Whats the main difference between the two?

 

Bottom intake cobra and GT40 is the same (also the same as the 97 and earlier explorer intake), the tops are different. There are some minor differences in the lower that pertain to flange thickness and whether there is a boss on the #5 runner for the ACT sensor.

The uppers are very different. The GT40 is welded together from smoothly bent tubes and a sheet metal bend. The cobra is supposed to have the same internal dimensions as the GT40 but is a forged, 1 piece upper design. The cobra intake has casting marks and imperfections that supposedly don't exist in the GT40, thus making the GT40 have slightly better overall flow numbers. However, the cobra can be cleaned and ported to flow better b/c it does have the extra material (of course a stocker can be ported to flow better also with some welding and grinding). GT40s look cooler in my opinion too. As a side note, the Explorer intakes are popular and usually cheaper than both. You'll want to make sure they have the internal EGR provision for fox throttlebody/egr plate setup or you'll have to run an external 94/95 type of egr or just block off egr all together.

There used to be a "sticky" in the 5.0 section of stangnet that had flow camparisons and dyno graphs for all the 5.0 intakes. Link doesn't look like it works anymore.

 

thanks good stuff

 

We need a good 302/351 intake manifold sticky for here.