3.5 ecoboost cold air intake hp gains

5.0 out of 5 stars Anybody can do this!
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2015

Very fast shipping. If you have an Ecoboost F150 than you owe it to your truck to get one of these. Anybody with basic knowledge can put this in within an hour. I didn't get the cover for it and will not get the cover for it either. It sounds amazing. Now I need an exhaust lol

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Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2021

I've been living with this intake for the past 20,000 miles and thought I'd offer some insight into my experience. I installed this to hopefully get better MPG and added HP. I know a bolt on mod can only do so much, so I didn't expect anything drastic. The pros: The sounds this thing makes is crazy. You can hear the turbos way more and you can tell it is pulling in a huge amount of air. This thing SUCKS. The components are high quality and it does what it says which is pull in a TON of air.
The cons: Added performance was minimal, I didn't notice any difference. I recently took this off and put my stock intake back on and saw about a 1MPG improvement so far after about 500 miles. The other big reason I took this off is because I underestimated just how much air this intake would pull in. If I put it back on I would want to do an exhaust with it because it felt like it was pulling too much air and didn't know where to put it all. This has caused an odd moaning noise between 1500-2000 RPM, which may be a manifold issue or an exhaust leak. Either way, didn't have this issue until I put on the intake and I only have 77k miles. After putting on the stock intake back on I realizes just how loud this thing is as well. It has been refreshingly quiet in the cab!

Overall, it is very well made and a high quality product. However, unless you are putting a good exhaust or something that can actually handle all the intake, I'd just keep it stock and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2022

took less than 30 minutes to install. I love the sound of it. If you drive with the windows up and the radio off you can hear it sucking, the turbos spooling, and the blowoff valve. I definitely feel like the boost lag has gone away dramatically and I’ve noticed a 2 mpg gain in my average fuel economy

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2013

I installed this on my 2013 f150 lariat and it works well. The installation instructions were ok (meaning they gave me enough info so I could figure the rest out). Yea the pics could have been clearer (they looked noticeably different from the 2013 setup) but they got me where I needed to go. I bet their website has clearer pics (and let's face it, if you're ordering from Amazon you probably have internet access).

Noise - I did also purchase the cover that goes on top. I believe they changed how the turbos exhaust on the 2013 model. The tube where the turbo should feed back into the intake is capped off from the factory so I'm assuming with the revisions done to the turbo on the 2013 model, the sound is quieter. If the turbos vented back into the intake on pre-2013 model then I'd assume you would hear a lot more. With that being said while the engine is in vacuum there is no difference. When you pound on the gas you hear the turbo blowoff a bit more than the normal intake.

Performance - I don't have a dyno so don't ask. It's all subjective and varies by person. With that being said I do feel the acceleration is "smoother". It may be a little faster but that initial delay isn't there really so I get up to speed much quicker. I haven't done any burnouts (it's a new truck with new tires so I'm not going to waste them) but I'd assume you would be able to put on a good show.

The tubes are metal where my old K&N was plastic. Not sure if that makes any difference but there it is. I also did have to trim the coolant return(?) hose so one of the tubes didn't rub. It was mentioned in the instructions and turned out just fine. Another word of advice, if you're putting the cover on the system, install the rubber liner ONLY on the lip closest to the outside of the vehicle on the intake box. Otherwise the lid won't go all the way down and it helps seal the system up. The other odd thing about the system is I assumed the H pipe would be hollow but instead there's just a small hole in either end. Dunno.

Overall I'm very happy with the setup and I am interested to see what it can do with a aFe exhaust. Those two plus my chip tune should put me over 500 ponies for my truck.

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2014

Overall I like this intake, but there's a few things that could be improved upon. I haven't done any seat of the pants or dyno testing, so no idea if there is a horsepower gain. I mainly bought it so I could hear the turbos again.

Pros:

* Well built, fairly well engineered, nice materials
* Pretty easy to install, out of the 4 I've done, this was the easiest by far.
* Sounds really good. You can definitely hear the turbos/blowoff, but I don't think it's too loud by any stretch. It is ever so slightly louder than my '11 Ecoboost F-150.

Cons:

* It would be nice if they would do a little more careful sourcing/sizing of clamps. For example, the clamps on the crossover tube are barely large enough at their widest to slide over the tube when it is installed on the crossovers. In fact, I actually over-loosened past the threads on one clamp, and had to fight with it to get the clamp back together. Then on the reducers where the intake plumbs into the stock system, the clamps are so large there's a huge amount of leftover afterwards.
* It's nice that they include a torx bit for the MAP sensor bolt, but at least for the 2013s, the bolt is actually a male torx, requiring a reverse (female) torx bit to remove. Install took a day longer while I found the correct bit. This is more a knock on Ford for changing to such an unusual bolt.
* It would be great to include an install guide with color photos. I see the full color PDF version of the guide on the aFe site, but I'm not going to take my $300 tablet out there and balance it on the engine while I'm doing this install. Does it really cost that much more to include a higher quality printed guide?

The system sounds great, is well built, but has a few issues as noted above. Also, I am ordering the cover even though I am happy with the sound. It rained hard prior to install day, and there was water sitting on the stock airbox when I opened the hood to install the aFe system. I'm sure they have tested for this possibility, but it makes me nervous that it will suck in water that falls in the gap between the fender & hood given a hard enough rain storm.

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2022

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