Upgrading the TWINS

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Graybeard

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Tips & Tricks

Some of my admissions below are a little embarrassing for someone whom feels they know their way around a garage. I am including them because I feel that others may learn from my mistakes. There are a lot of new things going on here. If I was doing these one after another, I am sure I could do most of this blindfolded. Instead, I dive in blind and learn how to use some new tools.

My best advice after reading all of the service manuals, watching videos online, then doing the work is that you should just go ahead and replace any and all seals you come across in working on your truck. These are quite inexpensive overall and may have added up to roughly $300 for the entire service including everything listed below. If you don’t replace all the seals you will likely experience fluid leaks. To repair these leaks, you will have to take it all apart again. It is noticeable how much taller the new rubber seals are than the old crushed ones.

My next best advice is to use a torque wrench. No more calibrated right arm. Torque specs are everywhere in the manual.

Clean the darn thing before you start. Road grime builds up even if you keep her nice and shiny. I doused the engine bay with some Simple Green and hit it with the pressure washer on HOT. Stay away from electrical and connections. For extra measure, I had my battery disconnected when I cleaned the engine bay and then let it dry. This is also a good time to inspect how things look under there. If you see excessive oil or grime - investigate. You may have some other maintenance items to add to your list. I found a leaking passenger side front axle seal to tend to. In addition to a good wash, it is recommended to have compressed air and an air gun handy to blow out dust and dirt from the fuel and electrical connections.

The turbo coolant and oil lines are a bit tough to pull out if your truck is a few years old. Those o-rings have fused to the metal on both the line and the block. I’m not sure if there are sprays that could soften these, but mine required a little prying and pulling to pop them out. Clean those coolant lines and the block ports well. Brake cleaner really helps clean off those old o-ring residuals. Kind of melts the rubber. My preference is to clean as I disassemble. That way, it is a bit easier on me when I go to put it all back together.

Spray down the turbo bolts (downpipe and manifold) with penetrating oil a few days in advance. This should help break loose those rusty fasteners.

For me, the worst part of this service was getting at the driver side coolant line on the back of the block. Unless you have the wingspan of an osprey with tiny little hands, you are unlikely to be able to remove the driver side turbo coolant fastener from inside the wheel well. I was able to put my finger tips on the fastener but not able to get a tool on this one from inside the wheel well. The driver side head is a couple inches closer to the firewall than the passenger side (cylinder offset) and this really limits space. I was either able to view the faster, or feel it. Not both. The solution for me was to remove the intake manifold and supplementary fuel injector rails. This provides access through the valley pan above the motor to access this fastener. When removing the intake manifold, the manual wants you to replace those six manifold seals.

It looks like it may be possible to leave the turbo coolant line in the back of the block, simply pulling out the slip fitting. Since pulling these out of the block and cleaning them was a real hassle, I suggest simply replacing the slip fitting seal and leaving the tube end in the block if you think you can reattach it. The manual requires removal, cleaning, and reinstallation of all seals. The effort does not seem worth it, especially on the driver side. This could save considerable time.

Don’t drop the Y pipe. The service manual tells you that you need to drop the Y-pipe to get the turbos out. Dropping the Y-pipe is somewhat complex and involves supporting the transmission while pulling out the support bracket. This is a lot of work that seems avoidable. You can pull the turbos out with this still attached.

Let’s talk about intercoolers. This is by far the easiest and best item under the hood to upgrade from stock. It works, but really seems to be limited. Data I’ve seen online seems to show that the stock unit gets heat soaked relatively quickly. It has limited capacity and when you remove them…. They seem quite fragile. There are lots of options out there. Many options fit the OEM location which may be most desirable. If they fit the OEM location, your active grille shutters get to stay and function like they should. These literally equate to 1-2mpg on the highway. Keep them if you can. General engineering rule of thumb on an intercooler is that they are literally never large enough. Get the largest volume you can possibly package in the space you have available. Most aftermarket intercoolers are quite durably constructed. I chose the Wagner intercooler for my application. This fits in the stock location but also protrudes up into the radiator area to grab a little more volume. It is a bit more effort to install but I am trying to maximize intercooler volume for heat transfer. This intercooler may give you grief if you plan to lift the cab on and off as this little protrusion is slightly backward canted. It matches the internal geometry under the hood amazingly well.

