Nate's Magnetic Ecoboost

[Gst95dsm]

Well I guess I'll start a build thread / journal on my Ecoboost.

I'm Nate, and I'm your typical car guy. If you google "gst95dsm", you'll find about 15 years of posting in various car and motorcycle forums. I've been posting and using that screen name since 2000 when I bought my first turbo car. It was (obviously) a 1995 Eclipse GS-T. I was just a 20yr old kid who got into the "import" scene fast and furious style. I had A LOT of fun with that car. Upgrading turbo's, bigger intercoolers, exhausts... you name it. That car was making 335whp when all was said and done and was FUN to drive. Running mid 12's at the strip was quite respectable for any import in the early 2000's.

One of the few photos I have left of this car.



My fun car after this was MINT 92 5.0 Mustang GT. This car had a vortech S-trim with decent supporting mods. Made 350whp but could NOT keep a head gasket happy no matter what I did. It was a cool car but the centrifugal supercharger just didn't have that same thrill of a turbo car. Sadly I have NO photos of that car.

The next fun car was my dream car at the time.... a 2006 EVO IX RS. The RS was the stripped down "race" version of the car. No radio, no power anything, no ABS, no sound deadening... just a bare bones AWD turbo car with world class handling. And it truly was..... EVO's are FUN to drive and I recommend to everyone to drive one at least once.



Well after that one, I bought a Jeep and my life changed forever. The Jeep hobby has been by far the most rewarding one I've ever had. Wheeling is a great family activity, and modifying a Jeep is like having a blank canvas to work on. I love my Jeep and still consider it my main hobby. I have a MEGA build thread on Jeepforum if any of you are interested in browsing through.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f22/nates-2002-tj-simple-but-effective-1277806/

Here's a photo of my rig...



So during my Jeep ownership I've had a couple cool cars.... I bought a CLEAN, low milage 93 5.0 vert.... it was so nice.... wish I still had it!









It was ridiculous! Anyhow.... I got bored and it went away and a few more motorcycles came into my life...



Luckily I've survived all my bike phases!

So my last fun turbo car was a 1992 Galant VR4. If you've never heard of it... look it up! One of the coolest turbo cars of the 90's for sure. An absolute sleeper with crazy potential.



Alright well that's just some of cars and bikes from over the years but it gives a pretty good intro. to my 2015 Ecoboost Mustang and hopefully kind of spells out why this car makes so much sense to me. A beautiful Mustang with a Turbo4 is a match made in heaven for me. I still can't get over how beautiful I think this car is. I also can't believe it was had for under 30k with this many features and options. My car had two options checked off...... and they were to only two I wanted! Performance package and Recaros. It took some searching all over the state, I missed a few cars along the way but finally Galpin Ford in LA came through for me!

Here is the first time my wife and I laid on eyes on it....



We were pretty blown away seeing it with the PP and Recaros since all the cars we had test drove and seen were optioned other ways or not the magnetic color. It was a good day!

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[Gst95dsm]

Ive had my Ecoboost just over a month now and like all of us that are searching the forums, and youtube for the latest info it's been FUN watching all the new parts come out, and the excitement of all the new owners getting their cars. This is the first time i've been at the forefront of a new platform and it's pretty cool! So far I've added the MMR air intake. It was a desperate need for me since if i'm going to have a turbo car.... it better sound like a turbo car!! I am very happy with that product and think the price is very fair. ($200)





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Ahhhh.... Much better!

 

[Gst95dsm]

So now I was to the point where I needed to get some baseline numbers for the car before any more modifications. It had been a while since I've been to any of the performance shops in town so I made some calls and figured out who had dynos.

I tried one Dynojet, and one Mustang Dyno to get a feel for what shop I liked best, and who's equipment seemed to working properly and was in good shape. Well both shop's were quite good, and I'd be happy to take it back to either one for dyno service. For reference the car made peak 272hp/287tq on the dynojet and 262hp/272tq on the Mustang dyno. Fairly typical numbers and fairly typical results when comparing a dynojet to a Mustang Dyno.

