Super Sleeper
VMP Performance boosts and tunes a new Ford F-150 with great results
By Steve Turner
Photos by Steve Turner and courtesy of VMP Performance
During the NMRA season opener in Bradenton, Florida, the event announcers were blown away as VMP Performance’s Brad Marsh piloted the company’s new 2016 F-150 to low 12-second e.t.’s and took out several Mustangs on the drag strip. The truck was a complete sleeper, as it looked stock save for some VMP graphics. However, under the hood the truck isn’t quite stock.
Lurking under the hood is a Roush TVS supercharger dialed in for even more performance with a custom calibration from VMP main man Justin Starkey. In advance of the race we made the trip over to the company’s headquarters to document the installation of the supercharger system right after VMP’s Rick Kaknes drove the new truck back from Michigan.
“We’re into all things 5.0-liter, with so many fast Mustangs rolling around, I figured it was time to see what a 5.0 truck could do,” Justin explained.
Yes, since Ford’s top-selling truck sports the same engine as the latest Mustangs—with a few torquey tweaks for truck duty—it makes for another rolling laboratory for VMP to expand its lexicon of modern Ford performance tuning.
“I think its the other way around, the Mustang is still the higher compression and higher revving variant, but we can take everything we know about it and apply most of it to the F-150,” Justin said.
Of course when Justin puts his tuning acumen to use on a supercharged truck, the results are quite impressive. You can watch them in action right here…
[video=youtube;53NsjAUhthA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53NsjAUhthA[/video]
“I was astounded with the dyno and track results from the out-of-the-box Roush Phase 1 kit on my new F-150, it exceeded my expectations,” Justin enthused. “Especially knowing that its a very mild tune and available with a warranty.”
Not only did the truck perform well on the VMP Dynojet, but also it really impressed on the drag strip. As we said, the truck ran low 12-second e.t.’s in Bradenton and it was right on the edge of breaking into the 11-second range, which definitely made people take notice.
“Early on I said I wanted to get a 12.9 with the Roush kit in cool weather, and it did. I followed that up with a promise to run 11.9 with custom tuning and nothing else,” he said. “I feel like I got pretty darn close with a 12.0. Not to mention I was remotely tuning the truck from home while hanging out with my wife and newborn, while my employees were running the event.”
While the VMP F-150 project definitely got off on the right foot, this is just the beginning for the truck. Soon it will gain even more mods.
“We're going to put the kitty in Hellcat, and Godzilla? We run over lizards all the time in Florida...” Justin joked. “We have an entire array of VMP upgrades to unleash on this truck, but that will have to wait until next time.”
For now, however, let’s take a look at the highlights of the project’s first step.
The Roush Performance TVS supercharger system (PN RSH-421983; $6,949.99) for the latest Ford F-150 is definitely complete. Besides the major hardware like the TVS supercharger, intercooled lower intake and heat exchange, the kit contains all the supporting hardware, a detailed instruction sheet and a new performance calibration.
Buried in that nondescript engine compartment is the VMP F-150’s 5.0-liter engine. Ford engineers tweaked the existing Coyote engine for truck duty by developing an intake manifold an and calibration designed to promote torque.
Before removing any hardware, disconnect the truck’s fuel pump controller and start the truck, letting it run until it stalls. That will evacuate most of the fuel from the rails to make removing them less messy and safer. With that done, Brad removed the factory air box, induction, intake manifold and fuel rails. Be sure to tape up the intake ports while you work on other parts of the process to keep and debris out of the engine.
Brad moves under the truck to install the heat exchanger, coolant pump and the necessary hoses to feed the coolant from the reservoir, through the intercooled lower, through the heat exchanger and back. The heat exchanger mounts at an angle behind the front bumper and is fed ambient air from the holes in the new bumper insert panel included in the kit courtesy of an air deflector.
Next Brad installed the intercooler pump and hoses. The kit includes the wiring harness and premade hoses that make the necessary connections simple.
Installing a supercharger on the F-150 Coyote necessitates converting the stock front-end accessory drive to match the eight-rib belt used by the supercharger, as they will share the same belt. Here Brad unbolts the stock A/C clutch disc and hub then uses a puller to remove the compressor pulley. This allowed him to install the eight-rib pulley included in the supercharger kit. He also swapped out the crankshaft pulley with the eight-rib version from the kit.
As it is with the Mustang version of this supercharger kit, it is necessary to trim off two bosses and half of another on the timing cover to allow for the installation of the kit’s belt tensioner bracketry.
After cleaning up the metal shavings, Brad removed the tape from the intake ports and installed the intercooled lower intake manifold.
With the intake in place, Brad bolts on the new FEAD bracketry to the front of the F-150 Coyote.
Moving back up top Brad reinstalled the fuel rails with the larger fuel injectors provided in the kit. Then he drops the TVS supercharger into place and reinstalls the new vacuum hoses as reconfigured per the detailed instructions.
Getting toward the home stretch, Brad installs the 79mm blower pulley and loosely installs the belt before adding the outer bracket that mounts the tensioner. Then he can button up the blower installation with the throttle body, inlet tube and airbox.
After completing the wiring of the intercooler pump, Brad plumbs and installs the intercooler fluid reservoir. Then he filled the system with coolant and purged it of bubbles. Here is the completed installation, which shows off the new induction system that feeds the TVS supercharger.
For the first phase of testing, Justin installed the calibration included with the supercharger system using this tool from Roush before moving on to his own custom VMP calibration.
It’s hard to argue with a boosted Coyote in any chassis. At the NMRA season opener at Bradenton Motorsports Park, Brad ripped off 12.06-second e.t.’s at over 113 mph in this full-weight, otherwise-stock F-150. Justin later backed up those numbers running at Orlando Speed World.
In stock form, the F-150 Coyote isn’t the strongest performer. It put down 328.41 horsepower and 335.05 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels on the VMP Dynojet. Adding the supercharger kit and the out-of-the-box tuning, the truck picked up over 186 horsepower and 159 lb-ft of torque.
As impressive as the out-of-the-box gains were, the TVS-boosted pickup really came alive once Justin applied his custom-tuning skills. With the supercharger and its companion tune, the truck’s peak rear-wheel output was 515.09 horsepower and 494.25 lb-ft of torque. Once Justin loaded the custom VMP tune into its PCM, those numbers jumped by another 51.25 horsepower and 27.6 lb-ft of torque.
Looking at a sampling of the data for both the supercharger and the custom tuning versus the baseline shows both gain across the powerband, but the VMP-tuned final product definitely pulls much stronger and longer at the top end.
