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Interested in picking up our aluminum coolant expansion tank? Check out more details on our product page linked below.

Mishimoto Ford Mustang EcoBoost/V6/V8 Aluminum Coolant Expansion Tank

It's hard to match that feeling you get when purchasing a new car, especially the new S-550 Mustang. Picking up your friends for joy rides, melting the tires down the full length of your neighborhood, pulling into the driveway, popping the hood in complete ecstasy " wait " what is that? Is that the coolant expansion tank? Why is it so terrible looking?

This is pretty similar to what happened the day our shop 2015 EB arrived. The engine bay on both the 2.3L and 5.0L vehicles is quite nice, well organized, and clean. Unfortunately, right up front in plain sight sits quite an eyesore in the form of your coolant expansion tank. To improve aesthetics, we decided to tackle R&D to bring you guys a more appealing alternative to the stock tank.

Stock Expansion Tank Exterior

Before jumping into a design of our

Interested in purchasing our Mustang EcoBoost Downpipe? Check out more details on our product page linked below!

Mishimoto Ford Mustang EcoBoost Downpipe!

Opening up the exhaust on a turbocharged vehicle is a great first modification that can make a big impact on drivability, vehicle sound, and driver enjoyment. Typically, a vehicle will see improvements in horsepower and massive gains in torque output. Emissions and sound requirements normally restrict the size and efficiency of stock exhaust systems, which explains why big gains result from enlarging the piping and eliminating or reducing restrictions within the piping.

For this project, we will focus our efforts on designing and testing a new downpipe option for the 2015+ Ford EcoBoost Mustang. Before tackling our downpipe design, we will take a look at the stock unit pulled from our Triple Yellow shop vehicle.

Stock Downpipe Features

If you haven't peeked under your new Mustang, this portion of the article will give you a look at what

Interested in picking up this awesome Mustang EcoBoost Intercooler? Check out our product page for more details!

Mishimoto Mustang EcoBoost Performance Intercooler

Prototype Modeling

Now that we had a core that was functioning to our standards, it was time to finalize our end tank design and make 3D models to reflect our plans. After some lengthy modeling work, we came up with the renders you see below!

Mishimoto prototype intercooler 3D model

Mishimoto prototype intercooler 3D model

Mishimoto prototype intercooler 3D model

A few quick notes about this cooler! We designed this unit to fit within the same space as the stock intercooler. We designed cast-aluminum end tanks, which will be mated to the bar-and-plate core we tested during the previous (Part 3) segment of this series. We are also retaining the stock intercooler connections, which are large enough for sufficient flow to produce rather high power.

For this cooler we were concerned with pushing air to the entire thickness of the

Interested in purchasing our Mustang EcoBoost intake system? Check out more details on our product page linked below!

Mishimoto Ford Mustang EcoBoost Performance Air Intake

Mishimoto intake installed

After wrapping up the design of our intake for the 2015, it was time to put the car on the rollers to see if we were making any power gains. As mentioned earlier in this series, we believed that significant power gains were unlikely due to the MAP-based ECU, which is not normally affected by modified intake systems.

Dyno Testing

With that in mind, we strapped the Mustang down and made a few pulls.

2015 Mustang EcoBoost on the dynamometer

Testing Results

After making several pulls with both the stock intake and Mishimoto intake, we averaged the runs, and the results are shown in the plot below.

Dyno results for Mishimoto and stock intakes

Although we were a bit skeptical about power gains for this vehicle, we did end up with some nice increases throughout most of the RPM range. These gains are

Interested in picking up this awesome Mustang EcoBoost Intercooler? Check out our product page for more details!

Mishimoto Mustang EcoBoost Performance Intercooler

Will this cooler be efficient enough to properly handle the heat and pressure created by the EcoBoost? Will we see any power gains during testing? These questions will be answered in the next few minutes, perhaps even quicker if you get scroll happy and skip ahead. Don't ruin the suspense!

Stock Intercooler Testing

First, we would need to capture data from the stock intercooler. We installed bungs on both the hot- and cold-side couplers for our pressure and temperature sensors.

Testing sensor bungs

We then strapped the Mustang to the dyno and made pulls until we had consistent data. Special care was taken to monitor the time frame between runs to ensure we could produce a nearly identical test for each pull, as well as with our prototype cooler.

EcoBoost Mustang on dyno

Testing stock intercooler

Testing stock intercooler

Mishimoto

Interested in picking up this awesome Mustang EcoBoost Intercooler? Check out our product page for more details!

Mishimoto Mustang EcoBoost Performance Intercooler

An Interesting Discovery

At this point, our intercooler project took an interesting turn. We wanted to develop a cooler, including going through the process of 3D design, and working up a prototype unit. That said, we had a new idea to get some early baseline testing for core design.

After swinging by our sample room, we retrieved the cooler shown below.

Mishmoto E90 intercooler

Mishmoto E90 intercooler

This is the intercooler we offer for the E90 BMW 335I. It is a twin-turbo coupe/sedan that makes power from an inline 6-cylinder engine to the tune of around 300 hp. Basic upgrades and tuning have been known to launch power into the mid 300s at the wheels.

The Mustang EB is rated similarly (excluding the two extra cylinders), so it would be a nice starting point to use for designing our core. We saw incredible temperature drops

Interested in purchasing our Mustang EcoBoost intake system? Check out more details on our product page linked below!

Mishimoto Ford Mustang EcoBoost Performance Air Intake

Last time we covered the design of our intake pipe and left you with a look at our airbox design in the form of a rendering. It's time to show you how we developed this component.

First, we started with some steel and began selecting mounting points for attaching our box. Once we found these points, we pulled out the welder and began fabricating a prototype.

Fabricating Mustang airbox

Fabricating Mustang airbox

We then constructed a lid to fully seal the filter from engine bay temperatures.

Fabricating Mustang airbox

Fabricating Mustang airbox

Now that we had a basic design, our engineering team put this into Solidworks to create the awesome 3D renderings shown below.

Mishimoto intake system rendering

Mishimoto intake system rendering

We didn't stop here! To ensure the perfect fitment of this component, we used our 3D

Interested in purchasing our Mustang EcoBoost intake system? Check out more details on our product page linked below!

Mishimoto Ford Mustang EcoBoost Performance Air Intake

With the stock unit out of the way we could begin developing our intake piping. We would be starting at the turbocharger and working outward to an airbox near the stock location.

Using the dimensions from the stock unit, we developed a 3D model of an inlet hose that would be constructed from a silicone material. After completing the model, we produced a unit using our 3D printer.

Printing 3D model of intake inlet tube

Because this piece is larger than the bay of our 3D printer, it was constructed from three sections that were glued together. Check out the final design!

3D model of intake inlet tube

3D model of intake inlet tube

This unit has a shape that is similar to the factory unit. We also incorporated both the BPV and the CCV ports, which allow for connection to the OEM pieces. This unit will install just like the