The coolant has apparently changed for all F series trucks. I had ORANGE coolant. Yellow is now specified and requires a thorough rinse as they are apparently not compatible with each other. The turbo coolant lines seem to be the lowest point in the system. Even though I flushed and drained everything through the radiator tubes, more coolant came out when I detached these lines and the turbo from the block. That flush requires removal of the radiator (to wash it upside down). Might as well pull the entire front end off while you are at it. Good opportunity to install a new intercooler with the grille off if you have not already. A little extra room in front of the engine was appreciated when working on the AC compressor and hand turning the motor.

Measuring the coolant concentration is interesting. The manual recommends a refractometer. The one I purchased only indicates the TEMPERATURE that the coolant is good for. This does not help you calculate CONCENTRATION and can only be used to adjust blind. It is possible you find a refractometer that reads % concentration for ethylene glycol, but you can also cross reference the freezing point (reading) with ethylene glycol concentrations online. That route is a little more complicated but makes concentration adjustment much easier in my opinion.

I had a small heart attack when I went to use the coolant vacuum purge tool for the first time. Watched all the videos, bought the nice Airlift tool. Did not get one ounce of vacuum the first time I hooked it up. I admit, I may have panicked. I usually do impressive work. DID I FORGET TO HOOK SOMETHING UP? Nope. You just don’t know how to use your new tool. All of the videos online show people fitting the correct sized adapter to their coolant reservoir and then mounting the unit. So, I gave that a shot. There was a perfectly sized rubber grommet to accommodate my expansion tank. Nope. ALL WRONG. If you look inside the coolant filler neck, there is a small drain hole. The rubber grommet I tried sealed nicely against the lip, but had a hole to atmosphere and gave me fits. Just use the Airlift tool without any adapters and it works flawlessly. It literally pulled a vacuum in less than a minute. Works as described once you hook it up correctly. Practice makes perfect.

To fill it up the coolant after pulling vacuum, just hook up your intake hose and drop the other end in the bucket of coolant. It apparently helps if your bucket is roughly the same height as the radiator. I used a small step stool to hold mine. Coolant volume is about 4 gallons, so a 5 gallon bucket is perfect to hold all of the fluid. It is helpful to push the entire tube into the coolant to pre-fill. Close the valve to retain the fluid before you take it out of the bucket. Hook it up, open the valve to your coolant system…. And watch it fill up. This works beautifully. And, you are guaranteed not to have air pockets.

Some questions you might ask when using a vacuum purge and refill kit for the first time;

Q: Do I need a big air compressor or will a small pancake work?
A: A small pancake worked fine for me. Roughly 2 CFM at 90 psi was more than adequate

Q: I am reading absolutely no vacuum. What did I do wrong?
A: This is clearly a big leak. Check how you mounted it to the tank first. Double check the radiator petcock is closed next. Then check your lines. Make sure all those coolant lines are attached and have their spring clips installed.

Q: How do I know if I have a leak?
A: Once you pull vacuum, you can leave it there for a few minutes to make sure it holds vacuum tight. The tool says 20 seconds and you are good to go.

Q: What do I do if it doesn’t hold vacuum?
A: Trouble shoot your leak. There is another tool called a coolant pressure tester that will apply a small amount of pressure to the coolant. This will force water or coolant from the leak to help you spot it.


When shopping for coolant you will see both pre-mix and concentrate in a myriad of colors. Unless you did a complete flush and fill with new coolant, concentrate and a refractometer are your best friends. You probably need to be able to test your coolant and make sure the concentration is where you need it anyway. That is particularly true if you are just topping off your system. Never mix colors. I decided to keep everything MotorCraft and ordered up some YELLOW. My truck came with Orange coolant, which is no longer available. When switching coolant you will need to flush and fill. That is more involved than simply draining the coolant and involves removal of the radiator to wash it out in addition to fully flushing the block.

