A Potent Package
By: Dan Sanchez
Photos By: Tina Brown, James Boyd
By now, most late-model Turbo diesel owners know that the easiest and most effective way to coax massive amounts of horsepower and torque from their engines is by installing an air intake system, performance programmer or module, and a free-flow exhaust system. Although this may sound easy, a problem arises when you begin to investigate and weed through the abundance of products available. This ultimately leads to the question of how do all of these different products work together? Does one manufacturer’s intake work well with another manufacturer’s exhaust and a third manufacturer’s programmer?
In an effort to help curb many of these questions, Proficient Diesel began combining intakes, exhaust, Programmers and downloaders to come up with viable combinations that provide excellent performance numbers from reliable products that they sell through Proficient Diesel.com. After many years of doing this same type of testing with superchargers, Proficient Diesel compiled a combination of name-brand Performance products that should work well together for turbocharged diesel applications.
One of the company’s many attempts at grouping Performance products was to find a power combination for the popular Ford 6.0-liter Powerstroke turbo-diesel. Proficient selected a Volant Cool Air Intake Kit P/N19860, and combined it with a free flowing, MBRP polished stainless steel, dual-exit exhaust P/N S6210304. Proficient then selected the newest Bully Dog Triple Dog Power Pup to complete the system and to fully utilize the benefits of increased air intake and exhaust flow.
Proficient found a stock 2005 Ford F-250 as its test truck to bolt the combination to. After acquiring all of the products from the three manufacturers, Proficient easily bolted on the products at their facility in Irvine, California, with the exhaust being the most difficult, but still within the limits of someone doing it at home with adequate tools.
To begin with, the Volant Cool Air Intake Kit was a welcome improvement to the restrictive factory intake system. Volant replaces the filter box with its own larger box that gathers air from two sources so that it has a larger volume of cold air available. This, in combination with a cotton-gauze filter, allows the engine to take in more air and have the potential of additional horsepower.
After the Volant Cool Air Intake Kit was installed, Proficient took a close look at the MBRP Diesel Exhaust system. This particular kit for the Powerstroke, features a dual exhaust exit from the muffler, a high-flow down pipe and an optional catalytic converter test pipe. Although several exhaust manufactures offer test pipes, it is wise to check with your local state laws as to the legality of its use. In many cases, the test pipes are useful in off-highway and racing applications where it can eliminate excess heat, especially when using it with a power programmer that can add additional fuel. For testing purposes, Proficient included the MBRP downpipe and cat test pipe, but reinstalled the catalytic converter once it was able to see the overall power gains without it.
The MBRP Exhaust system was easy to install, especially when it came to bolting up the new down pipe. On many other systems, the down pipe requires several attempts to fit it up from under the engine and between the frame rail. Yet, the MBRP pipe bolted in without any problems. Some trimming of the MBRP head pipe is required, as it fits a variety of cab applications, but the rest of the system bolted together easily. The MBRP system also features a high-flow muffler that uses a straight-through style inlet and outlet. The entire system is polished and uses a high-flow Y-pipe at the muffler’s outlet that separates the exhaust so that it can exit out of the right and left sides of the truck, giving it a dual exhaust appearance. This unique feature on the MBRP Exhaust is one of the main reasons why Proficient selected to use it on this application. Not only does the dual exhaust look great, but from the company’s experience the added dual exit tubes actually lower exhaust gas temperatures, further increasing the benefits of this system.
Finally, Proficient added the Bully Dog Triple Dog Power Pup. This new programmer features three levels of diesel performance from a towing mode to a performance and an all-out power mode. The unit easily downloads into the vehicle’s factory computer through the diagnostic port under the dash and this particular system allows the owner to switch from one program to the next without having to stop and reprogram the vehicle. Bully Dog also offers a trial version of the Triple Dog Power Pup that can be downloaded into your vehicle from one of various Bully Dog dealers across the country.
In theory, the Power Pup should provide most of the performance gains but the addition of the Volant intake and the MBRP Exhaust system will also allow the combination to flow the proper amount of air and exhaust to make the most of the programmer’s ability to make power. Most importantly however, the use of an aftermarket intake and exhaust on a diesel will curb the heat that is typically generated by adding a programmer to a truck that is constantly under load or used in performance applications.
