Performance Intercooler Upgrade Suit Ford F150 EcoBoost

Why would you upgrade an intercooler?
The best possible intercooler for any turbocharged engine is always a good idea. Intercoolers are responsible for reducing the temperature of the charge air that your turbocharger produces. By nature, when a turbocharger compresses air, the temperature increases. Using an intercooler to reduce this temperature increases the mass air flow available to your engine. The greater the mass air flow, the greater the performance. There is more science to it than this simple statement, but the underlying principle is scientific and fact based. The better you are able to reduce your intake temperatures, the more power you can make.

Why does my F150 need an intercooler upgrade?
Your F150 has an intercooler fitted to it from the factory, but it is commonly known to be flawed in a couple of aspects. It is specified to suit stock levels of performance and a budget while an upgrade is specifically designed to outperform this. The Ford F150 intercooler is commonly known to suffer heat soak which is where the intercooler starts to take on the heat of the charge air to the point it cannot continue reducing the intake charge air. The solution? A replacement intercooler with higher thermal mass which will take far longer to reach the critical point where heat soak occurs. The Turbosmart intercooler doesn’t just have higher thermal mass, we also massively increased the surface area by 80% to improve core efficiency while we were at it! There are some other cool features of the Turbosmart intercooler to consider, but these are the reasons you would upgrade your OEM equipment. More power, more consistently.

Why Bar and Plate?
There are two main kinds of charge air intercoolers, bar and plate is one of them. The other is called tube and fin. There is a time and place for both of them and to argue one over the other, is for another time and place. Understand that we chose bar and plate for this application, because thermal mass was important and bar and plate are higher. Tube and fin by comparison, would not be as effective at handling the number one complaint and issue F150 EcoBoost customers encounter, which is reduced performance over time due to heat soaking.

Do you have to do a tune?
No, the Factory ECU calibration will not require any changes as while there are performance advantages for even a standard vehicle, it is within the scope of the factory calibration. Consider the difference your F150 has between a cold winter's night and hot, summer's day. It can take advantage of the increase in mass air flow when it is cold at night & can continue taking advantage of it on a warmer day, with the intercooler fitted.

What’s with the maintenance drain?
Your Ford F150 fitted with the EcoBoost turbocharged V6 has a couple of known issues… You may not have noticed or really worried about them but they are there and some vehicles are more prone to it depending on mileage and the climate you operate it in. Blow-by as it is known, is engine oil vapor droplets that travel into the charge air system of the vehicle and can collect in the intercooler. Equally, condensation is known to collect in the intercooler also in some climates adding to this blow by. Why the intercooler? The intercooler in some ways acts as a baffle with the charge air hitting the side of the core & this condensation (or blow by) running down and pooling. Equally, as one of the lowest parts of the charge air and intercooler circuit, science says it is the perfect place for it to collect. This can cause some issues if not remedied regularly and the Turbosmart maintenance drain facilitates just this!

Black or Silver, Does it matter?
No. Well, it does if you have a preference for one or the other, but ultimately performance will not be impacted. It is your choice!!