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Cooling system upgrade

3998 Views 11 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  navyR113
I've seen people here and other places talking about high engine coolant temperatures while towing in hot climates. A little bit of research shows that we have the same radiator in our trucks as the Raptors and other trucks with the 3.5 Ecoboost heavy duty cooling package (part # HL3Z-8005-B). For reference, Ram specs the 1500 Ecodiesel with the radiator used for their 6.4 Hemi 2500/3500 trucks, not the radiator for the 5.7 Hemi 1500 trucks. Diesels tend to make more heat than comparable gasoline engines (higher btu/lbm , fuel, higher cylinder pressures from hotter fuel burn, etc) so it would make sense that diesel trucks should have more cooling capacity than their gasoline counterparts.

Which brings me to an interesting find from my research: Mishimoto makes a radiator upgrade for the 3.5 Ecoboost equipped trucks with the heavy duty cooling package (Performance Aluminum Radiator, fits Ford F-150 2015+). Mishimoto claim:
  • a 55% increase in surface area over the stock heavy-duty radiator,
  • a 45% increase in coolant capacity over the stock heavy-duty radiator, and
  • a 63% increase in core volume over the stock heavy-duty radiator.

All good things in my book, especially with the relatively high thermostat opening temperatures for these trucks. Thoughts?
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@navyR113 - if I were towing something large (like some of the TT pics I see posted here) I think their radiator would be a good upgrade, and I would to see them offer an intercooler specific to our 3.0L engine/turbo.

As an engineer, I am impressed with what I see on their website as cooling system upgrades is all that these guys do.

The company name perked my interest, as I thought they might be based in Japan and wondered how much of a F150 market there is there (probably zero) but looking at their website, they:
  • Are a fairly new (2005) US manufacturer based in New Castle, Delaware
  • Focus on after-market cooling system upgrades including radiators and turbo intercoolers
  • Include product-specific engineering reports w/Dyno results to back their performance claims
Good find and recommendation as I enjoyed perusing their website and pointed @nenad to Mishimoto, as perhaps they could come up with a 3.0L Diesel specific Intercooler Boot Kit to help with his issue in the F-150 Diesel Engine and Bullbar interference thread.
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As a 2017 Ram Ecodiesel owner, I can say mine has never given me a problem towing heavy trailers , but the newer third gen Ecodiesels relocated the intercooler, I believe and increased the tow ratings a lot. My issue has been, need to run a bra/front grille cover when it's below 40F or so to get it to warm up faster. My brother complained about his F250 PS being very slow to warm up. Told him he needs a bra, hehe. Diesels like to run on the warm side.
As a 2017 Ram Ecodiesel owner, I can say mine has never given me a problem towing heavy trailers , but the newer third gen Ecodiesels relocated the intercooler, I believe and increased the tow ratings a lot. My issue has been, need to run a bra/front grille cover when it's below 40F or so to get it to warm up faster. My brother complained about his F250 PS being very slow to warm up. Told him he needs a bra, hehe. Diesels like to run on the warm side.
My Ecodiesel towed well, but in 95⁰F heat with 90% humidity whole pulling in the hills of Tennessee the coolant and especially the oil got uncomfortably warm, and I had to back out of it a lot to keep EGTs in check. Would have been nice if the intercooler wasn't mounted in front of the radiator then.
6.7 owners steer clean of Mishimoto.

AFE has some options that seem to work well from comments other owners have made on the Facebook 3.0 groups.
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6.7 owners steer clean of Mishimoto.

AFE has some options that seem to work well from comments other owners have made on the Facebook 3.0 groups.
AFE only makes an intercooler for these engines; they do not make an F150 radiator. Why do 6.7 owners avoid Mishimoto?
Looks like they had some failures on the 6.4L due to chassis flex and seems like their rep has been tarnished since:

Mishimoto 6.4L Powerstroke Radiator Analysis

along with blistering Amazon reviews:

Mishimoto MMRAD-F2D-11 Primary Aluminum Radiator for Ford 6.7 Powerstroke 2011-2016

Looks like a case where something more solid is not necessarily a better design = Ford knew something about chassis flex when going with plastic tanks.