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My car also made a friend, an old car buddy named Mike Garrett from Speedhunters also is working on an Ecoboost project!

 

[Gst95dsm]

That catches us up to current. I took a nice mountain drive the other day and the car really handles well, I was shocked how fun it was to drive in the twisties. I know some really amazing roads up in the sierra's that I've been driving with my cars and bikes for the last 15 years and this car as fun or funner than anything I've ever driven up their. I actually think it was funner to drive than my EVO and that is saying A LOT! :headband:

I snapped some decent photos....

 

[Gst95dsm]

Well thanks for reading this so far! I'm glad I got this started before I get to involved and would never be able to catch up from the start! My Cobb A/P will be here this Wednesday so I will post up some impressions on that whole situation and I can't wait to get a tune installed. I am also headed to Famoso raceway to run her down the drag strip this Saturday so look forward to some more content soon!

 

[04SloSnake]

Love your EB. I always wanted a VR4 Galant, like you said it is a great sleeper. I love how the S550 is bringing new owners (and shops) to the Mustang platform. Look forward to seeing your build progress.

 

[V8Venom]

Great post I will definitely be following your build. Great pics of all of your cars!

 

[oilfieldtrash]

Was that YouTube video of the ecoboost with just an intake only? Because that sounded awesome for $200 if so.

 

[Gst95dsm]

Love your EB. I always wanted a VR4 Galant, like you said it is a great sleeper. I love how the S550 is bringing new owners (and shops) to the Mustang platform. Look forward to seeing your build progress.

Awesome man, thanks!

Great post I will definitely be following your build. Great pics of all of your cars!

Thank you! I love doing build threads. I'm not sure how crazy I'll get with this one, but I'll be sure to have fun with it at various drag strips, autocross, and even some road course.

Was that YouTube video of the ecoboost with just an intake only? Because that sounded awesome for $200 if so.

Yup.... completely stock besides intake.

 

[WatchSquid]

Optioned exactly as mine will be. I'll be following your build as it progresses. Well done!

 

[Gst95dsm]

I installed the COBB Accessport tonight! It was pretty straightforward. The device sure is neat. Packaging and storage case also very well done. I ordered mine from MAPerformance so I can take advantage of their tunes in the future. I plan to also get their full turbo back exhaust very soon...... So far they are very responsive, professional and seem to be a step ahead of the competition in regards to overall quality.




To get things up and running I wasn't sure if I needed to charge to access port itself, or if it was just powered off the OBD port.... well it's just powered off the OBD port so don't about that. Also you have to press that cable onto the OBD port with more force than you'll want to put on it. I would suggest holding the back of the OBD port with your other hand as you press on the cable. It's quite snug.

After that turn on your car in accessory mode and the Accessport comes to life! From here you just follow very basic on screen directions and things should go fine. It took about 20 minutes, maybe a little less to install everything. What took the longest was the A/P saving the factory tune. Don't be alarmed when your car seems to turn off, things start flashing and you get just about every error message you never want to see on the display, it's normal.



Well after you get all that sorted I would take a few minutes to get acquainted with the device. It's pretty simple.... learn how to set up the gauges and what not. There's about a million things you can monitor, most of it you won't even know what it is. I stuck with the basics, Boost, Charge air temp, and OAR status. If you don't know what OAR is...... you need to do some research.

Since the OAR was reset to 0, I needed to drive the car around in a specific way to get it to adjust down to -1 (optimum). I found that on the freeway taking the car from 50 to 75 under light boost (4psi) provided the most change in OAR. It took quite a while and many times of doing that to get all the way down to -1. Most attempts will only net you .02. If you get a good one you could jump .08 or more..... anyhow, don't bother testing out your new tune until you get OAR down to -1.

