I ended up taking my std xr8 from 15.4's to 14.3's with these mods

Quarterhorse (tuned by me)
Dual 2.5'' exhaust with 2.5'' cats
1.72 yella terra roller rockers.
3.91 diff gears

The car already came with genie e series headers so i didnt need to buy headers, i also played around alot with different fuel types e85,100ron,98ron...

But in the end 98ron made the most power while also running the best time, this of course was over a period of two years.

I believe adding a stally to that would have gotten me a 13.99, none of this is cheap by any standard but you dont have to dump 10g's into your car to have some fun and crack a 13

Sir, you just single handedly convinced me to stick with my Tickford 6 Thank you.

There is a thread on the rival fordforums site by a fellow who is modifying the IRS shock mounts, may be worth checking out?

don't worry about doing a pod filter. Get youself a Edelbrock RPM II manifold. Thats more the intake I was refering to, the actual intake manifold. The explorer you have on there now is an ok bit of gear but there is much better options out there than stock.

A set of AFR 165's will wake it right up, or you could alos go trickflow 170 TW heads.

It all depends on budget. You need to give us an idea of whats in your pocket so we can tailor an answer to suit.

A CF Charger is cheap, but it will cost as much as the car to buy, then tuning.

A set of 1.72 rollers by comparison is cheap, you can pick up a set of scorpions for under $500 from the US delivered.

What are your expectations and budget? Your not going to be able to simply slap on a pod filter and change an exhaust tip and pick up any noticable power. Its a V8. Power costs money.

Just build a stroker for it. something 363ci will wake it right up.