The engine block turbo oil filters come with a blue plug in them that proved challenging to remove. Before you lose your **** and grab a pair of pliers like I did, the plug has left handed threads. You can use the T45 on it. Turn clockwise and it will come right out. Counterclockwise and it will spin all day long. I repeat - all day long. There are no markings on the product or packaging to help you.

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You hang the turbos with coolant lines attached. They are tricky, but the somewhat tight packaging does a relatively good job holding the turbo in place. Once roughly in the correct location, you hook up the coolant lines to the block. Make sure you seat the o-rings fully before you run in the fastener. The manual suggests bolting down the turbo before installing the oil drain tube. I found it a little easier to leave the Turbo to manifold bolts off when getting the drain line in. Bolting them down after seemed a bit easier. These corrugated drain tubes are pretty stiff, but do bend. Use your hands and not a tool to shape them a touch.

I think I finally got the hang of mounting the turbos about the time I was done the job. What worked the best for me was to get the turbo with coolant lines preinstalled into their space. Then, I inserted the oil drain into the turbo while everything was loose. Its an easy “pop” this way. Then, I take the whole turbo and lines as a unit, insert the other end of the drain into the oil pan. The downpipe and drain sort of help hold everything in place here. I am able to connect the block sides of the coolant lines and then bolt down the turbo. The reason I like this method is that everything stays loose and has a little play to wiggle those lines into their holes. You really don’t want to force them. Once you get a line into its hole, I recommend finger tight fastener to keep them from popping out. Refrain from tightening them down until they are all plugged in correctly. Wiggle, wiggle. Take your time.

Those boost tubes take a bit of effort, but that is nothing new to those whom have taken these apart. I like to use a mist of Simple Green on silicone tubing to make them install easier. Makes it so much easier when I’m not fighting friction.

If you happen to grab the UPR catch can, they require a vacuum connection to their unit in addition to the “clean line". They suggest drilling a hole in the passenger side turbo inlet tube. Since I have installed the Turbosmart e-BOV I have an extra vacuum port available on the driver side. The BOV comes with a plug for this line. I added a 1/4 NPT hole and was able to screw in the fitting to connect the UPR. Line length even works out when connecting down by the intercooler. Nice clean install and no new holes.

When I put it all back together, I left the truck on jack stands, front tires off, wheel well liners off, and all skid plates off for the first firing. I did this so that I could see everything on the off chance of a leak or a tube popping off. I always have a fire extinguisher handy when firing an engine for the first time. Once this was successful, I buttoned up everything but the front skid plate. This would allow access to the boost tubes should you not tighten them adequately. I left the truck this way while doing the tuning of the truck to provide quick and easy access should it be necessary.

There really should be a tool to insert into the intake manifold that helps protect the firewall during service. The rubber hooks on the top of the vanity cover seems to have a tendency to grab the fabric attached to the firewall and have taken a few chunks out of the cloth. Grr. I’m trying to be delicate, but this keeps snagging and looks bad. I might purchase a spare engine vanity cover just to cut out the attachment point to the manifold. I need something to cover this area (smooth) to be able to pull this part in and out without damaging that cloth. Something that pops in and pops out of those hooks would be ideal.
 
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Graybeard

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Actual testing notes

With exactly half a tank of 91 to start, I nearly ran out of fuel completing the tuning. I wound up refilling just 5 more gallons and had to pull about 4 of those off when switching fuel. I might suggest a little more than half a tank for your first fuel, and less than half a tank for the second if tuning multiple fuels.

93 octane - I was able to start with the basis of the 91 tune to make this one go faster. I went through 5 revisions of this tune.
When draining the 91 from the tank, the fuel mileage did not count down to zero like it did the first time. Maybe the computer was too busy trying to figure out the new fuel economy and range statistics. LOL She’s a drinker now.

I always did all of my logging pulls in 4A to mitigate traction issues. I did a couple pulls in wet weather. This worked reasonably well. Mind you, it wasn’t raining when I did the pulls but the roads were still damp. 4th gear pulls seemed just like normal. No traction control intervention. Peak boost during my pulls was 22psi, and peak AFR was 10.58 again.

