Howdy y'all.

I about to head out to have a K&N cold air intake installed on my 2011 FX4 3.5L ecoboost. I don't think I'll make it out of the place (4Wheelparts is 1/4 mile away) without also buying a tuner. I can buy 93 octane gas locally so I'd probably do a 93 octane tune. I work mostly from home so gas price isn't a big concern at this point in time. But when I do get out to run errands I want to blow the doors off Mustang owners (not really).

Anyway, the question behind the comments is do these aftermarket parts cause damage to the OEM engines - assuming I'm an older gentlemen that won't be driving like a 22 year old kid? Is the SCT brand tuner good to go? What should I watch out for or avoid? Should I leave well enough alone?

ETA: I won't be hauling anything of significant weight. This is just for a little fun.

I'm just getting bored with my current truck so this little upgrade will keep me from eyeballing a new Kings Ranch or worse.

Thoughts?

Thx.
Jim

I ponder the same question. Every year, automakers squeeze 10 more HP out of the same engine. Unless it’s magic I suspect a simple retune. I would love a tuner that would give me 2-3 MPG improvement without jeopardizing power. I have a 3.5l Ecoboost in a 2018 F150. It has all the poop I’d ever need.
Mike

Anytime you squeeze more power out of an engine, you are putting more strain/wear on not only the engine, but also the transmission and other powertrain components. That is why I left my SVT Lightning stock. There are plenty of guys that have destroyed their engines modifying them.

If you do go the tuner route, it is always better to have a mixture that is more rich than lean on a boosted engine. Detonation will kill an engine in literally a few seconds.

Ford has a tune for my Focus ST 2.0 EcoBoost that if installed by a dealer, reduces the engine warranty to 3 years/36,000 miles from 5 years/60,000 miles.

I have a CAI and tune from Steeda. The CAI made no noticeable difference, the 93 octane tune made a mild difference from 2,500 rpm to 5,000 rpm and a huge difference between 5,000 rpm and 6,500 rpm.

a cold air intake and a tuner is a good bang for the buck for a little bump in power and possibly mileage (depends on how many mustangs you run)

Old info & slightly different application...but I was researching the same stuff for my 2012 F250 6.2l gas.
Looking at some of the torque curves, a cold air intake just made more noise, no real gains and even some losses at a couple of data points.
Exhaust wasn’t much better.
Tuner made the most difference at the contact patch.

I had a 2012 3.5 eco and just got and 18 platinum with the 3.5. Love these motors and a mild tune wouldn’t hurt as these engines are tuned down quite a bit. I say do it at long as it is a reputable setup.

my son got a CAI and installed it and got a Bully Dog tuner with 6 tunes on it from 5 Star tuning for his new F150 5.0
It made a great difference. He said it does not affect his warranty? His aunt sells new Fords, so she "should" know.
I will call 5 star tomorrow to get an SCT X4 tuner ordered along with 6 tunes and a CAI for my F250.
After driving my sons before and after, I am pulling the trigger on my own.

I use Livernois and whatever tuner they offer on my Ecoboost Ford Escape.
It's made a huge difference.
Stock HP is 245, I now have 300.

I did not go the CAI route.

www.livernoismotorsports.com

Guess I got tired of the way the thing looked.

Bought a truck that the previous owner had put a cold air kit in. Took a month or two to find a stock air filter housing and duct for the intake. Supposedly I 'lost' 24 horsepower doing this. The thing was so big, it covered the oil dipstick and half of everything else.

I've been test driving used Mustang Ecoboosts. Some have had cold air intakes added, some have had a bigger down pipe added, but all that have had mods have had a tune. There are a few that have just been tuned. My seat of the butt dyno tell me that the tune is the best thing to do. Marginal differences when the aftermarket parts have been added (even with a tune). YMMV.

Yes. From Livernois.

Of course, my basic suggestion for anyone thinking of modding their engine is to do exhaust before the intake. If they do decide to do the intake, just do a drop-in filter for the stock airbox. Cold air intakes are pretty much a rip-off.

For a turbo application, a drop-in air filter will be fine. But the big thing is that to spin the turbos up quicker, you need to have a freer flowing exhaust. It applies to naturally aspirated engines, too. All engines are air pumps. You want air to pass through as effortlessly as possible and the best way to do that is to allow air to escape more easily.

Thanks for your feedback!

I’ve received so much contradictory info today I’m miffed. They guy at 4Wheel pretty much told me I wouldn’t like it (a SCT) on my specific year and model truck. I’ve never had a technical sales guy tell me not to buy something.

I called several tuner shops and got mixed signals but I suspect they only do high performance stuff.

If I find a sale on an SCT X4 on sale I’ll probably go for it. As for excess strain on the transmission and motor, if I was towing a horse trailer I’d have the same strain on the drive train anyway.

I still need to research other brands too.

I think I could tell a slight improvement with just the cold air intake but it’s hard to tell since I only had a short distance ti Drive. As it is the truck gets up to 70 or 80 so quick anyway.

