S197 Mustang 3.5L Ecoboost build - ENGINE RUNNING!!!!
 

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum. I wanted to share my build if anyone is interested! Plus it's likely that will need some help along the way, it seems like there are some extremely capable people posting on here.

I've had this plan in the works for about a year now and once I heard a few months ago that the control pack for the 3.5 ecoboost would be available August 1st so I got started.

Why would I do this? I love mustangs, I love the ecoboost engine (currently in my fx4 supercrew), and in a sea of mustangs I wanted something unique. I'm building the car to race in autocross, with 420lbs of torque (stock) at 2500 rpm this thing should be a blast. I'm not a professional racer, I just want to have fun in a car I built myself. This project is well under way now so I'm not really interested in debating whether or not this is a good idea....too late! I don't care how much this costs or the value of the car when it's done, I work hard at a stressful job and make a good living, I need this stuff to keep me from losing my mind. I own 3 other Cobras, one being a 800hp 14 gt500, I already own the high power V8, again I wanted something different....a sleeper if you will. I can't get anyone to race my Shelby on the street here, I'm hoping a V6 seems more beatable. Don't underestimate the HP potential of these engines, phase 1 of this project gets me to 550 RWHP and phase 2 get me to 650 RWHP but at a high cost. It's actually really inexpensive to get to 550hp utilizing it's forged factory internals and factory turbos (rebuilt).

Donor car. 2010 mustang with 8,995 original miles. It's a candy red premium V6 with glass roof, saddle tan leather, every option except NAV. I bought it wrecked in the front and rear from copart auctions. The body damage was limited to bolt-on parts which was fine with me. It needed front and rear bumpers, hood, and headlights. I replaced the 2010 v6 parts with 2014 gt500 front bumper, grille, fog lamps, HID headlights, painted rocker panels, rear bumper, quad exhaust, trunk panel and LED rear tail lights. Im using a 2014 V6 hood because I didn't want to be a complete poser. I'll be changing the snake emblem in the front grille to a boss running horse grille emblem, fender badges will be "ecoboost", trunk panel is V6 model.

Donor engine. 2012 F150 twin turbo 3.5 ecoboost with 19k miles. This is a drop out engine with everything included.

Donor transmission. 2014 mt-82 from a mustang gt with 1k original miles. Clutch, flywheel, pressure plate is from a 2012 boss with 1k miles on it, factory shifter with upgraded bracket to start out with.

Donor 8.8 rear end and one piece driveshaft, have not purchased these yet.

Engine management. Ford racing 3.5 ecoboost control pack finally available August 1st.

Steering. Switching hydrualic steering to electric steering (ecoboost is all electric). I bought a 2013 boss epas unit and I'll be adding a newer cluster to the car to control the adjustable steering settings.

Fuel. I'm changing out the factory fuel pump to a dual or triple and I'm adding 3.7 mustang fuel injection to the factory DI system to supply the necessary fuel for mods. The 3.7 and 3.5 blocks are nearly identical, heads are different. I plan to modify the ecoboost heads to fit the manifold injector setup from the 3.7.

Intake air cooling. I plan on doing away with the factory f150 air-to-air intercooler and switch to liquid cooling instead using gt500 heat exchanger, pump, and reservoir and an after market water-to-air intercooler for each turbo. I haven't worked out the turbo piping just yet, I need to see the engine in the car.

Engine cooing. I bought a 2014 gt500 radiator, the engine has a built in water-cooled oil cooler. I may do away with this and go with an air-cooled unit to keep temps lower. This is a trick the f150 guys are doing.

Turbos. I plan to have the factory units upgraded after I get the engine running but I'm not sure by who just yet.

Exhaust. 3.7 mustang high flow bbk cats with x pipe, oem mid pipes (currently looking for these), and I have the gt500 quad tip exhaust. I'm sure some modification will need to be done to the exhaust to get the 3.5 exhaust manifolds connected to the 3.7 cats.

Currently the car has all of its repair parts ready to paint and the engine/trans has been pulled ready for the new engine/trans. Hopefully I'll have time to get the engine and trans installed next weekend. Luckily the factory 3.7 motor mounts bolt to the F150 3.5 despite the truck engine having completely different motor mounts. Thanks ford!

Stupid question, why can I only post one pic per post using an iPad? I can upload 5 but it only drops down one? I'm sure I'm doing something wrong lol.

Ready to paint

3.5 Ecoboost engine

What I started with

One more

My other girls

Very cool project. Good luck with the build.

I agree. Should be quite the sleeper. Will the final paint be Black. Just a wild guess...Lol
Please keep us posted!

Awesome project, keep us posted!!!

Very good guess lol but I'm going to leave this one candy red. It's a really nice color too.

Thanks!

I'm installing the epas right now, its much easier with the engine out. My epas unit was from a 2013 boss and fits nicely in the the original 2010 k member. There is an additional arm with a bolt hole on the new epas unit so I'm debating how to deal with that. The newer k-member (2011+) has a bracket for this arm to bolt to. I can make this bracket but it's not easy. I feel like the additional bracket is there to prevent side to side motion, I don't think a bolt alone in this area would be enough without the proper bracket on top like the factory designed. I either need to replace the k-member or weld on a similar bracket which isn't as easy as it might sounds. This could be hours worth of work to make everything strong and fit tight, Imdealing with very uneven surfaces on the k-member and after I'm done it will be difficult to get a bolt through the arm and K-member without cutting a window in the bottom of the K member to get it in. Sorry if that's confusing, it's hard to explain exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm going to look around for a used k-member for cheap, if I can't find one I'll make a bracket at work and weld it on the k member. If so I'll get some pics of what I end up with.

I thought of just doing this, but I don't think it's enough. That bracket on the new k-member is there for a reason.

Cool project, keep posting your progress.

Lexiion was nice enough to supply me with a pic of the correct K-member bracket, I thought I would post it to show the difference. I hope he doesn't mind.

Here's a good pic I found online, this is what I'm trying to reproduce. Shouldn't be to hard to get close.

No I don't mind :D
Btw the blue long bolt on the picture is the one that goes through the bracket.
LEXiiON

the way it looks to me is...Having the bracket there sandwiches the EPAS arm. Which now transfer the stress on the bolt at the top and bottom. Making the bracket and bolt 2X as strong and stable. Without that, all the stress would be at the bottom of the bolt. I guess there is that much stress that Fords engineers would think the EPAS will receive.
I agree that the bracket is a must have item.
I really enjoy reading about this project because its differant in alot of ways. Kind of thinking out of the box. I'm in for all the progress on this Candy color car. Should be sweet when its completed....Pun intended :-)

Subscribed and following with interest. Keep up the great work.

Cool project! As far as image uploads via iPad, Safari changes the file name to image.jpg every time you choose a file to upload. My guess is the host server sees multiple image.jpg files in an upload as just one file and takes the last one in the list. Safari should just use the original file name, but doesn't.