EditorTurner

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Picking Up Power
ID Motorsports tests Mustang intake manifolds on a 5.0-liter F-150 pickup
By Steve Turner
Photos courtesy of Ford Motor Company and ID Motorsports

Of late we’ve been covering a lot of tests involving intake manifolds that fit the Coyote family of engines in Mustangs. From testing a Voodoo 5.2 intake on a Mustang GT 5.0-liter to testing a Ford Performance Cobra Jet intake on a Voodoo 5.2, we have seen some interesting stuff. However, did you ever wonder how these intakes might improve the Coyote-powered pickup in your driveway?

We were certainly curious when our old friend Matt Alderman of ID Motorsports offered to share the results of the intake manifold testing on his personal It’s a two-wheel-drive 2015 5.0 F-150. He had used the truck to develop some naturally aspirated calibrations for customers and was looking to do more hardware testing.

As you might remember, Matt was most recently the head calibrator a SCT Performance, but he has joined ID Motorsports to help the company expand into gas-powered vehicles.

“Since ID has had great success with the diesel side, they have been doing some gas stuff over the years but doing both can be a very time consuming task. I have worked with Eric (Eldreth) on some projects over the years and we have built a great friendship,” Matt explained. “With this combination of events brought us to our conversation about doing gas tuning full time and really ramping things up. It was a difficult decision leaving SCT as I really enjoyed what I did there and the people I worked with. But I had to follow my passion and take on this full-time role. Since the start we have hit the ground running with multiple projects and lining up our new south division in Florida.”

After tuning up the truck in naturally aspirated form, Matt wanted to sample the intake manifolds available from Ford Performance Parts before stepping the truck up to a supercharger upgrade. He adapted the truck’s MAP sensor to work with all these intakes, and tuned each combo for 93-octane winter-blend fuel from a station near ID Motorsports Maryland facility.

“One of our first projects was the 2015 5.0-liter F-150. We wanted to get all the naturally aspirated testing done before our supercharger install. Given the great success with the Coyote engine in the Mustangs with intake manifold tests we have done, we wanted to do the same tests on the F-150,” Matt said. “We started with the stock Mustang GT intake to see if it would yield any gains up top. It did show some gains but also some loss down low. We did this test with the stock intake airbox. Next we moved to the Boss Intake. As expected we saw even more gains up top with some loss down low. With this intake we had to modify the stock air inlet for testing.”

While the GT intake bested the stock truck manifold in the horsepower department, it gave up a lot of torque. On the other hand, the Boss 302 intake manifold (PN M-9424-M50BR; $825) picked up a huge chunk of power and gave up just a bit of torque at the peak.

“Lastly we brought out our favorite the Cobra Jet intake. For this we had to call in a favor to our friends at Revolution Automotive. Adam Browne made us a custom intake tube to fit this intake manifold. When we got back we got right to testing. As expected with this one as well there was tremendous gain up top. We were able to crack the 400 rear-wheel horsepower with this combo. We were also able to continue to make power in the higher rpm range,” Matt said. “This intake made a compete transformation to the sound of the vehicle. It’s completely different on the street. Maybe with a little more cam work the low-end loss can be minimized.”

The gains with the Cobra Jet intake (PN M-9424-M50CJ; $1,099) were definitely impressive. While the power increase was undeniable, it was interesting that the combo actually gained just over 1 lb-ft of torque with this racy, short-runner manifold.

So, if you were curious how a stock 5.0-liter truck engine responds to different intake manifolds, you now have the answer. Matt plans to keep pushing this truck with power adders now and we can’t wait to see what he has in store next.

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The Coyote-powered F-150s, like IM Motorsports’ Matt Alderman’s 2015 two-wheel-drive example, feature an intake manifold specifically tuned to generate the most useable torque for the kind of duty a truck usually sees.

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Part of how Ford engineers prepare an off-the-shelf engine for a different vehicle platform is by tuning the intake manifold for its intended purpose. Where the truck intake is biased toward torque, the Mustang GT is designed to promote peak power.

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As we know, the Ford Performance Boss 302 intake manifold (PN M-9424-M50BR; $825) was originally designed to provide the air needed by the 7,000-rpm RoadRunner 5.0-liter engine that powers the 2012-2013 Boss 302 Mustang.

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The Ford Performance Cobra Jet intake manifold (PN M-9424-M50CJ; $1,099) was built for the naturally aspirated 2013 Cobra Jet drag car. It features 635 cubic inches of intake volume and is designed to support a racy, 7,750-rpm power peak.

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Ford engineers clearly did a great job with the F-150 version of the Coyote intake manifold, as the Mustang GT only picked up 4.02 horsepower at the peak, but dropped 9.75 lb-ft of torque.

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Interestingly, the Boss 302 intake manifold picked up far more power than the stock or Mustang GT intakes with a 36.51 horsepower gain at the peak, but it gave up less torque than the GT intake with a 7.7 lb-ft loss.

