Hurst Pro-Matic shifter from Craigslist. Has PRND21 which matches the 4R70W pattern since O/D is locked out with a button on the dash. The giant hole below the shifter is from the old 3-speed floor shifter and is now patched, though it was helpful for fabricating shift linkage for the NP205!

Hurst shift cable mounted to the transmission lever with the end of the stock Bronco carburetor linkage welded to a nut that fit the cable. The fixed part of the cable mounted right to the stock 4R70W cable bracket.

Bosch 69100 fuel pump mounted low to feed off the carburetor style sending unit. WIX 33270 150 micron filter (screen) before the pump and GKI GF3896 10 micron filter after the pump. The GF3896 is for a 95 Ford Probe and is nice because it has 5/16" barbs and it came with the mounting bracket. Pump has a Dorman 800-945 fitting to adapt input to 5/16" barb and an M10x1.0 to 5/16" barb fitting from eBay on the output. Pump is mounted to the aluminum plate with an OEM rubber isolated frame pump mount from a late 80's Bronco.

Full engine bay harness from the Explorer. Starting to peel off the tape to see the rainbow inside.

Chomp! Cut the main harness just past the relay box, which is in the area behind the driver's headlight. Removing the harness from the Explorer past that point is not required but I do it because I cut the whole front clip off to make it easier to remove the engine.

Ahhh, scary wiring! This is after cutting off the 3 firewall connectors. Lots of wires can be removed at this point because they went from the firewall connectors to the big harness cut so they are now cut on both ends. I leave the 7 wires going from the big fuse box (PDB) to C115 since they're about the right length and less splicing is gooood. FYI, C115 is the big connector to the right that connects all this wiring to the back of the engine.

These are the wires I removed from C115 because they are not needed. It's cleaner to remove them rather than cut them and I can put one back if I screw up and realize it was needed after all. To remove them, remove the red separators with small needle nose pliers then use a tiny flathead screwdriver to gently pry the tab on each wire to be removed.

Getting less scary! The 7 circuits left in place are in the split loom tubing. The big bundle of wires in the yellow zip tie are extras and could be removed but I just yank all the fuses and tuck them behind the inner fender for future use. The wires at the top coming from C115 are 17 wires that must be spliced and 3 of those are grounds. At the bottom right are the heavy black 12V supply from the battery (typically at solenoid connector), dark green/yellow to the fuel pump, big yellow wire to feed the ignition switch and fuse panel, and then a yellow/white wire that I accidently cut and will be spliced back to C115.

PDB mounting bracket cut and welded on backwards so that it mounts downward and the box sits over the bracket. To the right is the C115 mounting bracket I cut up and welded to the EGR heat shield so that C115 now mounts to the engine rather than to the firewall.

The 3 grounds from C115 ground to the old voltage regulator ground. I wire wheeled the metal bare then covered it in silicone grease to get a good connection and hopefully prevent corrosion. The big black/yellow wire used to go to the 302's alternator and now routes over the engine to the big yellow wire at the PDB. The green/red wire from the voltage regulator provides RUN power to the purple/orange wire going to C115 and to the green wire I added which will go to a RUN/START relay shown in a later picture.

We used a piece of a broken aluminum yard stick to move the P/S reservoir down and back. It wasn't quite enough so we had to take a notch out of the cap. Ha!

The EGR solenoid was too high (surprise, surprise... do a body lift first!) so we took the mounting bracket and flipped it 180 which moved it down plenty. Easy.

We took the MAF out of the airbox and mounted it to the fender. With a little help from the heat gun the 3" Spectre intake boot slid right over the MAF and air tube and we used a second boot and 3" elbow to connect the air tube to the throttle body. The stock wiring reached the MAF and IAT sensor just fine.

The air filter came with the plate and gasket that mounted right up to the MAF sensor. Search eBay for "air intake adapter MAF ranger 4.0" and it should be about $20.

We'll have to figure out a solution for the fan shroud since the fan is almost completely outside it. I've read that a fan clutch from a 2007 Chevy Trailblazer 5.3L fits and will push the fan further into the shroud so that might be the easiest method.

We used the Explorer's throttle cable but it angled upward into the hood too much so we cut the lower mounting ear off the bracket and cut off a section and then welded it back on. This reduces the movement range of the throttle lever so we might have to space the cable out from the bracket 1/4" or so if that is an issue.