Ok once that was done I had a little fun accelerating in 1st and 2nd, I must say 2nd is FUN now. The little sucker pulls strong. I was able to get some good scratch in 2nd before winding it out, but now you can basically light them up if you choose. Overall it's a noticeable difference all around, still pretty flat on top but that not the tunes fault, it's the turbo being out of it's efficiency range by quite a bit. The boost in mid range power, even part throttle just makes the already fun to drive car, even funner.

Here's what I don't like! I was under the impression I could change launch control settings, I can't! It's preset at 2500rpm, and awkward as all hell to you use having to hold the cruise "on" button. It's not in a very ergonomic spot on this car. I doubt I'll even use it and it was one feature I was really looking forward to. I tried the flat foot shifting and I guess maybe you can get good at it, but it sure does seem abusive. If you hesitate at all you'll be finding yourself bouncing off the actual rev limiter real quick. It's an awkward thing to do since you become so used to letting of the throttle to shift. It seems like you can't even view your logs unless you get the upgraded software, access tuner. I don't know why, I guess I should have done more research but I thought you would have some of these functions available. With a basic access port you get whatever OTS map you can get, right now Cobb's map is really the only one available, and you get to look at gauges. Don't get me wrong, I think the device is great and a huge step up from the old piggy back a/f computers I used back in the day, but I was expecting a little more functionality when it's hooked up to my computer.

Anyhow.... I'm happy with my purchase, and feel I went with the right tuning platform. The car feels great.

I'm headed to a drag strip on Saturday. I don't expect to put up any decent times on the factory rubber. I can NOT launch this thing. The fastest 0-60 I've been able to pull is 6.5sec. If I get lucky and get a decent launch out of the 4 or 5 attempts I get..... that will be nice. It'll be fun either way though. I'll be looking forward to getting some drag radials soon though, I know that.

 

[Gst95dsm]

Had a fun time at the drag strip yesterday. The car quite a bit slower on paper than it feels! It's all good though. I was having a hard time getting a launch and was dropping 2.5 60 foots.... uhg! Anyhow I was finally getting at least 2.3, and one 2.1 by the end. It went 14.2@99. Slow as shit really, but I could REALLY see how intake temps were effecting the car. The track was slow so I could basically hot lap it if I wanted. Keep in mind this car has a basic COBB 91 octane tune installed and a CAI. Anyhow, Intake temps were into the 150's by the end of a run. Hot lapping resulted in decreased boost (19 psi max), much less power of course (96mph traps).

The car was a beast for the first 1/8th it seemed, hanging with or beating many cars that were trapping 105 to 110. It just falls flat in gear 3 and 4 when temps start climbing. Oh well.... intercooler needed asap. I'll return with full turbo back exhaust (catless), and the bigger intercooler to see if we can get temps down and I know it will run hard. Oh yeah..... and some slicks!









Had a fun race with an EVO 10. I was pulling him on the top.

 

[Apwrx]

Nice choice in color. Dang those times are slow,oh well at least you've got a base now. I'll be getting some power mods and a tune very soon. Track opens next month and if this things not in the 12's I'll be very disappointed:frusty:
I've had it since Christmas patiently waiting to see what tunes rise to the top.Its coming and I can't wait
Nice build thread,I appreciated the background info

 

[Gst95dsm]

Nice choice in color. Dang those times are slow,oh well at least you've got a base now. I'll be getting some power mods and a tune very soon. Track opens next month and if this things not in the 12's I'll be very disappointed:frusty:
I've had it since Christmas patiently waiting to see what tunes rise to the top.Its coming and I can't wait
Nice build thread,I appreciated the background info

Thanks man, I would dial back the anticipation on the 12's. I believe the shop cars that have run 12's have all been on at least drag radials and who know how aggressive of a tune. By next month I'll have an upgraded Intercooler, full cat less exhaust and a custom tune...... And slicks. I won't be going into it expected to run 12's. When we start seeing some more "average guy" track times we will know more. That's why I posted mine, I wasn't proud or happy with the performance, but it was what it was and I still love my car!

 

[DanFish]

Did you use the track apps when you went down the strip to see how accurate track apps are?

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