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At first blush, you wouldn’t guess that the Ford Performance Cobra Jet intake would be the hot setup for an F-150, but in the ID Motorsports testing it picked up peak to peak gains of 43.66 horsepower and 1.23 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels.

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If you want to see how all the intakes compare with one another, you can do so here, and Matt also included the results of his hotter calibration on the stock F-150. With just a tuned, his truck picked up peak-to-peak gains of 22.39 hp and 17 lb-ft of torque at the wheels.

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Here’s a look at the sampling of the data comparing the Mustang GT, Boss 302 and Cobra Jet manifolds versus the stock truck manifold. As you can see, the Mustang GT gives up power and torque until the top end, while the Boss 302 and Cobra Jet only give up midrange performance to the truck intake while pulling so much harder at the top of the tach.
 

TORQUERULES

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It is amazing just how much is left on the table with the Coyote engines. To pick up that much with an intake is astounding. Now they NEED to test the GT350 intake on a truck Coyote. It could be the hot ticket...
 

Mach828

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Very cool comparison. Not really fair to run the other intakes with the stock airbox and then have a huge intake on the CJ.
 

Russo

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too bad nobody makes an intake for the F150 that accomodates the CJ manifold...
 

o2gt

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Very nice, I feel like the 15+ F150 5.0l engine is much better than the 11-14 5.0.

I have not really followed the f150 5.0. Know there are some differences between it and the mustang version. Do the 15 plus models in the f150's have the same changes that were made for the 5.0 in the 15plus mustangs? thanks for the explanation.
 

1fastTbird

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Very cool comparison. Not really fair to run the other intakes with the stock airbox and then have a huge intake on the CJ.

Agreed. It's always nice when companies and individuals alike spend precious time and hard earned money testing parts and sharing the results with everyone in the community. For the analytical types, I wish they tested the all manifolds with the same style air intake setup. I guess by the time they figured out that they needed a custom (i.e. - high flow) intake on the CJ, they were too tired of swapping manifolds to go back and retest the other manifolds.

With that being said, 50 whp with a manifold and air intake is huge.
 
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3cRider

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According to TFLT, the 2015 5.0 received:
"The 5.0L V8 gets more power for 2015. Ford engineers worked to get 385 horsepower and 387 lb-ft of torque out of the V8 by utilizing new long-runner intake manifold, revised intake cam, and new exhaust manifolds. This gets you 25 more horses and 7 more lb-ft of torque than before."
 

Konablue10GT

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Here is some info from Ford's Technical site:

2015 5.0 Mustang 2015 5.0 F150
Comp. 11.0:1 10.5:1
Lobe Lift Intake. 5.963mm 5.9615mm
Lobe Lift Exh. 5.488mm 5.488mm

Roller follower
Ratio. 2:1 Intake(Mustang) 2:1251:1 Intake
2:1 Exhaust(Mustang) 2.0826:1 Exhaust
Valve Spring
Installed Force. 265 N 300 N

Valve Spring
Compression
Force. 650 N 760 N

Intake Valve 37mm 37mm
Exhaust Valve 31mm 31mm

Its very interesting that the F150 has stiffer installed and compression forces for the valve springs. Also, Ford is utilizing different Roller Follower Ratio's between the different models.
 
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Matt@IDM

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Agreed. It's always nice when companies and individuals alike spend precious time and hard earned money testing parts and sharing the results with everyone in the community. For the analytical types, I wish they tested the all manifolds with the same style air intake setup. I guess by the time they figured out that they needed a custom (i.e. - high flow) intake on the CJ, they were too tired of swapping manifolds to go back and retest the other manifolds.

With that being said, 50 whp with a manifold and air intake is huge.

That was on our mind when we did the test. But I feel the only thing close to that would have been a air intake from a 2010 3V. And in all fairness to the dual bore tb I felt it would be unfair to use a coupling to make the difference up and using the potential of the dual bore. I also felt if anyone is running that intake over the others is going to use a inlet that will utilize the extra throttle area.
 

Russo

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So someone (JLT) needs to make an intake for the 11-16 f150 with a CJ manifold.. Sell it as a kit if they have to
 

StangFever

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+1 I have a 2014 Regular Cab 5.0 with the JLT intake and MPT 93 octane tune and it's a whole other animal now. I was originally planning on getting the Boss 302 intake manifold, but now I might wait to see if someone comes out with a kit with the CJ manifold. I wonder how the GT350 intake would do on these trucks???
 

JTL 5-0

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Yes the truck made 401 rwhp & 377 ft/ibs with the cobra jet manifold with a custom tune on 93 octane and a intake but compare that to the truck with only a custom tune and stock intake. The truck made 380 rwhp & 394 ft/ibs with no after market intake. For the money just get a tune and CAI for probably almost as much HP and more torque. This should be what everyone is seeing. Great test by the way but now we know where to spend the money.
 

kona302

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Any chance I OP can repost with the pictures, they aren’t showing. Or if anyone know of a dyno overlay of the truck intake V. A gen 1 coyote, looking for more low-mid range tq.
 
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