Pretty heated discussion on another forum regarding the installation of an aftermarket guard to protect the intercooler on the EcoBoost engine.

I was curious to get the input of others about if and how it would affect performance.

As we all know the LP is pushed to the driver side so that a hole is left in the middle of the bumper fascia to flow air directly to the IC. Someone had posted a picture of their IC with a large dent in the tubing and fin damage after a rock or road debris struck the IC, presumably coming in from that hole.

Several aftermarket companies have begun making grills that fit in this space. I purchased one mostly for the aesthetics it provides, but like the protection as well.

IMO I do not believe the grill hinders air movement enough to cause an issue with the engine. If it were tuned with other aftermarket upgrades and goodies and under constant severe duty, I might change my opinion, but for the majority of EB drivers out there I do not see an issue.

Here is a picture of mine. Thoughts?

 

No it will not cause any problems by installing a grill there.. The truck will not take a hit on performance.

 

The only person that can accurately answer that question would work in Ford's Engineering department. No one on here knows the cooling requirements for the intercooler and where the efficiency starts to suffer. They do and know as a result moved the front tag. If I was to put one on my truck I would look for the most open area possible to minimize the loss of airflow.

 

While that's true about the license plate, the license plate is a big rectangle, whereas the grilles are open and much, much thinner. I don't see how a grille insert there would cut airflow like the license plate would.

 

Ok, I ran the numbers. Prepare to be shocked!

The opening is 20.5" x 5.5" so 112.75 square inches.

The front tag is 13 x 5.5 so 71.5 square inches and blocks 63.4% of the airflow.

The grill is length x thickness x number of slats + the length x thickness x number of the supports. I guessed the slat thickness to be .25" and there are 11. There are 2 supports I guessed to be .5" wide. The total area is 76.875 square inches and blocks 68.2% of the airflow. This does not take the shape of the slats into account which will disrupt the airflow and create eddy currents which slow the air down and further hurt the performance of the inter-cooler.

You read that correctly the grill blocks 5% more air than the tag!

If the slats are made from 1/8" material the blockage drops to 43.8%. I'm keeping mine open.

 

Impressive math.

But it's big plate versus slats in a nutshell. Slats shouldn't have an effect at speed I would suspect.

 

You are letting the shape cloud the issue. The real issue is the area blocked. Anytime you place a grill over an opening you must consider the area blocked by the grill. In fact most mesh material spec sheets list the percent of area that is blocked.

Once you get moving the area is still blocked. Ford designed the opening with moving air in mind. If we knew the area required then we could size the grill to stay under the requirement. The only thing we know is the tag blocks too much area and that is 63% of the opening. Personally I would block no more than 30% of the opening as I suspect the opening is oversized by a small amount.

 

I would like to see someone get an IR thermometer and do before and after temps after installing one of these grilles.

 

The air on a grate does not get blocked, it gets diverted.

 

Without actually doing the math yours seems a bit off. Here's why. The slats are much smaller than the spaces between the slats, at least they are on mine. The spaces measure approx 1/2" while the slats measure approx 1/8". The most the slats could block is 20% add a swag of another 5% for the supports (which I think is way high I think it is >1%) and you come up with 25% blockage. As was pointed out that isn't a true 25% blockage though. Much of the air is diverted around the slats and through the spaces. With the license plate the air is diverted around the plate going under or over the bumper with a little going around the sides and to the intercooler.

I can tell you I bought a black grill and it already has two large dents/chips in it from rock damage. Without the grill it is very possible those two rocks would have hit and possibly punctured my intercooler.

Has anybody looked at or thought about designing a fan to place on the intercooler to suck air through it. Ford mounted it at a weird angle so I wonder how much air flow it is actually getting in the first place.

 

I bought an intercooler grille when I got my truck and it paid for itself after the first road trip. Hit a grouse doing 110km/hr right on the grille. If I didnt have the grille it would have hit the intercooler for sure.
Also being in the North, lots of gravel for winter time so I'm not taking a risk with winter driving and all the rocks on the road to hit the intercooler. Even the Ford dealer here asked me if I was getting one and pointed me in the direction of a couple of suppliers....

