new to the board but not new to modding fords. however i never have modified a truck before. i would like to put a cai and exhaust system on my truck but have a couple questions. with the way the new fords are, especially with programming...is a tune necessary for the mentioned mods? if so im assuming sct has something out there for me? sct is the ****

thanks for any help

 

No need for a tune/chip with those mods. However, it will work together with those mods and wake that truck up even more.

 

Hi Steel City,

Hang on there - no, you CANNOT just put any intake kit on the 2004 & newer F-150's with the 5.4 3-valve motor, as virtually ALL the CAI's on the market for those vehicles WILL in fact cause the engine to go *drastically and dangerously* lean.

It's not like the 2-valve & 4-valve modular motors, the 3V's have a different MAS system and it's far more unforgiving of changes made to the air intake tract. What Bartak1 very kindly responded with is accurate info for the 1997-2003 trucks, but not for the 2004 & up 5.4 3V motors.

There is only 1 intake kit on the market today for the 5.4 3-valve F-150 that will NOT cause the lean condition and that WILL actually result in significant power gains - Airaid. We carry it in stock at a great price, just give us a call at our number listed below as we handle any and all performance modifications for these new vehicles, including superchargers, etc.

We've gone over all of this many times before, so you can use the SEARCH feature here to retrieve & read any of our hundreds of previous posts on this exact topic.

By the way - THANK YOU for asking about this before doing it - so many people just accept what the various manufacturers claim and slap on intake kits and then have problems, or in some cases don't get any warning lights on the dash - we've seen 19:1 lean not throw a code on some of the 5.4 3Vs during a full-throttle dyno pull, and that is scary.

Thanks for your post, & good luck with your new truck!

 

steel city- i'm from irwin- i had an 03 4x4 5.4 super cab- magnaflow single exhaust - mac cai and mike troyer custom tuner- just by going from his tuner from the diablo chip i was using i dropped 7/10th s in th 1/4 mile at keystone- with the diablo i put out 220 rwhp at 4300 rpms and 300 rwftlbs tq at 3800 rpms- my hp was low as diablo was unable to raise speed limiter and and allow me to get to 500-5200 rpms in drive to obtain peak hp numbers- i highly recommend mike -he knows his stuff -phil

 

Hi again Steel City,

I think I may (in my zeal) have failed to answer one of your questions........

Even with the new MAS setup Ford uses on their 3-valve motors, you can still do virtually any type of change in the cat-back portion of the exhaust system, and not require tuning changes, and I think I neglected to mention that in my last response. I was so concerned about the intake kits and their effects on the 3-valve motor MAS setup that I think I just forgot all about giving you a proper answer to that - sorry!

Anyway - there are 2 intake kits as of today that can be used on the 2004 & up 5.4 3V F-150 that do NOT cause a gross lean condition - one is the TrueFlow, and the other is the Airaid. However, ONLY the Airaid actually adds significant power - th TrueFlow unit does not, and it also leaves the complete stock air filter box & assembly in place.

That being the case, the only "viable" aftermarket CAI for the 2004 & newer 5.4 3V F-150 as things stand right now is the Airaid unit. Power gains are big in the lower mid-range, I.E., at just 2000 rpm there is another 15 HP at the wheels, at 3000 rpm another 20 Hp at the wheels - and we have dyno'd that ourselves numerous times.

On the exhaust side of things, the 2004 & newer F-150's with any engine have the best factory exhaust they have ever had - but there is still room for improvement. Magnaflow is the only exhaust manufacturer really doing a proper job of flow engineering so that you don't lost exhaust gas velocity and thus hurt scavenging (and kill low end torque as a result) - their various systems for the 2004 & up 5.4 3V F-150 will add anywhere form 9 HP to 14 HP at the rear wheels (more of course SAE Net at the flywheel).

I hope that info helps, & please feel free to call us for further details, package pricing, etc.

 

Mike,

I am currently running a Volant Cold Air Induction on my 2004 Ford F150. Should I be worried about it running to lean.

 

i believe true flow which uses oem stuff is the other 1 that doesn't risk your air -fuel ratios-phil

 

Hi MM,

Welcome to F-150 Online!

I'm not going to "knock" Volant, they're good people as far as we know - personally, I would not run that kit on a 5.4 3V F-150 today, and they have in fact had numerous 5.4 3V F-150 owners report problems with the engine running lean over the past few months. They have also had some people report no obvious problems - but then as best we know, none of those vehicle owners did thorough datalogging & testing, either. Those who reported problems got warning lights on the dash, and lean codes reported by the PCM.

This is an issue that we've never had to deal with before on previous generation F-150's with most intake kits, and is due to the way Ford has changed the factory MAS/air intake tract setup on their 3V motors - the 5.4 3V in the F-150, the 4.6 3V in the 2005 Mustang, and even the new 3V version of the 6.8L V-10 in the SuperDuty trucks.

Far too many performance parts manufacturers will strap one test vehicle (or a couple) on a chassis dyno to do a quick A/F test, not see a big problem and declare the part ready to ship. It requires far more than a simple A/F ratio test on these new 5.4 3V F-150's, though most of them don't know much about that - it requires complete datalogging of all engine operational parameters in additional to wideband A/F ratio testing - as well as testing while towing, etc., in both stock and then modified configurations, on multiple vehicles, for a manufacturer to really be doing what *we* consider to be a good job developing a replacement air intake tract on these 5.4 3V's - something they generally aren't used to doing, by and large.

