General Pain

TJPlatinumEB

1. You are going to find a lot more "wolf criers" here than anywhere else. According to last week at the NAIAS, Ford has sold over 400,000 F-150's with this EcoBoost motor since it first became available in 2011. When someone has a problem, they are going to want to go somewhere and scream about it. Truthfully, the sample size of the percentage of total owners that this forum represents is quite small.

2. I had a 2011 FX2 EB and drove it for a hard 40,000 miles. I drove it across the country multiple times, put it through hell and back in the work I do, and never had a single hiccup or issue in those 2 years that I drove those miles. I only traded it in because I got almost 15k off MSRP on my 2013 Platinum.

3. I plan on driving mine up to 100k miles and don't plan on doing anything to this engine. If something happens to occur and I am one of the small percentage of those that have an issue, that's what my 100k ESP is for. I don't plan on doing anything as far as catch cans or drilled holes or anything of that nature. If something does happen, then so be it and I will deal with it then. I'm not going to worry myself and make myself crazy with all the naysayers and negative Nancy's we seem to have here on this site.

There are plenty of people who have already driven these trucks over 100k miles and don't have issues. If you follow the proper maintenance, make sure your plugs are gapped correctly, and pay attention to what your truck is telling you before something happens, you will be fine. I will say it again.....the number of people with issues is a very very small percentage and most are getting satisfactory repairs or replacement work done. There are probably far worse things in your life to worry about than the issues you read about here that your truck might have a 1% chance of happening.

Drive it and enjoy it

Oldsmuggler

Just don't drive in the rain

Half_ton

No long winded reply here, but do your research of others whom have used them and see the results, or the contents of their catch cans after a few thousand miles.

I figured for $145 shipped from upr it's worth the peace of mind that I can prevent some buildup in my truck, since I will drive it until its old and rotting away.

Watt-maker

Nobody "needs" a catch can but I wanted to add the cans as a preventive measure against the CAC condensation issue. As part of that plan, I will also drill a weep hole in the CAC. I've held off drilling the hole so far because, for whatever reason, my EB accumulates quite a bit of an oil/water mixture in the CAC and I don't want that leaking from my truck. I also don't want this mixture getting consumed all at once by the engine. I do believe large gulps of liquid have been responsible for destroying a few EBs on here. There are other benefits to using catch cans but probably won't be realized until we start seeing higher mileage EBs. Like the OP, I also plan on keeping this truck for a long time so whatever I can do to reach that goal, I will probably do it. If I were to do it over, I would've added the cans right away.

In this thread I installed dual cans but you can also see how much crap one can collected after just 500 miles of mixed driving: https://www.f150forum.com/f70/instal...oboost-242660/

General Pain

In an effort to educate myself more, I had some time and did a lot more research. I kept getting to the same conclusion. On today's (I said 'todays") DI engines, the carbon build up is mostly an issue of the past. I read a pretty good article about it....see the link below. Also, I quoted a small section where Ford was mentioned. This catch can thing reminds me of the splitfire spark plug, or the Tornado fuel saver thing or the fuel catalyst....you get the point. Also, I've learned the blow by gets worse the more boost you have, such as through a tune. Since i'm keeping it bone stock, I should be ok for the way Ford designed it....IMO.

http://www.edmunds.com/autoobserver-archive/2011/06/direct-injection-fouls-some-early-adopters.html



"At the Detroit Auto Show in January, Ford was confident enough about its popular 3.5 liter EcoBoost direct-injection V6 to have technicians tear down an example engine that had accumulated the equivalent of 160,000 miles through an intentionally abusive regimen of log dragging, high-speed towing and desert racing. When they opened it up before a live audience, they found some light carbon deposits on the valves and pistons, but not enough to affect performance. In fact, the engine showed a loss of just one horsepower afterwards – roughly what Boyadjiev’s RS 4 engine lost every 500 miles.
Stephen Russ, technical leader for combustion for Ford’s 2-liter Duratec DI engine, said that similar to GM, engineers have determined the proper injection-timing calibration to help eliminate the carbon deposits. But Russ also said the technology of injection components – particularly the high-pressure solenoid injectors – has quickly matured, meaning excess valve deposits in most DI engines should become a thing of the past as these improved components are incorporated into production."

Left Plate

If your goal is 100k and you use quality fuel and lubricants, you should be fine. Anything over 150k without some preventative maintenance and IMO you are on borrowed time? As you have researched, some platforms are more susceptible to coking than others.
You really need to stop and think how the DI technology operates vs. a port injection. There is no washing of the valves on a DI engine. The way I see it, you have a couple choices here, you can do a top engine cleaner, like sea foam every 50k, or you could install a top quality catch can set up and eliminate the problem to begin with? The other bonus is you eliminate the condensation in the airstream! Let me re-peat that so it sinks in! Eliminate the condensation in the airstream!
The best set up that I have seen thus far for the EcoBoost is a RevExtreme sold by Southern Speed inc.
Here is a pic of mine at 68k!

packplantpath

I hope you are not implying this eliminates cac condensation induced problems. If so I'm going to need an explanation.

Left Plate

That is exactly what I am implying! It is the closest thing to date to eliminate as much condensation out of the airstream as possible!
If you look at the routing of the Eco PVC system, you will see that it dumps into the left turbo and the intake plenum. If you eliminate the oil vapor and condensation you are then running nothing but air!
Do you have any better ideas?

Check out revextreme.com There is an invaluable write up at f150 ecotuning.

packplantpath

Sorry. I'm not buying it. A catch can from the crankcase will have minimal impact on condensation forming in a cac. Not gonna happen. It might prevent some post combustion exhaust with moisture from re-entering the intake but that will be minimal and would never accumulate enough to cause problems.

Unless my understanding of the intakes and pcv system is off the mark I don't think it will help with the condensation issues.