 

Ok I did the math. Each slat is 1/8 and there are 11 of them. That equals 28.188 sq inches of blockage. Each support is 1/2" for a total of 1" of support blockage. Take 5.5 (height of the hole) subtract the 1.375 (for blockage already included in the blockage from the slats) and you get 4.125 sq inches of blockage. Total sq inches blocked is 32.313 and that equals about 29% blockage. It still isn't complete blockage because the air does still flow around the slats and support into the intercooler, whereas the air from the license plate goes mostly around the bumper.

 

I will post here what I posted in that other heated thread. I got a few hateful PM's for it, but I have done ACTUAL testing with infrared temp sensors, air flow sensors, dyno's, etc.

Take it for what you will or won't, but I have been a part of ACTUAL tests with real cars using real data and real sensors to do verify exactly what we are talking about in this thread. And bottom line, it causes no adverse effects to the cooling or temperatures or airflow of the car/truck.

I used to work for one of the largest supplier of aftermarket Toyota Supra parts in the country. Next door was the partner company who happened to build and dyno the cars that we sold parts for. We also built a few movie cars, stunt cars, and more show and drag cars than you can imagine. Built to as much as 1500rwhp back when I was there in 2003-2005, and have only gone bigger since then.

Supras have HUGE bumper openings and the aftermarket front mount intercoolers for them have a pretty large surface area that is exposed directly to the front of the car without protection. The area is easily 4x as big as the exposed hole for our EB trucks.

There was a long discussion about this exact thing on various forums for these cars around the same time. So we decided to do some testing via dyno and real world air flow sensors on real cars to see what the effects would be. We ran only one car and kept the variables as constant as we could. We tested the car on the dyno without a grille and with fans at various speeds to see its power level. We then did the same tests with the same car with the same fans only with a grille or mesh to protest the grille. We also had infrared temperature guns on the intercooler throughout the runs. In this test there was LESS than 2.5% change in temperature and less than 3rwhp difference on a car making over 900rwhp at 30psi.

We then took the SAME CAR and ran it on the street with air temp sensors in the intercooler piping and air flow sensors in the bumper. Ran the car on the same route with the same temperature outside with of course the grille off and again the grille on. Again almost zero difference in temperature of the air through the intercooler and less than 4% reduction in flow to the intercooler itself through the grille.

We also had several customers in other parts of the country conduct their own tests using similar methods and their results were nearly the same as ours everytime. There was NO ACTUAL EVIDENCE OF TEMPERATURES OR AIRFLOW to support the having a grille or mesh of some sort in front of the intercooler to protect it, caused power loss or airflow loss or air temp increase. NONE AT ALL.

Again these tests were done all on Supras making anywhere from 500rwhp or so all the way up to 1200+rwhp. If it's ok for them to use them with the ridiculous volume of air they are flowing through their intercoolers, then I'm pretty sure it's ok for our lowly 365hp motors.

If it makes you feel comfortable to put a grille or something in there to protect that intercooler, by all means do so. It is not going to cause an issue or problem despite some some people in this thread who have no direct experience with the matter, claim it will.

Just my 2psi

 

You may or may not be correct, I'm not debating that. What everyone needs to consider before doing any such mod is that if you DO HAVE a turbo problem of any kind, whether it be heating or otherwise, it is very likely that the dealer will point at the mod as the reason and possibly void the warranty. I think this will be the case just like they have done in the past with tuners, when there is absolutely no evidence that tuners cause a problem. I feel it needs to be out there so that if you decide to go ahead with such mods, you know the risk you may be taking.

 

I have a bumper grille. My dealer has put some on trucks on their lot. I'm not worried. What I find funny is some eco boost trucks that have the plate in the center, blocking the opening. How does this happen? Somewhere, someone put the wrong piece on and mounted a plate holder. Ford should be more on top of this...if dealers are unknowingly doing this