Simple F150 performance mods from MAC and Edge Products
Story and photos by Arthur Jensen
The F150 is a great truck, powerful, stylish, durable and affordable. The F150's factory intake and exhaust systems, however, are not so great. They might be fine for a work truck or a fleet truck but with their overly restrictive design and appliance styling, they just aren't very cool. Fortunately for F150 owners everywhere, MAC Products saw this minor shortcoming as an opportunity to make a great truck even better.
MAC's cold air intake system features polished aluminum tubing and a custom billet mass air flow sensor housing. MAC's cat-back exhaust system uses large diameter piping and a high-flow muffler to reduce restriction and free up power on the outlet side of the engine. Since we were going to be increasing the airflow through the engine, we needed a way to program the fuel system so it could handle the increased power. Edge Products, a leader in diesel performance programmers, provided one of their new Evolution gas programmers for our 2005 F150.
Truck owners have been installing intake and exhaust systems for years, and the key to getting the most out of a free breathing engine is getting more fuel to go with the increased airflow. In the past that was difficult, usually involving expensive dyno tuning, but with the new crop of plug and play performance programmers that problem is solved. The best thing about these new performance options is how easy they are to install, even a modest home mechanic can make these modifications in an afternoon.
The tools required for this job are pretty basic. You will need a metric wrench set, a pair of pliers, small wire cutters for zip ties, and a decent rubber mallet.
With the truck still stock, we made a dyno run so we could gauge the performance of the new parts. The truck made 247 horsepower and 282 ft-lbs of torque in stock trim. The Edge Evolution has three power levels, trans only, towing, and performance. On the towing setting, torque jumped to 287 ft-lbs but more remarkably, peak torque moved from 4100 rpm to 3600 rpm and torque below 3000 rpm increased by almost 10 ft-lbs. We set the Evolution to performance and the truck belted out 261 horsepower, a gain of 14 peak hp while still producing 285 ft-lbs of torque and a much smoother power curve. Results like that make engine guys like us sit up and take notice. Check out our photos to see how this might just be the easiest 14 hp you will ever get.
Source:
MAC Products
43214 Blackdeer Loop,
Temecula, CA 92590
1-800-367-4486
www.MacPerformance.com
EDGE Products
1080 S. Depot Dr.
Ogden, UT 84404
888-360-3343
www.edgeproducts.com
LA Performance Division
Four wheel drive dyno available to the public.
10155 Canoga Ave. Chatsworth, CA 91311
(818 ) 998-3966
www.theLAPD.com
We started our install with a baseline dyno run at LA Performance Division in the San Fernando Valley. Our F150 made a decent 247 horspower and 282 ft-lbs of torque.
