Deerhunter4

I just got mine yesterday and I hooked up my Bullydog Watchdog monitor. I can see all kinds of engine parameters. Here are few things I found interesting:

1. The intercooler must be very efficient because the IAT (intake air temp) is usually within a few degrees of ambient even when sitting at a stoplight. On my old Frontier the IAT would run 10 degrees above ambient on the highway and up to 50 degrees above ambient in the city.

2. The boost is up and down. The numbers will go up and then down and the back up when holding the throttle steady. The numbers are real jumpy. I haven't romped on it yet but under light to moderate acceleration I have seen 11 psi.

I can monitor a lot of other stuff but these are the two that I was watching while driving this morning.

engineermike

If you wanna see something crazy, check out the throttle position when your foot is to the floor.

reward69

My opinion would be crappy fuel. A boosted motor on 87 has to be on the verge of spark knock all the time at high boost levels. This is why the factory says you get better performance with higher octane levels, less timing retard.

p38fln

Remember it's not just a forced-induction gas motor -
it's a DIRECT INJECTION forced induction motor. It puts gas in whenever it wants to, it doesn't suck it in with the combustion air and then compress it. It can compress the air, then inject fuel to the mix when it's ready to ignite it (exactly like a diesel does it, except the Ecoboost helps it along with a spark). This style of engine could theoretically run 40 PSI of boost on 85 octane gas at sea level and still not predetonate.

This can't be exactly how Ford programmed the DI system to work, if it was then the octane level wouldn't matter at all and it would always have the same power, but it is something that could be done on a later generation of the Ecoboost - all the parts are there.

I have to agree with reward69 - fill it up with premium and watch what it does. I think you'll get another 1-2 pounds of boost out of it. I don't think Ford's perfected it enough to ignore the octane level yet.

Xritke