BadCon

Hello fellow Roush supercharged F150 owners. The 2015+ Roush F150 kits utilize a custom ducted heat exchanger in the front bumper. As shipped the kits do not provide a cooling fan, and being ducted into the bumper the standard heat exchanger does not benefit from radiator cooling fan airflow. Roush sells an add on shroud and cooling fan for about $380, but for those wanting more, I've found a cheap option.

I present the 2005-2009 Saleen Extreme mustang heat exchanger picture at the top. It measures 34"x7"x2", with a core sizer of 32"x7"x2. It is single pass with a 3/4" inlet and 1" outlet and a bleed valve. It typically comes with two 8" spal cooling fans which I did not utilize.


Since the Roush supercharger kits leave the radiator and grille area untouched and wide open, I was free to explore a adding a secondary heat exchanger in this location. Looking at the various options from Afco, VMP, and others, most of them required to remove the existing Roush heat exhanger which I did not want to do as its one of the coolest parts of the kit and I had already spent money on the cooling fan upgrade. I thought about retrofitting a kit from another Ford, but most of those were prohibitively expensive, and since I was going to ghetto fabricate whatever I got I did not want to spend big money on a heat exchanger only to mount the thing with gaffer tape and string due to my poor fabrication skills.

So the hunt for something cheap began, and naturally that meant Ebay. After some searching I found various listings for the Saleen Extreme heat exchanger, which had been sold as an upgrade for existing Saleen Mustang owners for $1200 ...but that was back when Saleen was a thing and today the parts are being liquidated, so I picked up the heat exchanger for $109 shipped to my door, which is the cheapest price for a quality heat exchanger anywhere. I always wanted a Saleen Mustang, so fabbing a Saleen part onto my F150 made it all the more special.

Lets begin.

Here you can see just how big the core is. I had purchased the factory transmission cooler bracket to use a mount, but it was plastic and too flimsy, so I've resorted to using a piece of perforated steel from Home Depot. It mounts to the factory transmission cooler brace bolt locations, which were not being used on my non-max tow package F150.


I was surprised just how rigid this mount was while still allowing for thermal expansion. After a little trial an error I figured out the depth and angle to mount the heat exchanger, and after a small bit of clearancing it fit perfectly behind the factor grille. I was not concerned with anything being pretty, as it would be practically invisible behind the grille. On to paint!


Flat black sorta hides the ugly. Its ghetto I know, but its not going to be seen. I had ordered several preformed silicone hose bends off Amazon for a not insignificant amount of money, and only ended up using 1 of them. The stock Roush hose that runs from the factory heat exchanger to the intake manifold had all sorts of useful preformed bends in it, and negated the need for silicone. I needed a 90 degree 1" to 3/4" reducer, and that is visible on the right. I was going to shave the unused mounting tabs on the heat exchanger, but figured I'd leave them there just in case this install didn't work out and I needed to remount it somehow. So far so good, no issues.


All back together!



It may not look like much, but it basically doubles the size of the Roush heat exchanger. I live in Texas, so its hot here right now and I was seeing IAT2 temps about 35 to 45 degrees over ambient with the stock Roush setup. This shaves about 10 degrees off that, maybe more but I'm still testing. All in I'm out the door about $200 bucks and a 4 hours of work. Next step is the addition of the GT 500 coolant pump, but that'll wait a little while.

Hope this helps anyone with a Roush TVS.

Cheers.

Tom_with_a_Truck

Any disadvantage? Does it block or reduce flow through the radiator and AC coil, or is the effect negligible?

BadCon

The effect is negligible. Most of the other supercharger or turbocharger kits put the intercooler and heat exchangers in front of the radiator. I have noticed no impact on AC performance or engine temps.