Mishimoto

Pretty F-150’n Cool – 2015+ F-150 EcoBoost Intercooler R&D, Part 1: Factory Review

Hello F150 Forum Community! I hope you all had an excellent long weekend. We are excited to announce the development of our new intercooler for the 2015+ EcoBoost trucks. This will be the place to stop and check out our progress from initial review all the way through to the pre-sale. Please don't hesitate to ask all the questions you want about our development process, the product, and anything else you might think of.

Keep on reading for more info!



As any traveler can tell you, it is an unparalleled experience to be an American abroad and take in so many of the mesmerizingly different facets of the world. This is to be expected, but one thing that first-time travelers often don’t so readily anticipate is the way in which being abroad empowers one as a representative of his home country. (I probably should have expected this; some good friends of mine are Canadians residing stateside, and they are practically walking billboards for Tim Hortons™.) Being a walking window into American culture not only elicits patriotism, but also prompts one to join his international friends in examining the USA from the outside-in.

One pervasive international perception of the US is that of our capitalist ideals and consumerism. This is polarizing stuff, but just about everyone with whom I spoke could agree on at least on one thing: When it comes to being consumers and producers, Americans are damn good at it. We know how to make a product, and we vote ruthlessly for the best one with our hard-earned dollar bills and then celebrate the hell out of it; there’s a reason that American culture is so wide-reaching.

So what does that say about the vehicle that has sold more units annually in the US than any other vehicle for over three decades?


F-150 Performance Parts

It’s a damn nice truck, that’s what.

The F-150 shines as a resilient example of how to do a truck right, and the 2015+ EcoBoost varieties continue that tradition. They are light, they are quick, they are torquey, and they are excellent examples of Detroit’s reinvigorated drive to innovate. At Mishimoto, we share those values, and it is in that spirit that we have begun development on a new F-150 EcoBoost intercooler to make this already-great truck even better.

Efficiency and Performance

An intercooler is an integral component in any forced-induction engine, and the F-150 EcoBoost intercooler is no exception. The primary purpose of an intercooler is to lower the temperature of inlet air as it travels from the turbo’s compressor to the engine; colder air is denser air, and this makes it possible to squeeze more of it into a cylinder. This means the ECU can add even more fuel to create a larger, more powerful combustion event, all while maintaining ideal stoichiometric air-fuel ratios. The end result of this is a larger smile on your face when you press the go-pedal – this is science at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

The moral of the story is this: We can squeeze more power out of the engine by improving the cooling efficiency of the F-150 EcoBoost intercooler. Especially for trucks with other Ford F-150 performance parts, a more efficient intercooler can provide significant gains. This can be done in a variety of ways, but often entails increasing the height or width of the intercooler, or perhaps both. Our engineers are already hard at work on a prototype F-150 EcoBoost intercooler, but let’s take a look at the OEM system first.

Factory Review


Ford F-150 Performance Parts

This F-150 is a workhorse that requires quite a bit of cooling. Looking at the front of the truck, we can see a variety of cooling apparatuses, including the thin transmission cooler that sits in front of the AC condenser, with the radiator behind that (not visible). The F-150 EcoBoost intercooler is actually hidden behind the massive steel front bumper, and air is channeled to that heat exchanger through the ducting right up front.


Ford F-150 Performance Parts

As our engineer, Jason, so expertly points out above, there is a piece of plastic shrouding that separates the main cooling compartment behind the grille from the lower compartment that houses the F-150 EcoBoost intercooler. Without this ducting, air entering through the main grille would travel to the area of lower pressure created below the front of the car, and the radiator would not see adequate airflow. Unfortunately, this separation limits the height of the intercooler, but Jason has some ideas on how to handle that and implement some awesome Ford F-150 performance parts.

There is some other trickery going on here as well; both the main grille in front of the radiator compartment and the smaller grille in front of the intercooler feature active shutters that open and close with the help of an electric motor. In conditions where temperatures allow it and airflow is adequate through other means, the ECU will close off these compartments to improve the aerodynamic profile of the truck and help out with fuel economy.


Ford F-150 Performance Parts

Here is Jason again, very helpfully illustrating the functionality of these active shutters. He is demonstrating on the main grille because it is larger and easier to see (and remove!), but the smaller one functions the same way.


