So 3.5L EcoBoost powered F-150 owners, listen up, because today we're talking about one
of the easiest and one of the most affordable ways to make some pretty good performance
gains on your truck.
I'm talking about cold air intakes like K&N's Series 63 AirCharger that we just threw on
our truck today.
Now, if you've been hunting for easy power, you've probably seen that whole back and forth,
that age-old discussion if you will, about cold air intakes and what kind of performance
gains they provide.
And what's cool about the EcoBoost in particular is the fact that it runs off of a speed density
setup instead of a mass airflow sensor.
Without getting into the science, guys, it's pretty straightforward.
As far as the EcoBoost is concerned, you can throw pretty much any intake on this truck,
you don't have to tune it or dyno it, and the speed density system will automatically
make changes to air and fuel on the fly, essentially tuning itself, and that's where you get those
pretty good performance gains from.
Now, as far as what kind of performance gains you guys can expect, well, I would say that
conservatively, you will expect single digit to low double-digit gains.
And again, that's without any tuning or dynoing whatsoever.
Now, if you're curious about which intake you should go for, I generally lump them into
two categories.
You got closed-element designs, which are very similar to the factory setup, and then
you got these cool open-element designs like the Series 63.
So, which intake should you go with?
Well, a closed-element design like the one that comes on the truck is not gonna look
as good as an open-element design, but theoretically it might provide that colder and denser air
to the engine compared to an open-element design, and therefore, you might make some
better power with a closed-element design.
However, open-element designs obviously look a lot better.
And that's the case with the Series 63.
We're ditching that really ugly factory intake tube in favor of a kind of OEM in appearance
plastic tube with a really nice textured finish on it.
If you guys own an XL truck or one of the base models with the black trim on it, this
matches very closely.
So it looks good, but it's still an obvious upgrade, really cleans up the looks underneath
the hood.
But what I like about this one in particular is the way K&N designed it.
We're actually retaining the factory air inlet, which does an excellent job in my mind, and
we're also reusing the bottom of our factory air box.
K&N went ahead and fabbed up a new heat shield, which is still fully enclosed with the hood
down, so you pretty much get the best of both worlds.
When you got the hood up, looks great.
You can see that high flow filter going to work, and you can also see if it needs to
be cleaned or not.
But with the hood down, it's pretty much a closed-element design, so you get that colder,
denser air, and you make all that good power that you're hunting for.
And obviously next, you have to consider price.
And, guys, this one's pretty straightforward.
If you want one of the most affordable intakes, then the Series 63 is gonna be the ticket.
This guy comes in right under the $300 price point, and anything that's gonna cost less
than this is typically only gonna be a replacement tube or a replacement filter.
You're not gonna get both, and you're probably not going to be getting a new heat shield
either.
So again, most affordable complete intake that you can pick up.
And as far as the install's concerned, it's very straightforward.
I'm actually gonna give this a one out of three wrenches on my patented difficulty meter.
And I wager it'll take you guys about 30 minutes to an hour, and that's even if you don't have
any experience turning wrenches.
Like I said, it's a great first mod.
And if you decide to pull the trigger on this intake, you can actually come back to this
video in just a bit.
I'm gonna show you guys exactly what tools you need to pull out of that toolbox.
And I'm gonna walk you through the entire install step-by-step.
All right, guys, to install your intake, you're gonna need a 4-millimeter Allen key as well
as a standard drive ratchet.
And you'll also need 7- and 8-millimeter sockets.
Optional but helpful tools for those band clamps include some long extensions.
All right, guys, so obviously you gotta make sure your hood is open and then we can remove
that factory intake.
You're really only gonna need a couple of tools for this.
Specifically you'll need a 7-millimeter socket for those band clamps securing our factory
intake tubes.
It's also very helpful to have yourself a nice long extension, because one of those
band clamps is tucked down pretty far.
I'll show you where both of those are.
All right, so that first band clamp is located just behind the coolant reservoir right here.
All you need to do is loosen this up enough so that we can separate this rubber coupler
from our intake tubes.
