So S&B's cold air intake with their dry extendable filter is currently one of the most affordable
closed element designs available for your '15 to '18 EcoBoost powered F-150.
Now, if you are on the fence about choosing between a closed element design and an open
element design, well, it's pretty easy.
An open element design looks cool, you get to see the filter up front, but you're sacrificing
a little bit of insulation for those looks.
A closed element design completely encases the air filter itself which provides cooler
air to the motor, thus technically making more power than an open element design but
they look a little bit more boring.
Well, S&B addressed this problem here with their new intake.
It's pretty cool.
It's a closed element design but it's got this pretty cool Plexiglass window here so
you can still see the filter inside.
Now, obviously, the intake's just one part of the equation.
Obviously, you have to worry about the filter as well.
And there are a couple of filter options available.
You got dry filters.
You got oiled filters.
In the case of this one here, it's a dry extendable filter.
S&B tells us that means you can actually clean this thing off pretty easily, simply by blowing
compressed air through it.
That will get rid of any particulates that the filter might have picked up and you can
throw it right back on the truck and keep going.
They say that the filter is good for 30,000 miles on the highway without having to clean
it.
So it's safe to say this is pretty good for a daily driver, and they even back up the
intake and the filter itself with a million mile warranty.
It's also made in America so that's pretty tough to beat.
Now, again, if you want one of the most affordable intakes, go ahead and stick around.
I'm actually gonna show you guys all the parts you need to get this intake installed and
I'm gonna show you the entire install step by step.
I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a very easy one out of three wrenches on my difficulty
meter.
It shouldn't take us more than 30 minutes to an hour.
So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started.
To install your new intake, you'll need standard drive ratchets, a 7-millimeter socket, an
8-millimeter socket, an 11-millimeter socket, a 13-millimeter socket, and a Phillips head
screwdriver.
Optional but helpful tools include long extensions.
All right.
So first we have to remove the tube and the top of our factory air box.
Now to loosen the tube and the clamps on it, you're gonna need a 7-millimeter socket.
It's also helpful to have an extension because one of those clamps is buried down pretty
deep in there.
Once you've loosened all those clamps, go ahead and pop the clips on the air box itself.
You can remove the top half.
Also, keep note, there's two plastic little Christmas tree retainers on the back of the
factory air box holding a wire in place.
You just wanna pull those gently with your hand.
Now with the box and the tube removed, go ahead and flip the tube itself over.
You can see here we have our intake temperature sensor.
Go ahead and rotate it and pop it out of the tube itself.
All right.
Once the sensor is free of the factory tube, go ahead and pull the sensor out of the wiring
harness.
You're gonna need to transfer your sensor over to your new intake system.
All right.
The last part of our uninstall is removing the bottom half of our factory air box with
our factory air filter.
Normally, there would be two plastic retaining clips here on the inlet.
They do break pretty easily and we work on these trucks pretty often so ours are already
free and clear.
Then you gotta pull this little 13-millimeter bolt here securing the air box to the truck.
You're gonna be reusing this 13-millimeter bolt later so go ahead and set that aside.
All right.
So we have our factory intake removed here.
We can do a nice little comparison between our old and busted here and this new, cool
S&B guy.
And if you're not in the mood for something flashy, I think that the S&B intake would
be a good fit for you.
Obviously, it is a lot more well-built than the factory intake, but it still uses a plastic
construction.
It's got a nice matte black finish to it, but overall, the quality is definitely a lot
better than the factory intake.
Now, obviously, closed intakes can be a little bit boring because you can't see the filter
there.
A lot of guys like that look.
So what's nice about the S&B intake is you got this nice little Plexiglass window here.
You can actually see the filter inside.
And that's just convenient as well because you can actually see if you need to take the
filter out, clean it off, or replace it.
But we gotta take some stuff off of our factory intake and swap it over to our new one here.
Specifically, we gotta pull this little rubber grommet with this metal bushing inside of
here.
We removed the 13-millimeter bolt from this a moment ago.
You're swapping that over to the new air box so go ahead and pop this out by hand.
