Mbmaring

I was traveling in Colorado up to mount Evans with my 2013 ford f150 with the ecoboost and towing package ended up at over 14,000 feet elevation while driving I noticed the turbo had a loud whistle when letting off the gas and it seemed to have very little power. We passed a couple of Honda 110 mopeds and barely made it around them. Now when back down to low elevation it seems to have lots of power. I didn't think elevation affected the ecoboost like that. I thought I had a bad intercooler or something when in the higher elevation but it seems fine now and no longer hear the turbo whistle when letting off the gas. Has anyone else noticed this?

powerboatr

turbos should have made up for the loss in air density, but there are many factors that you may have overlooked
air temp
your expected speed
your actual speed
cruise engaged
towing
loaded heavy
percent grade on the stretch of road, imo its not a little grade
..even a little ol truck needs to be paced climbing that pass

whining was most likely from them little guys spinning their hearts out trying to cram more air in.
an exhaust temp gauge would have been nice to see....

snobdds

Is this another iteration Skinner, the biggest trolls of trolls.

I have a cabin in Wyoming at 11,500 feet. Never experienced what you describe. In fact, yes, the ecoboost is the best at elevation I've ever seen...even better than my diesel.

Mbmaring

The odd thing is that the turbo noise was prevalent when letting off the gas more a wosh like air escaping sound. It sounded just like when the inter-cooler had a leak last summer and had to be replaced. I wasn't pulling a trailer and was not loaded up with much weight. It is hard to know how much of a grade you are climbing on the road I was on it was above the tree line and only 37 degrees with a 8 degree wind chill . I am not kidding about the honda Mopeds climbing up that road to Mount evans the guys had backpacks full of gear and go pro cameras on there helmets I was surprised they could make it but the putted away at about 15 miles per hour.

BoostEd6

Sounds like the BPV venting. I noticed mine is louder when scaling steep grades as well (on the down side that is). Mine was loudest when driving fully loaded to Red Lake, Canada.

Ecob01

I have towed my travel trailer over most of the passes in the rockies. never have I had a problem. check the innercooler.

tanked_darren

Your truck is ruined.

dcrabby

I assume you were checking your boost. What reading where you getting when you heard the "whoosh"?

I think you were exceeding your boost setting and your wastegate was releasing excess pressure (whoosh) particularly if you were throttle down and climbing hard in lower gears.

Your loss of power was likely due to altitude, As a general rule, for every 1K ft above sea level, combustion engines lose about 3% of their power At 10k your engine lost about 30% and at 14K it lost about 42%. The turbo helps make up for some of that loss by forcing air into your intake, but it can't make up for all the altitude. As you saw, power returned as you returned to lower altitude

You need to keep an eye on your turbo temp under such stress, also. Turbo get hot -- really hot and that temp can do damage if not allowed to dissapate.

dcrabby

Your truck ain't ruined.

And you likely do not have any issues w/ the intercooler. The intercooler is just a "radiator" for cooling the air being driven into the intake. That air get hot as it is 'compressed" and driven into the intake. It is possible to pop the hoses but you just clean and reconnect. If they do pop frequently take it to your svc guy/gal.

Despite what you hear turbos are tough. You can break 'em but it takes effort. Mine was going strong when I sold my truck at 12 years and 182k miles. And we towed the passes in the Rocky Mts and N. Cascade Mts

shortride

iTrader: (1)

If it was the altitude only causing issues with the E.B. engine then airplanes with turbocharged engines would be in a lot of trouble since the turbocharged engine was the primary reason for over-coming the air density problems at much higher altitudes.