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  1. Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

    Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

    As summer begins here in Delaware, it's quickly becoming the season of trailers with boats, jet skis, and campers filling the roads. Most of those trailers are pulled behind massive, oversized trucks that look like they rolled off the showroom floor yesterday. While there's nothing wrong with taking pride in your truck and keeping it clean, my favorite thing to see on the road is the F-150 that still has the toolbox in the back and mud on the tires, towing an old aluminum fishing boat. The drivers of the shiny behemoths might scoff at it from a few feet up, but that F-150 has been that driver's Hercules. You know that truck and its owner have done some work.

    Summer is also an opportune time to finish our 2015+ F-150 / 2017+ Raptor radiator. But before we move into the final phase of development, let's look at how we got here. Our first

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  2. One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

    One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 3: Production

    The world is full of attempts at greatness that fell
    short for one reason or another. It's no secret that creating something great
    takes the right combination of timing, motivation, and vision. Over the past several
    months, we've been working to craft our own version of greatness for one of the
    most celebrated trucks in the world.

    When we last saw our 2011-2014 Ford F-150/2010-2014 Ford Raptor radiator, it was merely the shell of greatness. Our prototype was constructed and test-fit successfully, but we were still a few steps away from our goal of a radiator that lives up to the F-150's reputation. While we've been absent from posting, work was still progressing on our production samples. These samples, and the testing we'll perform with them, will be the milestone that determines if our radiator will be fit for greatness, or fall short along with so many before it.

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  3. Carry the Weight - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 3: Production

    Carry the Weight - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 3: Production

    The time had come to put our engineer's hard work to the test, a bench test to be specific. The bench test determines if our final transmission cooler will be a stacked-plate or tube-and-fin design. Given the fact that our cooler is over double the size of the stock cooler, we're confident that either construction will cool better, but the devil is in the details. Aside from the cooling performance of each construction method, we needed to consider the pressure drop across each. The cooling performance of the stacked-plate cooler might be better than a tube-and-fin cooler, but if the pressure drop is too high, it will all be for nothing. To settle the debate once and for all we set up our bench-test rig and got to work.

    You may be wondering why we're bench testing the coolers instead of road testing them. Road testing coolers is great for getting real world data when you can perform

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  4. One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 2: Prototype

    One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 2: Prototype

    Becoming "the best" is hardly ever an easy task. Neil Armstrong didn't just wake up one morning in his parents' basement and decide to go for a stroll on the moon later that day. Reaching the top requires hard work and perseverance, and for automotive manufacturers it often requires walking a thin line between quality and cost. After all, if you build an incredible vehicle that performs and looks better than the rest, yet nobody can afford it, is it really the best? Over the past 44 years, the F-150 and its creators at Ford have been towing that line well enough to put the F-150 at the top of nearly every list for best truck in the world.

    Staying at the top that long isn't an easy feat either. Each year, the F-150 evolves to preserve its top spot in the truck world. But even if you don't own the newest F-150, you can still make it one of the best trucks on the road with quality parts. For the past 4 months, we've been developing a radiator for the 2011-2014 F-150 to help keep these aging

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  5. Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 2: Design & Prototype

    Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 2: Design & Prototype

    What haven't I said about Ford's F-150? It's reliable,
    affordable, capable, comfortable, and all the other -ables that you'd want from
    a truck, except for one. It's not invulnerable. Like every vehicle, time takes its
    toll and something's bound to break. If you're lucky, you have some time before
    those tolls hit your F-150's cooling system, but it's always a good idea to be prepared.
    Mishimoto is working on a radiator to allow you to do just that.

    Our last look at the 2015+ F-150 revealed that our
    radiator needed to replace not one, but three different factory radiators. Our
    goal was to combine the features of the two light-duty radiators and the
    heavy-duty Raptor radiator into one even better aluminum radiator. To start
    that process, we measured all three radiators,

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  6. In Capable Hands - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 2: Design

    In Capable Hands - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 2: Design

    The key to great engineering is often making the most of what you're given"using the resources available to you in the most efficient way possible. When we last talked about the 2011-2014 F-150 transmission cooler, we noted that Ford's engineers left a lot on the table. Behind the grille of the F-150 lays a transmission cooler that's only using about half of the resources given to it. But we're not about to let that extra space go to waste. In this post, our engineer will leverage simplicity and creativity to make the most of what the 2011-2014 F-150 has to give.

    Our design process for this transmission cooler followed the same path it does for most of our products. We started by

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  7. Carry the Weight - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 2: Design

    Carry the Weight - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 2: Design

    Simplicity is often the key to great engineering. The
    same can be said about Ford's F-150. The F-150 is about function over frills and
    getting the job done. Our 2015+ Ford F-150 transmission cooler will follow the
    same formula. Our focus will be on one key aspect: use as much of the space
    behind the F-150's grille as possible. As we saw in our first post, the stock
    transmission cooler only utilizes about 50% of the available space. To increase
    that usage to 100% without adding unnecessary complications is where we'll get
    the job done, plain and simple.

    Ford was kind enough to provide us with convenient mounting
    points on either end of the radiator and a hard pipe to connect the outlet port
    on the transmission cooler to

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  8. One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    One of the Greats - Radiator R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    What does it take to make a great truck? For many, a
    great truck needs to be reliable, capable, and affordable. It's no coincidence
    that Ford has been using that recipe for one of the best-selling trucks in the
    world since 1975. The 2011-2014 F-150 is the epitome of what a great truck
    should be. But even great vehicles age, and with age a key ingredient in that
    recipe begins to decline: reliability.

    One of the first systems to show its age in any vehicle
    is often the cooling system, and the first component in the cooling system to
    fail is often the radiator. When your radiator fails, your F-150 is rendered
    useless, no matter how capable and affordable it once was. Luckily, Mishimoto
    is working on a radiator to keep your 2011-2014 F-150 and 2010-2014 Raptor as
    great as the day it rolled off the production line.

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  9. Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    Everyday Hercules - Aluminum Radiator R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    Like the Roman hero Hercules, the 2015+ F-150 is capable of other-worldly feats. From the street to the jobsite, and even the dunes or the track, there's little that the F-150 can't conquer. With three available engines producing over 350 lb. ft. of torque, the 2015+ F-150 could probably stop the rotation of the earth. Even with all that power, many of the F-150's on the road will never see Moab or drag a 1,000 lb. log up a mountain. But that doesn't mean your F-150 shouldn't be your everyday Hercules.

    Owning an F-150 should mean being confident that you can tackle any task life throws your way, but that confidence may be shaken if your stock cooling system has seen better days. Hercules is nothing without his strength, and if your F-150 is overheating, all the power in the world means little. That's why we here at Mishimoto are developing an all-aluminum radiator to keep your 2015+ F-150 going strong.

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  10. In Capable Hands - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    In Capable Hands - Transmission Cooler R&D, Part 1: Stock Review

    When most people imagine a truck built for towing, they probably imagine a huge, lifted diesel billowing black smoke out of the exhaust. But, it doesn't take a behemoth to tow, just ask anybody who owns a 2011-2014 F-150 with a tow package.

    While the F-150 is one of the smallest trucks on the road today, it's also one of the most capable. We've said it in almost every F-150 post on our blog because it's true: The F-150 is at home anywhere from the work site to the grocery store. Select the appropriate combination of engine, cab, gearing and tow package, and the F-150 can tow up to about 11,000 pounds. That's a lot of groceries.

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    Towing that kind of weight requires a little more cooling than the standard

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