All right.
Now if you're working on a 2017 EcoBoost like I am today, you're gonna have to install this
little vacuum line bracket.
They do provide all the hardware in the kit.
So, you're gonna need an 11-millimeter deep socket to tighten this bolt down.
You're also gonna need this little flat washer here as well as the nut.
All right.
Once you got that bracket in place, you can throw on the primary rubber coupler for the
new intake tube.
It's gonna go on this oval inlet right here.
You're also gonna need the largest clamp in the kit.
And to tighten this down, you're gonna need an 8-millimeter deep socket.
All right.
With that rubber coupler installed, you can also throw on this little rubber cover for
the front of the air box itself.
In order to secure this guy, you're gonna need these little double-sided plastic rivets.
They go in each of the four holes here, one underneath and one on top and they'll clip
together.
All right.
Once you got all that stuff applied to the air box, you can set that aside for now.
You can move on to the intake tube itself.
Now, S&B does provide a rubber fitting for your air intake temperature sensor.
It may already be installed in the tube.
But if it's not, go ahead and pop that guy in there.
Once you got him in there, you can go ahead and throw on the couplers for the intake tube
driver's side and passenger side for the turbo inlets.
You're gonna wanna grab the clamps that are appropriately sized for each of those.
Go ahead and tighten these down to the intake tubes.
You can also throw on the other clamps that are gonna secure the tube to the inlets for
the turbos but don't tighten those down just yet.
All right.
Now that you got your air box and your intake tube all set up with the clamps and couplers
and all that good stuff, we can actually throw the air box inside the truck.
All right.
Once you got your air box seated in the engine bay, go ahead and reinstall that 13-millimeter
bolt that we loosened earlier.
Now, this bolt goes inside of the air box itself.
It's a little bit of a squeeze.
So it's helpful to have an extension when you retighten that.
You'll also need that 13-millimeter socket to do so.
Once you got that bolt reinstalled, go ahead and grab the two plastic push pins provided
in the kit.
You're gonna use these to secure that primary rubber grommet up front here for the air box
itself.
All right.
Now that you have your air box secured, you can go ahead and throw your intake tube in
and you can secure the intake tube to both of the turbo inlets.
Now, this is a little bit of a squeeze.
You gotta actually feed the primary portion of the tube through the air box so it's helpful
to spray up this rubber grommet here with some WD-40.
That'll make it a lot easier.
Another little trick that you can do, you can actually throw the clamps themselves on
the inlet sides of these hoses here.
That way they're out of the way.
Go ahead and get all these couplers lined up then you can tighten everything down.
All right.
Once you've worked that intake tube in place, you can go ahead and tighten down those clamps.
Again, you're gonna need an 8-millimeter socket for those.
It's helpful to have an extension for the driver's side because it is kind of tucked
down there.
Once you got those clamps tightened down, you can also throw your air filter inside
the box, which is also a little bit of a squeeze so take your time with that.
And then you'll wanna secure the new filter to the inside of the tube here inside the
box, again, using that same 8-millimeter socket.
All right.
Next, we're gonna install the extension cable here for our intake temperature sensor.
Go ahead and plug the intake temperature sensor into the correct end of the extension cable
and then go ahead and plug the extension cable into the wiring harness on the intake tube.
Once you've got that done, go ahead and plug the intake temperature sensor into that little
rubber grommet that's hidden back here that we installed earlier.
All right.
Once you got your intake temperature sensor installed, you can start tightening down the
Plexiglass cover for the air filter.
Make sure you got these little plastic washers underneath here, that way the screws themselves
don't crack the Plexiglass.
You just wanna make this hand tight.
You don't wanna overtighten.
All right.
So once you got the Plexiglass window tightened down, that'll wrap up the install.
Again, pretty straightforward bolt-on job.
That also wraps up my review of S&B's cold air intake with their dry extendable filter,
fitting your '15 to '18 EcoBoost powered F-150.
I'm Travis.
Thanks for watching.
For all things F-150, keep it right here at americantrucks.com.