Once all of the components were installed, it was time to test the truck and look at all of the data. To do this, Proficient took the Ford over to Autowave Inc. in Huntington Beach, California. It was here that Mike Lapier aided Proficient with the dyno tests on the company’s rear-wheel dynamometer.
The truck had previously visited the shop where Proficient asked Lapier to perform a baseline dyno test on the truck. In stock configuration, the rear-wheel dyno showed that the engine made approximately 250 horsepower and 475 lb-ft torque. The next dyno test was with all of the products, Volant, MBRP and Bully Dog unit installed.
Since the Triple Dog Power Pup features three stages of power, the first test was with the Power Pup in the Towing/Economy mode. The F-250 showed some encouraging gains, improving the truck’s performance to approximately 311 horsepower and 630 lb-ft torque. In the Performance mode, the power shot up to 320 horsepower and torque jumped to 660 lb-ft. In the Extreme mode, the horsepower peaked at 339 horsepower and the torque reached 690 lb-ft. of torque.
Although the power in the Extreme mode is definitely a wild ride for this truck, the gains we made in the towing and Performance modes were impressive and well within the limits of the diesel’s power train to be used on a daily basis. Proficient put together a potent combination with these products and the Bully Dog’s Power Pup is probably capable of more power with additional tuning that is available by contacting Bully Dog.
As we also suspected, the EGT’s were lower on the Performance and Extreme modes, proving that the addition of the Volant air intake and MBRP Exhaust are well worth the effort when adding a power programmer. For this test, we were pleased with the results and are anxious to test other combinations to see how they perform and how the EGT’s are affected.
Proficient took its test F-250 over to Autowave Inc. in Huntington Beach, CA to perform the before and after dyno tests to see the results of its intake, exhaust and programmer combination.
One of the items we installed was the MBRP stainless steel exhaust system. The kit comes completely polished and clamps on using the factory exhaust hangars.
The system has an optional cat test pipe that eliminates the catalytic converter. Proficient used it on this test but it was reinstalled after the testing as California law requires the use of a catalytic converter.
The MBRP exhaust is a free-flow muffler that adds a performance sound but does not restrict any of the exhaust flow.
Here you can see the difference between the factory turbo down-pipe on the left and the MBRP downpipe.
Some of the tubing had to be trimmed as it is manufactured for various body lengths. Proficient simply measured the system and marked where it needed to be cut.
Using a Sawsall, the tubing was cut and the rest of the system could be easily bolted together.
The turbo down pipe was bolted to the rear of the factory turbo. This was relatively easy to install relative to other exhaust systems Proficient has used in the past.
The tubing slips together and uses C-clamps to hang it from the factory hangars.
The muffler is then installed, as is the Y-pipe to direct the exhaust out of both sides of the truck for the dual tips and to help reduce EGTs.
Here you can see what the exhaust looks like from the rear. Note the polished, double wall tips that look great.
On the intake side, the factory air box was removed and replaced with a Volant unit.
The inlet tubing from the filter box to the throttle body is also removed.
The filter must be removed first by unlatching the cover from the housing.
The filter and the inlet tube are removed from the engine compartment.
Here you can see the difference between the factory intake on the left and the Volant unit.
The Volant kit uses a slightly smaller air filter, but it features larger pleats that make up for the surface area. It also flows much more air than the factory unit and allows for a greater volume of air into the engine.
The remainder of the factory air box is removed and the Volant unit is installed.
We found out that the elbow on the intake tube should be installed first before the rest of the unit and you must have a smart torque's head to remove stock Mass Airflow Sensor from the stock unit.
This is what the Volant intake looks like installed on the engine. The lid is held on with four screws and also takes in air from under the hood and between the radiator-core support, providing somewhat of a ram effect.
The Bully Dog Triple Dog Power Pup allowed three power functions that can be changed on the fly.
The Power Pup is simply plugged into the vehicle’s diagnostic port and the program is downloaded into the factory ECU.
The final dyno results showed dramatic improvements in horsepower, torque and low EGT’s for such a combination.