All right, that next band clamp is a little bit tucked in here next to all these breather
lines and whatnot, so it's very helpful to have that large extension like I said a moment
ago.
All right, now that our intake tube is separated, we're gonna go ahead and disconnect this little
sensor located on the back here.
This is just held into a rubber grommet, so all you gotta do is twist it in order to release
it.
All right, the last step here is removing both of these little clamps right here securing
our factory air box to the bottom of our air box.
Go ahead and pop those free.
You can remove the entire intake as one piece.
All right, so we have our factory intake removed.
I really wanted to take the time to show you guys a good comparison between the two.
And more importantly, I wanted to show you what a nice upgrade the new K&N filter is
over this factory paper element.
For lack of better phrasing, this thing is kind of crappy.
Even out of the factory, it's very restrictive.
It doesn't let the EcoBoost breathe as well as it should.
And as you can see, our truck doesn't have many miles on it, but this thing doesn't really
stay clean for very long.
So, we're gonna ditch old busted here.
We got our new hotness with this new high-flow filter.
This is good for up to 100,000 miles, and it's actually washable and reusable.
So, any time you take your truck off-road, or even on the daily commute for a while,
you start to get a rough idle, something like that, go ahead and throw this thing under
some hot water and some mild soap.
Let it dry off, throw it back in, and you should be good to go.
Now, before we install our new intake system, we have to do a little bit of a setup here.
You do have some weatherstripping provided in the kit.
It might be assembled on the heat shield already.
If not, simply press it down on there, make sure it's good and snug.
And you also gotta get the rubber couplers on your intake tubes with the band clamps
like so.
The last thing that we really have to do is throw on this plastic coupler, so that we
can secure our new air filter to our heat shield.
For that, you're gonna need a small 4-millimeter Allen key, and you'll also need these little
Allen head bolts provided in the kit.
Okay.
So to throw the plastic coupler in place, pretty straightforward.
You got a couple of pre-drilled holes in the coupler itself.
Those are threaded.
You're gonna line up those threaded holes with the pre-drilled holes in the new heat
shield.
Go ahead and hand tighten these little button head bolts on there.
And you can drive them home with that little 4-millimeter Allen key.
Okay, with that coupler installed, you could go ahead and throw on the air filter itself.
Pretty straightforward stuff.
You wanna make sure you have that large band clamp on there, so you can secure it.
And you're actually stepping up your socket size to an 8-millimeter from a 7-millimeter.
Okay, our air filter's all set up.
We're all ready to go.
Again, make sure you got all those rubber couplers and band clamps on your intake tube
right here.
I'll go ahead and meet you guys over at the truck.
I'll show you how to get this bolted down.
Okay, so you got some tongues on our new heat shield here.
Those line up with these holes in the factory airbox, so go ahead and line those up.
And then once you got the top of the new heat shield flush, you can reinstall it using these
provided clips.
Okay, with the heat shield secure, we can throw our new intake tube in place.
Again, make sure you got those band clamps on all the ends of those rubber couplers,
so you can tighten those down once you've lined these up.
And you really want to make sure that these rubber couplers are fully seated on the intake
tube.
Otherwise, you will have an air leak.
Okay, now that our intake tube is secure and all our rubber couplers are lined up and nice
and flush, we can tighten down all these band clamps.
Again, you'll need an 8-millimeter socket to tighten these clamps down.
All right, the last step here is reconnecting this little sensor in the back of our intake
tube.
Now, this rubber grommet can be a little bit of a squeeze, so it's very helpful to spray
it down with some WD-40 or some PB Blaster.
All right, so once you got those band clamps tightened down and you got your sensor plugged
in, that'll wrap up this very easy install, like I said.
And that also wraps up my review of K&N's Series 63 AirCharger High Performance Cold
Air Intake, fitting your 2017 or newer 3.5L EcoBoost-powered F-150.
Be sure to check it more out on the site.
And for all things F-150, keep it right here at americantrucks.com