Still trying to get my 2011 F150 Ecoboost running 100%...now at 77k miles on the truck.
Dealer performed several TSB's for condensation in the IC which did nothing but hurt performance.
Me changing plugs and gapping them lower helped immensely with spark blowout/performance. Then switched to a high performance silver racing plug, coupled with an aftermarket tuning device. This brought back some of the power, but the tuner says my truck is the most finicky, hard to tune Ecoboost he has ever dealt with. After a dozen tunes it is still not 100%.
Part of the problem is the PCV system which is present in a lot vehicles...and vents crankcase vapors(fuel, oil, water) back into the intake stream. These contaminants are basically coating the whole intake and some are pooling in the IC. Adding these contaminates to the intake stream decreases octane and obviously coats everything with oil. Possibly leads to dirty valves. A catch can is one remedy that I will probably try eventually, but what I did below costs nothing.
To try and remedy that, I drilled a 1/16" hole in my factory IC, at the bottom near the outlet pipe. This came out:
Oil mixed with water. This IC was installed as a TSB to eliminate condensation. It isn't doing that...and is also hurting performance as Ford basically installed a bunch of blocking into the IC internally(I confirmed with a boroscope) to raise temps in the IC so condensation can not form. The other issue I have noticed is the drivers side hot pipe wiggling up off the IC.
I am curious if the added blocking is restricting the flow enough within the IC that the increased boost from the aftermarket tune cannot be processed, and is pushing the inlet pipe off the IC. I also get a see saw effect with boost when I hit the accelerator...it will hit 18 PSI, drop to 15 PSI, then level off at 16-17 PSI. I am wondering if that blocking could be causing this? The IC just cannot handle the volume of air? With less aggressive tunes or the factory tune, I do not get the see saw effect...truck just severely lacks the power it once had.
Increasing the IC temps increases the charge air temps and can increase the chance for detonation, etc with a more aggressive tune.
I am planning an aftermarket IC real soon and hoping that fixes some of the problem, but just trying to break this down and figure it out for my own curiosity.