Ford F-150 Performance Parts

With the F-150 EcoBoost intercooler out of the truck, we can see that it utilizes a tube-and-fin construction as is common on many OEM intercoolers. The end tanks are made of plastic that is crimped onto the aluminum core; this is typically the most common fail point on a factory intercooler. Our F-150 EcoBoost intercooler will be all aluminum with welded end tanks.


Ford F-150 Performance Parts

There is a plastic bypass valve incorporated into one of the end tanks, which Jason will also be including in his design.


Ford F-150 Performance Parts


Condensation Issues

As I’m sure many of you are all-too-familiar with, the EcoBoost engines are sometimes prone to having water condensation problems that can lead to bogged-down throttle response and perhaps other issues. Jason’s got some plans to address this, but we will go more into that in a later post. (Although, those of you that are familiar with our 2011–2014 F-150 EcoBoost Intercooler R&D might have some idea as to where we’re going with this…)

Coming Soon…

Very soon, we’ll be able to take a closer look at exactly what our plans are to make this F-150 EcoBoost intercooler even better. I’m looking forward to sharing some of our CAD models and 3D-printed prototypes so you can have an even better idea of how solid these Ford F-150 performance parts will look.

Feel free to check out our blog for more info on this and other projects.

Thanks for reading, and until next time!
-Gardiner

AtlasF150

Excellent look forward to more to come

JEEPER5002000

iTrader: (1)

Cool Deal.... Excited to see what yall come up with.

l3rian

I thought the condensation was a pre15' issue. What's wrong with the OEM one? How is yours better? I haven't read about any problems with the current gen intercoolers. Maybe I missed it though.

If you want to sell these, you will have to convince people that there is a problem with the current design AND your product fixes it. Can you convince me?

danzcool

The current gen OEM intercoolers are even smaller than the 11-14 ones. If you're happy with stock performance then an aftermarket intercooler is not for you. I want to tune my truck and bump up the boost, so an aftermarket intercooler is for me.
And I've seen some of the preliminary design they've done on another site... it's definitely going to be bigger than stock, by a large margin.

Mishimoto, get this done and on the market already.

robotpepper

Mishimoto make fantastic products and I had one of their rads and intercoolers in my Skyline, so looking forward to seeing how this goes...

Curious what that bypass valve on the end tank is for though?

zx12-iowa

Will be interesting to see if the after market design will enhance cooling when towing or allow more actual rear wheel power. Previous designs for the last model were disappointing.... -and they didn't fix the condensation issue.

Mishimoto

Thank you! Should be some cool stuff.

Hey Brian,

By increasing the size and cooling efficiency of an intercooler, it becomes better at cooling the air traveling through it. As pre-manifold air temps drop, the air becomes denser and a higher volume of it can enter the cylinder. The ECU will compensate for this by injecting more fuel, which creates a bigger BOOM and more power! This is true even operating within OEM parameters, but gains are even more prominent when coupled with other performance parts and/or a tune to optimize the ECU for the conditions.

And of course, these gains will be demonstrated on the dyno as this project progresses


Thank you thank you! We're workin on it, don't worry

Very cool, and appreciate the support! The bypass valve allows air out of the system in the high-pressure condition that is created when the throttle closes after being in boost. Basically, the system is pressurized under boost and when the throttle plate closes, all that air has to go somewhere. Rather than going upstream and slowing down the compressor wheel (mitigating boost retention and possibly risking damage to the turbo), the extra air is purged.

In the case of a by-pass valve, the air is purged into a line that returns it back to the intake tract upstream of the turbo. In the case of a blow-off valve, the air is purged to the atmosphere.

It certainly should! We actually have not released a product yet for the previous model, though one is in the works. We have a clever way to deal with condensation, and are anticipating some good power.

Thanks for the questions everyone - keep 'em coming.

-Gardiner

Scott91370

This made me laugh.


But I do like the intercooler updates!

Yonash1987

As they explained, it's a recirculation valve. It is the typical factory application for turbo'd vehicles and in the aftermarket performance side of things, is often replaced by a blow-off valve. The primary difference is what happens with the excess pressure. Just about everyone, car guys and otherwise, know the blow-off sound, that whistle when the throttle is released, that so many covet. That sound is all of that excess pressure being "blown off" or vented to atmosphere. In the factory application, it vents into a pipe, which recirculates the excess pressure back into the intake track between the air filters and the turbo. As for pros and cons, and why recirculation valves are basically always the manufacturer's stock setup, there's more in depth theory to be discussed, which I'm sure many would be more than willing to explain, myself included, but we can keep this thread focused on the great product to come haha