Holy ****. I just test drove the final 93 octane tune. It was a wet evening out there which made things a little challenging, even in 4A. I am readily able to perform roll-on AWD burnouts in the wet with traction control on. It’s pretty impressive. I had multiple traction control interventions downshifting in 4A. She really wants to move but can’t get ahold of much in this weather. I found that my hands were sore after the test drive from gripping the steering wheel too tightly, possibly with some new found fear. I think this one is going to be real good.

I started with a half a tank of 93 and ended with about 3/8 of a tank. After two days of testing for this tune I got the nod that we were ready for E85, so I needed to burn about 120 miles of range. Interestingly, the range mileage seems fairly accurate at highway speeds. Push down on the right pedal once and you still lose a digit. It may be more time efficient to make a few heavy passes to let this girl drink what’s left in the tank. Maybe I need some dry pavement to see how she grabs. This is almost ridiculous in wet weather. I've never seen so many traction control interventions on this truck. She stayed fairly well planted and went straight down the road despite bucking a little bit when losing grip. Maybe a touch of yaw is a better description. Torque vectoring is amazing.

Dry pavement is much improved over wet performance. Tire chirps are pretty easy in 4A. I put it in 2H once and all it really did was spin the rear tires on launch. Great for burnouts I guess. You don’t even need to brake torque.

E85 - This stuff feels cheap right now!! $2.65 a gallon? Whoah baby! That sure beats $4+ a gallon for premium! And more power you say? Can’t wait to see how fast she guzzles this stuff.

I saw 27 psi and a peak of 11.61 AFR on my 5th run. Thankfully the roads were dry today so I got to put on a few miles of good street driving. She loves to pass. The tires only complained a little bit today in 4H. This is a blast. The truck feels super light.

Highway movement is really nice. Wow, she passes nicely. I had a reasonably spirited drive to the autoparts store and back. The actual distance was maybe 20 miles but I lost about 60 miles in range. Giggity. I am going to start calling this potential range. You can potentially have that range if you are very light on the throttle. Push down and watch it drop. Modulate your own enjoyment.
 

dillard09

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Wow! Thats some details! I wish hose Garrett were out when i did my swaps. Would have went with those over my CRPs. Not going to do the swap unless something happens to these. Peanut butter and jealous!
 

Donovan

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Wow! Thats some details! I wish hose Garrett were out when i did my swaps. Would have went with those over my CRPs. Not going to do the swap unless something happens to these. Peanut butter and jealous!

Why the Garrett over the CRPs?
 

dillard09

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Why the Garrett over the CRPs?
CRP are stock housings just different compressor wheels and turbines the Garretts are all different. The pic tells it all.
The CRP are rated at 540rwhp and the Garretts are rated at 700rwhp.
I think the CRPs are great piece but for the same price you can get the Garretts.
 

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Donovan

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I don't want to turn this into a vs conversation...

I will wait to see what these Garretts' make to the wheels.

I like my 3.5 ECOBOOST as is, however, if the engine goes - I plan on still doing a 3.5 but will upgrade the double Ds. I want it to be safe though, so I'm guessing some internal work on the engine?
 

dillard09

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I don't want to turn this into a vs conversation...

I will wait to see what these Garretts' make to the wheels.

I like my 3.5 ECOBOOST as is, however, if the engine goes - I plan on still doing a 3.5 but will upgrade the double Ds. I want it to be safe though, so I'm guessing some internal work on the engine?
Gotcha. I would say do some internal work if you wanna push that 600 mark to be safe. Thats exactly what happened to me. I blew my stocker and went back with a fully forged RMB 3.5. Didn't want to do some real big modifications to put bigger turbos on so the only stock replacement options at the time were the CRPs. So thats what I did. If the Garretts were out I would have no doubt went with them. Bigger and same price.
And im really wanting to see some number from these Garretts too. Im pretty sure Zombiekiller has a RMB 3.5 with the Garretts and lots of other upgrades that he just put in here recently
 
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