The kicker here is that sometimes you'll get a warning light on the dash if there is a problem, but sometimes you won't - sometimes the PCM will store a code if a problem exists, but then again, sometimes it won't. We've seen 19:1 A/F's (WAY lean) caused by a bad intake kit on a 5.4 3V F-150 during a typical full-throttle dyno pull, yet the PCM showed no codes, and we got no warning lights on the dash, no failsafe mode, etc., for example! (Good thing we got out of it quickly, as that could get dangerous pretty quick. ) Point being, you cannot just depend on getting some kind of "warning" from the vehicle to protect you.

The truth is, I really can't tell you if you are "safe" or not with that intake kit - it might be fine, it might not be. I can only tell you that we did not feel good about the testing we did a while back. Now Volant said that they were supposed to have made some kind of change to "correct" the lean problems seen on a number of these vehicles, but I cannot tell you if that is actually true or not, as we have not tested any subsequent change.

All I can really say is that at this point, based on what we have seen so far, no, I personally would not use that particular intake kit. That doesn't mean it's automatically going to hurt your engine - it just means that we don't care for it at this time, based on what we saw when we tested it.

The truth is, the only way you will really know for sure is by thorough testing - that means more than just running it on a chassis dyno to get the A/F's, that means *complete* datalogging of all engine operational parameters including wideband A/F's. Only then will you know if a custom tune is *required* to develop a new custom MAS transfer function to bring the fuel trims & A/F's (and thus the EGT's) in line - and if so, it can take a few rounds of tuning adjustments & datalogging sessions. In other words, don't think that it's something where you can just tell us you have a Volant intake kit ands we can just magically send a program that will make it safe - that cannot be done, as it requires testing & datalogging to see just what the actual effect of the part is, and then to monitor the progress of each tuning change to correct for whatever problems are found.

For what it may or may not be worth, you can get better power gains with the Airaid unit for example, and it does not cause the lean A/F's seen in almost all other intake kits to date for this specific application - which is why the only intake kit made to date for the 2004 & up 5.4 3V F-150 that we approve of is the Airaid.

Best of luck whatever you decide,

 

I bought a KN cold air kit, a few months back. After installing it the truck would start and then just die. Sounded like it was getting to much air. I left the battery disconnected for about 4 hours piror to starting the car also.

But still no go. In frustration or thinking I broke something, I put the factory parts back on. Started up and worked like a champ. So in frustation I thought I would leave it alone and try later. Hoping that I would have some type of mental break through. So the following weekend I tried it again. With no supprise the same results.

SO after kicking my car a few times, I put the factory parts back on.


But FINALLY after reading this thread it makes sence!!
The Lean condition fits the problem to a T. There are no codes poped or check engine lights with the kit attached, so the code reader never picked it up. I went as far to ask the Dealership or help on this one and they had no ideas either. Hopefully the retailer or K&N will refund me on this giant paperwait as they claim 100% with no issues.

Thanks for bring this thread up, it was a real help for me!

 

Wow, this is an OLD thread that got brought back up - but I;m glad it did, as there is some new info to add to this.

First, there are two intake kits that we currently recommend using if you want to gain some power and not need any tuning on the 5.4 3V F-150 - and that is the current Airaid unit, and then the 3.0" version of the Air Force One - which was not available at the time of this original thread.

The K&N intake kit for the 5.4 3V DOES require tuning for the heavy-throttle A/F ratios to be in line - however, it requires a small correction down lower in the MAF sensor's transfer function, which is why it sets no codes - so with the K&N FIPK kit for the 5.4 3V, it's basically OK for light throttle use, but not for heavy throttle use - and that is not a limitation you want to have.

However, for RyansLT, take heart, as we can correct that for you with our tuning - just give us a call at our number listed below & we'll be happy to take care of that for you, as we have developed a transfer function for the K&N intake kit for these 5.4 3V's that will take care of the lean condition.

See, what K&N does is they test a new kit on 3 vehicles - and as long as they don't see any gross big obvious problems, then they release it - however, being tuners, we're looking to make sure the vehicle achieves it's commanded A/F ratios, and in this case, the K&N kit doesn't throw the engine lean enough to cause codes to be set under lighter loads - this is really a problem only at heavier loads - and they are not as far off as some others.

So given that K&N tests on only 3 vehicles as their standard, it *is* possible that the 3 vehicles they tested on weer close enough that they felt OK with it - you have to remember that they are not tuners, and they don't see the *thousands* of these vehicles that we tune with all kinds of different modifications, how much variance there is when you work on thousands of seemingly identical vehicles, etc. So I wouldn't be too mad at them. Just realize that it does need some correction, and have that done so that you can not only enjoy the power from your intake kit, but also enjoy the significant additional power from the custom tuning to correct the A/F's as well - at least, that's how I feel about it, but then I'm a tuner, of course.

If you'd like to go over this in more detail, please feel free to give us a call at our number listed below, OK?

Thanks for your post & good luck!

 

Between the Airaid unit and the AF1 3.0" which one adds the most power and torque, or are they about the same??? I know ya'll do a good but of testing on CAI on the dynos and figured you out of anyone will know. I know your not biased to any one product so i understand if you have a hard time answering this. I've read with the AF1 3.5" is the biggest gainer but I dont have time or money right now to do custom tunning (full time college student LOL) So I'd rather get the Airaid or either Af1 3.0" so i dont have to worry about it to much Thanks for being such a BIG help on these forums mike I'm def. doing my business w/ you for now on, I wish I wouldnt have bought that EDGE and gone with your tune but i'll deal with that Later (since the new SCT tuner is about to come out) LOL My goal is to start adding all the Mods that are in your stage 2 pack minus the brakes. First goal is a good CAI and next is a new exhaust, My flowmaster SI/DO is worrying me b/c all I hear is how terrible they are at the low end. Any info is appreciated