I'm no expert on the SuperDutys and just going by online reviews. Perhaps @wreedsvt can expound as he talks with more SuperDuty owners than I do...

I'm still impressed with the engineering that Mishimoto does but they may have over-engineered something that Ford knew would be an issue.
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Looks like they had some failures on the 6.4L due to chassis flex and seems like their rep has been tarnished since:

Mishimoto 6.4L Powerstroke Radiator Analysis

along with blistering Amazon reviews:

Mishimoto MMRAD-F2D-11 Primary Aluminum Radiator for Ford 6.7 Powerstroke 2011-2016

Looks like a case where something more solid is not necessarily a better design = Ford knew something about chassis flex when going with plastic tanks.

I'm no expert on the SuperDutys and just going by online reviews. Perhaps @wreedsvt can expound as he talks with more SuperDuty owners than I do...

I'm still impressed with the engineering that Mishimoto does but they may have over-engineered something that Ford knew would be an issue.
To be fair, radiator core support flex is a known issue on the 6.4L trucks (among many, to be certain).


Mishimoto actually came up with a solution to the 2008-2010 Super Duty core support flex issues, too.


To be fair, radiator core support flex is a known issue on the 6.4L trucks (among many, to be certain).


Mishimoto actually came up with a solution to the 2008-2010 Super Duty core support flex issues, too.


Like I admitted, I am have no prior SuperDuty ownership or experiences and did some quick googling to figure out why Mishimoto was getting a bad rap and posted some of the complaints I found.

Yes, I did find that Mishimoto designed a upper radiator support bracket to absorb the brunt of the chassis flex after they already had lots of units out-in-the-field; i.e. they weren't aware of the chassis flex issue before they put their replacement radiator product out. I watched videos where the frame bumpers also wear out making things worse.

Paying $1500 for a radiator replacement and taking/paying for 4-6 hours to install only to have it fail months later is what caused the ire from their customers. While they offer a lifetime warranty (you have to pay $100 for shipping replacement) the cost to re-install (either money or time) plus the time you are out of your vehicle just added more fuel to that "ire" fire. I think in this case they over-designed a radiator and were blind-sided by the 6.4L chassis flex issue.

I am trying to be impartial on this topic as I don't own a SuperDuty and just trying to show some examples of why SuperDuty owners might be avoiding them -- I asked @wreedsvt to chime in as he has a ton more experience with SuperDutys and after-market mods. What I don't understand is if they knew this chassis flex issue on the 6.4s, is why they seem to be having similar issues on the 6.7s (based on the Amazon reviews)

With all of the above being said, I do like the Engineering aspects of Mishimoto as a company and their full disclosure approach with their designs and data. I like reading their Engineering blogs, probably because I'm an engineer who enjoys causal analysis = why things fail and how to design/engineer solutions to resolve the failure. I like what they are doing and would look to them if they offered solutions for our F150 Diesels, which they probably won't based on low volume of F150 Diesels...
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Looks like Mishimoto did learn from the chassis flex in the 6.4s and offer a similar upper radiator bracket for 6.7s:
which they started offering in 2019 = all of the negative Amazon reviews are prior to 2019

Learning something new every day...
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It's quite a common thing on 17+ f-150s. Might be a problem if left unchecked. But it's widely discussed on the web, so you should have any issues fixing it. In addition to this topic I've seen it discussed here somespeed.com/questions/2018-here-noticing-some-transmission-slipping-its-brand-new-is-that-a-symptom-of-that-transmission-clip-recall/
Bringing back an old thread, but have been thinking about lower temp thermostats lately and found these. Anybody know if it's possible to use forscan to adjust the electric cooling fan setpoints?



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