicle. Any turbulance would still have to go thru the filter, box and stock air inlet boot anyway so I don't think the need for smooth is not as criticle. I guess with the nice 4" port that ford allready gave us a guy could fab up hard smooth pvc pipe with the ruber couplers to fit the air box that they sell in plumbing from Home Depot. By looking at your ride you would want to paint it black and use nice stainless clamps to give it a factory look. I'm afraid what we will get from the after market is a new throttle body air tube with a clamp on cone filter. Maybe some type of air dam so they can call it cold air. They call that cold air but unless the air comes from a point other than the engine bay then the added air gets offset by heated air. Anyway look down the driverside next to the snorkle and see what I mean as far as acessing the good air that you want and if you or sombody comes up with somthing nicer,smother or better then let us know. I may plug my intake muffler ports but I won't spend the money on one of the plastic tube type replacements that will soon hit the market. They want a few hundred for somthing that is really not a whole lot better than modifing what you have. One more thing I learned from the LT1/LS1 crowd is that if you open up the flat spot behind the air dam then it will force air in. The problem is that unless this air is only forced into the air duct then the air coming in will compete with the air coming thru the grill adding a tad bit of drag and compete with air flow thru the radiator. I guess some folks analize this stuff way more than me with just a hunk of dryer duct. For some folks the Edge is their baby and thats OK. They will spend the money and time for absolute perfection. Thats what I do but I have a pecking order on what ride gets what. Jeep, Ford 8n tractor, pickup used to tow Jeep, wifes car then my company Edge. You would think I'd leave the dang thing alone. Never gonna happen!!

I see your home brew struff and I gotta respect that. I mainly build off road rigs where everthing needs to be modified. I guess the dryer duct apears cheezy but you can get real nice metal flexible tubing for the same thing and it would look trick. I'm sure the aftermarket makes some nice duct work for this kind of stuff but I realy just got a kick out of how the extra vinyl duct I had laying around sliped right on and I had great cold air in 15 minutes. Sorry again for the sarcasm but where I hang ( the off road world) we get a ton of smart azz web wheelers that all they seem to add to a discussion is to find faults and twist what you say. Hopfully in my quest to tweek out the Edge I'll find the folks more level headed. Got any performance mods on your mind yet? I see the rig has two nice resonators and twin tips so Im gonna try an aftermarket free flowing muff and leave the rest stock. This will keep the noise down and still look stock. Once I get it broken in I'll fool with tricking the air inlet sensor into thinking it's 20 degrees colder outside. This will change the fuel and timing maps just enough to feel but not really so much as to hurt anything. I'm at high elevation so all you can do to improve flow in and out up helps a lot.

You have 500 post on here and can't see the benifits of CAI? Where do you post in the bling sections? Pop your hood and look at the side snorkle yourself and see how the oval port is just screaming at you to add a fresh cold air hose. The factory even gave you a ton of room to feed the hose right down to the high pressure area under the dam or right to the fog lamp cut out. The engine is a big air pump and the easier it can work to get its air then the less drag it will have on it sucking it in. More effeciency and also more power when you want it to scream. Maybe not for you cruising to the mall but lots of us gear heads out there not only enjoy tinkering with our rides but also like to feel in the seat of the pants what the mods we do did that also happen improve gas milage. Go back to your bling section and check out the latest spinners and when you actually learn to pop your hood and take some time to learn how the most simple modifications will help then coment on performance /gas saving modifications. Here is your first lesson: Why dosn't the factory allready do it if it will help??? Because they are under strict noise emmision requirments. If you take off the intake boot from the throttle body and have sombody push the gas pedal (remember this engine is drive by wire) you will hear how much noise is emmited right out of the throttle body. The air boot to it with it's mufflers and the airbox with it's restrictions are designed to stop as much or all the noise it can. This restriction in air flow is not helpfull to the big air pump your engine is. What little noise that comes out of the grill air feed is blocked by the plastic grill. The noise coming out of the 1 1/4" snozzle on the side is muffled by just having to breath under hood enclosed hot air. It's nice that on the EDGE they gave us the perfect dryer sized opening to make this a simple 15 minute mod and yes you may hear an additional sound of the air entering the throttle body. I did not mention the slight aditional noise because it is almost negligable with the factory air intake boot mufflers left on ( its that big black box mounted on top of the intake boot just before the throttle body) and also the factory air box left in place. You can remove the snorkle yourself and hear what if any additional noise you may get. Here is lesson two: For every 10 degree drop in inlet air temperature you gain about 1% in power. Power gains of this type ussually come with gains in efficiency or gas milage. Since the factory decided to mufffle this sound with restrictions and letting it breath hot under hood air (see air radiating from exhaust and coming thru 200 plus degree radiartor) then you can see that letting it's air from a cold high pressure souce will benifit it's efficency. Lets say you are at idle for a while and your under hood is at 230 degrees. Now we change that air location to outside @70 degress. Thats 160 degree difference or about 16%. This would be best case and it's the kind of numbers you see from the folks that sell CAI kits for other vehicles. Add this up with the benifits of now actually letting your big air pump get air and you can see how this type of mod is a no brainer for us gear heads. Sorry for the sarcasm and I hope I explained whats behind this in a way that makes a little more sense.