By Mishimoto Cooling Upgrades for the Ford F-150
If you’ve been following along with our F-150 project build, we just did our twin-turbo upgrade and installation; if you haven’t seen that, check those articles and videos out. We did a CRP Engineering twin turbos stage 3 and we did a full installation guide so you can see how those went in. We’re about ready to tune, but we did some data logging using our SCT X4 and our new SCT Livewire Data Monitor and it looks like our intake temps were way too high for us to push any sort of serious power. These turbos are capable of over 500 wheel horsepower and we want to push it to around 450 wheel horsepower. We’re not trying to push to the absolute limit; we want good solid reliable horsepower and it can definitely do 450HP, but with those intake temps we were gonna have a problem. It was time to focus on some cooling stuff, so we turned to our friends Mishimoto–a big name in cooling–and they make a ton of great products for the 3.5L EcoBoost in our 2015 F-150. We’re going to talk about what those products are now, and of course, you can purchase all your Mishimoto products plus over a million other top name-brand products at Motoroso.com where you can reach us on live chat or you can call us toll-free at 1.833.MOTOROSO that’s 833.668.6767. Let’s dig in.
VIDEO: MISHIMOTO COOLING UPGRADES FOR THE ECOBOOST F-150
The Intercooler
When it comes to generating colder intake temps on a turbocharged engine, the key is an upgraded intercooler, and the Mishimoto intercooler for the 3.5L EcoBoost comes in a variety of formats. You can buy just the intercooler or the full intercooler kit which includes all the cold side and hot side piping. We recommend that because the stock piping is plastic, rubber, and silicone hoses, whereas all of the piping that comes from Mishimoto is all aluminum. It’s stiffer, it’s going to hold up to temperatures, and it’s also going to hold up to that higher boost PSI. You can also get the piping in polish or black so it looks really cool under the hood, and you can get the intercooler itself in black or silver.
When it comes to performance you’re going to get a 10-degree drop in overall intake temps because of the 77% increase in internal volume and 160% increase in the external fin volume, helping this intercooler get those temps way down.
The whole thing is made out of aluminum versus your stock intercooler which has really cheap plastic side caps which can actually fail as well and create boost leaks. This Mishimoto intercooler upgrade is going to make sure you maximize boost and get that air colder going into the intake, and comes with Mishimoto’s lifetime warranty.
Racing Thermostat
The intercooler is going to cool down the air going into the engine, but we also wanted to focus on the coolant system itself. Instead of doing a full radiator, which we’re not sure we need to do yet, we decided just to go with Mishimoto’s Racing Thermostat. The thermostat is designed to open up at 160 degrees rather than the stock’s 190 degrees and just getting that thermostat open 30 degrees earlier is just gonna help keep the whole system much cooler.
Expansion Tank
In addition, and this one’s a little bit vainer, we’re also installing Mishimoto’s Expansion Tank. It doesn’t really have a ton of performance gains but it’s just going to look way better than that big ugly plastic tub that sits at the front of the engine bay.
Oil Catch Can
In addition to all these cooling upgrades, we’re also going to be installing an oil catch can system. This is to solve the problem of blow-by which a lot of EcoBoost engines have a problem with. Blow-by when oil gets past the piston rings and gets in the air that’s going into the turbos which can cause everything to break down much quicker. The oil catch can from Mishimoto is a direct factory replacement system, has quick disconnect fittings, and is an easy install, but the key here is that it has two cans. These two cans solve the problem on the PCV and the CCV side making sure you don’t have any oil going anywhere in that entire system. Additionally, it’s a 12oz can which provides a much longer service time on your service intervals since it can hold quite a bit of oil. If you ever fill this thing up, you’re getting a lot of blow-by and you may want to get that serviced sooner rather than later.
So we’re going to get all this stuff into the truck, then we’re going to be able to tune it, and we’re really excited to start making power. When you’re ready to shop for your mods check us out at Motoroso.com you can reach us there on live chat and you can also call us toll-free anytime at 1.833.MOTOROSO. Thanks for reading.