The oil filler ran into the intake tube and I just happened to have a Buick 3.8 sitting on the shop floor and its lower radiator hose was the perfect size to fit the filler tube! It had a ~45 degree bend in it and it worked perfectly. We rarely get this lucky cobbling stuff together! The hose specs say it's 1 9/32" diameter and it should be a Gates 22373.

Another shot of the radiator hose attaching the filler tube.

Nearly finished. We were going to keep the A/C lines for potential future use but we're going to yank them since they clutter things up. A little more wire management and it'll look pretty nice!

These 3 connectors were originally in the engine bay.

The 4-pin square connector is used for the black/red wire to the reverse lights and also the red/blue START wire from the ignition switch. The other two wires are capped.

The 3-pin red connector (C-21 is used for the Grn/Wht wire to the oil pressure gauge and the Red/Wht wire to the temp. gauge. The heavier wire is not used.

The single pin connector is RUN power used for the alternator light, overdrive switch, and overdrive cancel LED.

The orange and green wires running horizontally are the 12V and ground wires for the OBD2 port.

Overdrive cancel switch and LED. There was a big hole here already so in it went. The LED has a faint glow even when not activated so a bulb indicator would be better. A series resistor would likely also work.

This is the alternator charge light and it does need to be a bulb rather than a LED, preferably with a 470 ohm resistor in parallel in case the bulb burns out.

OBD2 port (AKA DLC) for diagnostics. It has 3 wires from C115 and then a power and ground wire. Laying on the floor are the check engine light wire that we didn't bother hooking up and the tachometer wire for future tach use. Both are from C115 behind the engine.

Eight lonely fuses, two relays, and a diode are all that's left.

Since the Bronco doesn't have a true RUN/START circuit from the factory, we created one with a bridge rectifier and a relay. Two individual diodes would work instead but the bridge is easy to mount. The diodes keep the RUN circuit from activating the START circuit and vice versa. The only thing that needs RUN/START power is the Red/Lt Grn wire that feeds the PCM relay in the fuse box and the ignition coils via C115.

The Explorer starter solenoid coil grounds through its case so we removed the paint from the wheel housing underneath it. Also grounded to the mounting stud are the fuel pump, PCM relay, and RUN/START relay. The green ground goes to the ODB2 port. I don't trust the ancient Bronco body for grounding duties!

This still needs a little cleanup but it's just a busy area for wiring. C115 splits into 3 groups here:
-The 7 factory circuits to the PDB
-The wires through the firewall to the dash area
-To the passenger fender area: the 3 C115 ground wires, RUN wire from the old voltage regulator to C115, and big ignition switch black/yellow wire that splices to the big yellow PDB wire.

The rest of the rainbow spaghetti is just the wires from C115 to the engine and from the engine to the PCM that's mounted in the firewall and none of those are touched.

Arial view of the PDB. These wires now have split loom protecting them. To the right of the PDB you can see C123 which has the Yellow/White PDB constant 12V wire to the alternator and the Lt Green/ Red wire that goes from the alternator to the dash charge light. This connector is 4-pin but some models had an 8-pin version.

We had cut a section out of the throttle bracket at the bottom and weld it back together to clock the bracket down so the cable didn't point up into the hood brace. It did reduce the throttle travel so that the throttle body only opens to 88% of WOT. Probably fine but spacing the cable out from the bracket 1/8" or so could get this back to 100% if deemed necessary.

The finished product! It turned out fairly clean but it sure would've made sense to paint the engine bay before we dropped the 5.0 in. Learn from our mistakes!

We were adjusting the shift linkage when a cloud of stinky smoke came out from under the hood. We feared the worst since it looked to have come from around the firewall area and tracking down a wiring issue that would kill the PCM would take forever. Luckily, we noticed strange orange burnt particles near the coil packs and we then realized this coil pack had spit its guts out the bottom. The key had been "ON" for about an hour while we were working on the linkage but I have no idea why it would do this, unless maybe we cracked it while making the coil bracket. We swapped the coil and put in a new fuse and she roared to life!

The test drive was awesome! This thing flies compared to when it had the 302 and C6. It even leaves rubber across peak torque in first gear. Skurrr!