aFe Stage 2 EcoBoost Cold Air Intake Install Guide and Dyno Runs

Unlike the rest of the 2011 to 2013 F150 EcoBoost CAI lineup the aFe Stage 2 cold air intake is actually pretty substantial and even intimidating cold air intake kit. This bad boy doesn't just replace your factory air box, it also comes with two complete, equal-length intake tubes to maximize airflow and help your turbochargers get all the air they need. Despite coming with an impressive allotment of hardware, the Stage 2 cold air intake was actually pretty easy to install. We had the whole thing set up for our dyno runs with Edge CTS and SCT X-Cal 3 tunes in about 15 minutes. Here's how and the dyno runs!

According to aFe's pretty thorough instructions (they actually are pretty good), your first step is to remove your MAP or MAF sensor, as well as the top half of the factory air box. For this install, our air box was already dismantled because of our earlier Airaid cold air intake installation and dyno run.

With the air box removed, you then disconnect your truck's inlet vacuum tube (for 2011 EcoBoost trucks only) and then remove the factory inlet tubing's splitter piping by loosening its band clamps.

Remember to ONLY remove the splitter assembly. Leave the two lower inlet tubes and their vortex inserts alone. These pipes are where aFe's new and improved inlet tubing will attach.

While all this was going on, Bill threw together aFe's housing and air filter assembly. The dual filters fit in pretty snugly and held themselves in place, though putting their band clamps on only slightly tightened did help a bit. Technically, we were supposed to put the trim seal on at this time, but it was about an inch and a half too long and needed trimming, so we just left it off for the time being.

Once the factory air box and inlet tubing is out, you can drop your MAP sensor (MAF sensor on the newer trucks) into the forward aFe inlet tube. We did a test-fit to check the fitment of the factory MAP sensor wiring harness, but everything lined up perfectly.

With the fitments looking good, we set aFe's band clamps on the factory tubing in preparation for the reduction couplers and aFe's intake piping.

While all that was going on, we dropped the aFe filter housing on top of the lower half of the factory air box and snapped it into place using the OEM locking clamps and tabs. The housing fit perfectly and sat very firm.

We then installed aFe's crossover tube that spans between their frontal and rear inlet tubes onto the front pipe and put the assembly into the truck.

After the frontal tube was set up and its coupler in place, we slid the rear tube onto the balancer tuber and into its proper filter location.

With all the tubing in place, we attached them using aFe's included reduction couplers and started tightening everything down.

After we finished tightening the couplers on the inlet tubing we moved to the band clamps on the the filters. This actually required an extra set of hands, because the tubing tried to slide out of the filters while we were screwing down the clamps. I held the the inlet tubes and filters together while Chris tightened the clamps with his screwdriver.

We double-checked all of our connections gave the whole kit a good shake or two before moving on to everyone's favorite part: the dyno runs. We did two runs using two different tunes from our Edge CTS tuner and monitor and an SCT X-Cal 3 handheld tuner to see which tune got the most power with aFe's intake. We also did a run after we installed aFe's air box lid to see if there would be any changes. Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

First up was Edge's 91 octane race tune that was uploaded via our Edge CTS tuner and dashboard monitor. With this tune and the Stage 2 intake, our truck put down 364.58 horsepower and 447.12 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. What's more impressive is the boost curve, which peaked at 17.59 psi and held fairly steady throughout the run

After that run, we returned the truck to stock and then uploaded an SCT 91 octane tune with one of their X-Calibrator 3 handheld tuners. This time, the truck ran even better and managed to put down 379.98 horsepower and 463.74 lb-ft of torque, a gain of 22 horsepower and 78 lb-ft of torque over our bone-stock run. Ignore the boost levels. Those readings aren't accurate. The dyno's boost sensor decided it didn't like all the work we made it do throughout the day and went a little wonky on us.

With the SCT tune still locked into our EcoBoost's PCM, we decided to throw on aFe's intake lid to see what would happen. aFe, apparently, got more than a few complaints about their intake being too noisy (personally, we didn't find it to be that loud at all, even on tuned dyno runs) and made a plastic lid to fit over the filter housing to keep noise down. The lid installs easily using three screws to attach to aFe's filter housing. At this point we put the seal on and trimmed it properly for fitment.

The good news is that noise levels were reduced, and the lid itself actually looks pretty cool. The bad news is that power dropped substantially. Our truck only made 359.62 horsepower and 441.76 lb-ft of torque using the same tune. Our theory is that aFe's lid basically makes your Stage 2 intake go back to a sealed box like the factory system, causing all the power loss. Not to mention, we got the lid on so fast the truck didn't really cool off between runs.

Anyway, lesson learned. We pulled the lid off and Bill actually switched the tune back to Edge's performance tune so he could use his CTS monitoring system. While the horsepower gains are nice, Bill says that throttle response is much improved and that his gas mileage has increased from 17mpg to around 20mpg since we installed the aFe intake and set up the Edge tuning. The kit almost pays for itself, if he can keep his lead foot off the accelerator (he can't).

Anyway, thanks to Chris, Marty, and all the guys down at Extreme Performance for letting us invade their shop for the day and helping us out. You guys are awesome!