ETA: sorry for the typos and bad grammar. I can’t find my reading glasses.

I seriously would just recommend going with Livernois. They've already done a lot of work with the Ecoboost engine since its debut and they're a proven aftermarket supporter of the platform. Plus, their customer service is top notch. Once you select a package from them and you receive your tuner, they'll provide free updates to your tune if you make more modifications.

And they've got every modification available for the Ecoboost. From simple tunes to full blown race engines, they've got you covered.

The thing with just a CAI on my car is the CAI draws air from the exact same spot the stock air box drew air from, so it makes zero difference between the stock air box as far as air temps are concerned. It is larger than the tubes that fed the stock air box though and the filter is larger, so it may flow more air.

Besides, how much affect can it have when the motor has an intercooler that cools the air after it has been compressed by the turbo?

There a a lot of things to consider when getting a tuner.
Does it just keep the wastegate closed and raise the boost without adjusting for fuel/air (stoichiometric) ratios?
A lot of “chips” simply overboost and rely on the stock o2 sensor to adjust the fuel. That in many cases isn’t enough, and you can run very lean and very hot.
There is also the efficiency island. Your turbo has an efficiency chart. Finding out how many pound of air (not PSI but actual pounds of air) it can efficiently run, at ~14.7:1.

I didn’t see one available for a ford back to 2011, but Cobb Tuning makes the Accessport with some pretty solid OTS maps. You won’t blow your shit up with one of their OTS maps.

The other thing to consider when adding a CAI with a tuner is on some vehicles (definitely Subaru and BMW) you have to worry about boost creep. Sometimes it’ll spike hard, sometimes it can lag horribly because it’s correcting for the massive spike it just had.

The strain that a tuner will put on the engine can many times be unseen. Overheated cylinder walls, pistons, overpressure drives fuel into the oil and additional oil changes are necessary as the fuel in the oil is a nasty detergent.

Then, there is the Smiles per gallon. There is nothing better than walking out of the tuner ship and having additional horsepower.

I went in with a Subaru that had 235 baseline on a Mustang dyno and left with 342 on the same dyno. My Bimmer had 298 baseline and 414 after. The Smiles per gallon were uncountable on both cars.

A good place to start diving down the rabbit hole (and that’s what it is, a long journey down a deep rabbit hole) is looking at Garret Turbo website. They have a series of turbo tech articles that helped me learn a lot back in the day.

Here’s an article by Garrett that starts to explain air/fuel and the efficiency island.

https://www.garrettmotion.com/...ance/choose-a-turbo/

How to read a turbo map:
http://www.superstreetonline.c...turp-compressor-map/

Compressor size and maps:
https://www.enginelabs.com/eng...zing-a-turbocharger/

Currently, most of the hardware that we used to install on our hot rods for more power is already on the car and designed much better than anything aftermarket you can buy. So for the most part, you get more results from a good tune than any of the basic "bolt on" upgrades you can install. I drive Mazda Miata's and a good tune will get me 15-20% more power while if I install headers, a complete exhaust, intake and lightened flywheel I might get 10-15% and it is more costly than the tune. The trick is finding a good tuner. Tuners tend to specialize in specific vehicles and/or engines. You need to do your research and find one that specializes in your vehicle and brand. If someone tries to tell you then can tune anything walk away. It doesn't work like that. He may be able to tune any vehicle but that is not the same as getting good results. Truly good results will only come from a tuner that specializes in your vehicle. Make sure you get a corrected dyno both before and after the tuneup. Plan on spending $750-$1000 for a good tune.

quote:

Originally posted by T-Boy:
Currently, most of the hardware that we used to install on our hot rods for more power is already on the car and designed much better than anything aftermarket you can buy. So for the most part, you get more results from a good tune than any of the basic "bolt on" upgrades you can install. I drive Mazda Miata's and a good tune will get me 15-20% more power while if I install headers, a complete exhaust, intake and lightened flywheel I might get 10-15% and it is more costly than the tune. The trick is finding a good tuner. Tuners tend to specialize in specific vehicles and/or engines. You need to do your research and find one that specializes in your vehicle and brand. If someone tries to tell you then can tune anything walk away. It doesn't work like that. He may be able to tune any vehicle but that is not the same as getting good results. Truly good results will only come from a tuner that specializes in your vehicle. Make sure you get a corrected dyno both before and after the tuneup. Plan on spending $750-$1000 for a good tune.

^^^ This right here is fantastic advice.
The factory de-tunes most vehicles to hit certain emissions/government specs. Having a good tune will tap the power that the factory left on the table.

I have a 2017 Expedition with the 3.5L Ecoboost, I know someone with the same vehicle that used 5-star tuning with the SCT tuner to tune theirs. It is great. The performance tunes really pick up the throttle response, such that leaving 4wd engaged is important if you have a heavy foot. With the 93 octane Economy tune, getting about 1-1.5mpg more in similar driving situations - though this is still being evaluated, since that tune was just uploaded a couple weeks ago and not sure what the end result will be over a few tanks of gas. Definitely recommended.