Awesome build! You did a really good job of getting that to fit in there. I heard that using the stock truck manifold does not allow the hood to clear. Did you have any issues with that?

Is your hood going to close with the rad hose up there? I would do the swiss cheese mod to that airbox if you are really stuck on trying to use it otherwise you will be choking your motor out of much needed air trying to feed it through the little intake hole on a factory box. Its hard to tell but it looks like your fan clutch is extremely close to the rad which would make me nervous. Isn't the ford fan thinner as well or is it just the clutch?

No issues with the hood closing at all.

I didrun into clearance issues closing the hood with the intake piping, but ill post pics in a little bit.
I got it to clear though
:)

Yes, because the factory 4.3 A/C hoses were routed along the fan shroud, I took that cue and used a full size truck upper hose that also runs along the fan shroud. No closing issues :)

That's a good point about drilling some holes in the front of the lower air box, sounds like a good idea. I'll do that tonight.

The clutch hub is rather close to the radiator, but it clears. The pitch of the Ford Explorer fan blades also casue the fan blades to sit farther back than my GM one, but my GM fan is 1" larger in diameter and has 1 extra fan blade over the Ford.

The good thing about the wiring harness I got from Current Performance is that I had the harness made with dual electric fan provisions in case the clutch setup was too bothersome.
I ordered a used set of Chrysler Concorde dual fans also just in case.

So I spent a couple hours trying to make all my intake piping and elbows fit, I found a combination that worked:

Attachment 30686
Attachment 30687

Clearance between the fan blade and the 130 degree elbow:

Attachment 30688

Forgot to mention the the aluminum coupler between the 130 degree elbow and the 45 degree elbow was causing hood closing issues, so I ovaled the coupler (with a hammer) and now the hood closes :)

That is bit of a weird looking intake, but hey it works. looks good.

Thx man....in my mind, it's worlds better than an open filter element like I had on my 2WD S10 LS swap....I had blow torch IATs with that setup.