Hi All, just sharing my experiences with keeping my truck cool to support more boost with tuning. I have a 2020 F150 XL STX with a 2.7L Ecoboost. I have changed the thermostat to one that opens at 170* F. That dropped the Engine Coolant Temp (ECT) to an average of 185* F. I replaced the intercooler with a Garrett which has a condensation drain plug and requires the removal of the lower active grill shutters. Garrett publishes their test data for the intercoolers they sell unlike other manufacturers. The Garrett dropped my Charge Air Temp to 10-20* F above Intake Air Temp (IAT) which is a huge improvement over stock. Lastly I changed my spark plugs to Ford Performance cold plugs and gapped them at .028”. Tuning was done by me using HP Tuners. I’m running a max of 20 psi of boost using the stock turbos. I will post dyno results once I am able to get some dyno time scheduled.

 

Did you baseline the truck before you started tuning changes ??
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There is only so much lowering the average temp from a thermostat change.
For example, running no thermostat is as low as the system will go for its operating average but without any regulation, so the average will float over a wider range according to heat load produced under higher power from combustion heat produced.
It is more productive to increase the (cooler flow storage volume) by using a larger radiator capacity.
In this event, a given thermostat will open and close at an >increased rate< to keep average temperature under control.
Just trying to say there is more to engine temperature control than just the thermostat and running the system under pressure to raise the boiling point.
Good luck.

 

The engine and transmission are most efficient when they reach normal operating temperature which for Ford is between 200 and 215. On our trucks the computer won't turn on the cooling fans until the temperature reaches 220 and the fans run until it gets down to 205. Without the A/C on the fans are off and grill shutters are fully closed at 205 degrees. Also, by putting in a 170 degree thermostat you run the risk is triggering a check engine light in cold damp weather. The computer expects the engine temperature to reach a certain temp within a certain amount of time. If it doesn't it will turn on the check engine light. It does this because it needs to reach a certain minimum temperature to go into closed loop engine controls. In cold damp weather the thermostat starting to open at 170 would quickly drop the temperature down again and it may struggle to reach normal operating temp. This would also mean the engine would run at fast idle trying to warm up.

Also be careful with overcooling the charge air. Remember the fiasco with the first gen EB engines on the 2011-2014 trucks where the intercooler was overcooling the charge air to where condensation started to build up in the intercooler and got sucked into the engine. Ford's solution was to drill a drain and block off part of the intercooler to reduces its cooling capacity. This is why the 13th gen trucks on up have grill shutters for the intercooler. You may surprised, but those intercooler shutters are closed the majority of the time.

I agree that the most effective solution to increase overall engine cooling would be to install a bigger radiator. This way, even under heavy load the heat will be dissipated more effectively. When the engine is under load a colder themostat won't effect the ability of the cooling system to dissipate the heat but higher capacity radiator will. However it won't effect the normal operating temperature of the engine.

 

This is on a 2020 F150 2.7L Ecoboost but the cooling upgrades I made will help cool any turbo charged engine. Prior to upgrades ECT was 190-210* F and Charge Air Temp was very high approximately 40-60* F above Internal Air Temp depending on the boost level. I had charge temps around 140* F which lowered the effectiveness of the turbo and added heat to the cylinder head (bad thing). I installed colder spark plugs because of my tuning. They keep the spark plugs and head cooler. Cold plugs dissipate heat faster than the stock ones. But if you are running a stock tune then the stock plugs will be fine, just gap them between .030-.028 which will prevent the turbo from blowing out the spark.

For the Ecoboost platform - cooling parameters can also be tweaked using tuning software, like HP Tuners. You can change the fan speed, fan activation temperature, intercooler specs, thermostat opening temp (used by the ECU for calculations).

 

You're using stock programming logic but he's already stated he's doing tuning. Throws what you posted about thermostat completely out the window. The engine may be quite efficient at 200-215 degrees but that doesn't mean it makes the most power there. Something you can see on dynos of literally any platform or engine is that cold coolant and hot oil make power, to a point anyways. His intercooler has the drain as well.

The idea of a lower temp thermostat isn't so much increase cooling, it's to give you a larger window for both abuse and tuning before you run into overheat conditions. Very common upgrade for bolt-on 5.0s as well