Bolting A Boss 302 Manifold Onto A Turbo ’15 Mustang GT

Image Source: Blow By Racing

Image Source: Blow By Racing

The guys at Blow By Racing out of Boca Raton, Florida have ventured out to settle a longstanding debate in the Coyote Mustang community.

The company has compared the Boss 302 intake manifold both on a completely stock ’15 Mustang GT, and a modified car with forced induction. And while the results between the two cars may not be surprising, the gains made in the latter of the two are still awesome nonetheless.

Boss 302 Intake Manifold

The guys at Blow By Racing are no rookies when it comes to modular engines. The company is constantly building custom engines for enthusiasts, and they even carry some awesome hardware for 2v, 3v, and 4v Mustang applications.

If you’re familiar with the Boss 302 intake manifold which comes standard on ’12-’13 Boss Mustangs, then you’ll know many enthusiasts retrofit these intakes onto their ’11 and up Coyote powered Mustangs. Upgrading to the Boss 302’s intake manifold is a popular enhancement to perform on Coyote cars, and for good reason. Not only is this component more aesthetically pleasing, when in the right application it can make a useful amount of power.

Initial Expectations

If you’re a Coyote enthusiast as well, then you’re already aware that the Boss 302 manifold is a very capable component which makes power in an array of different Coyote powered Mustang applications.

Chris Jones of Blow By Racing explains his experiences with the Boss 302 manifold, and how BBR was able to achieve some outstanding gains using the manifold on its turbocharged 2015 Mustang GT.

IMG_5248Chris says, “We were one of the first recipients of the S550 platform Mustang back in October of 2014. Back then, when we were testing it in it’s naturally aspirated form, and we were hoping to pick up a ton of power when the Boss 302 intake manifold entered the market. The first time we bolted it onto the car, we lost 40 horsepower to the wheels. We spent an entire day dyno tuning the car, messing around with the Ti-VCT settings on the car. Once we had everything dialed in, we made about 5 to 10 wheel horsepower more with the new intake manifold.” Chris says that while this is somewhat of a rare case, it has happened in the past with other enthusiasts.

This 2015 Mustang GT is equipped with a custom fabricated single turbo kit from Worldwide Turbo & Injection

This 2015 Mustang GT on a stock Coyote engine is equipped with a custom fabricated single turbo kit from Worldwide Turbo & Injection

Present Day Testing

Fast forward to today, and the same car used for testing before is now equipped with a custom fabricated single turbo kit from Worldwide Turbo & Injection. With the tune dialed in on the car using a factory Coyote manifold, Jones begins to rekindle the Boss manifold flame after a conversation with some other Coyote tuners.

12491910_878509112263022_6828864863942557140_oGRJones says, “We were still a bit skeptical about bolting it back onto the car. With the turbo kit installed on the car now, the tune we installed as well is excellent. It’s a very rich tune, with little changes in timing. It’s very conservative, so we decided to say screw it. We put the car on the dyno, did an initial run for baseline numbers, then immediately got to work removing the OEM manifold and replacing it with the Boss manifold. I was expecting to see a minimal horsepower increase of about 5 to 10 at the wheels because we lost a lot of power naturally aspirated in the past. I’ll be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting much. Our initial thoughts during the swap were that we’d be happy again with an additional 5 to 10 horsepower on our current setup. It’s a turbocharged car, so we have plenty of torque down-low; we just need more torque in the upper power band.”

Yes, you read that correctly. That's a total gain of 44.42 RWHP and 44.21 lb-ft of torque.

Yes, you read that correctly. That’s a total gain of 44.42 RWHP and 44.21 lb-ft of torque.

The Verdict

With a baseline dyno run of 810.09 horsepower and 715.10 lb-ft of torque at the rear-wheels, this S550 Mustang GT equipped with a stock Coyote engine and a custom fabricated single turbo kit picked up 44.42 horsepower and 44.21 lb-ft of torque at the rear-wheels, bringing the new output to 854.51 horsepower and 759.31 lb-ft of torque at the rear-wheels.

12493559_878509725596294_4626432626205344774_oGRSo how did Jones and the team achieve such an astonishing gain in power? He says, “When we saw an almost 50 wheel horsepower gain just from swapping intake manifolds, our first reaction was to say holy shit! What’s crazy is that the only change we made was swapping the intake manifolds and adjusting the same tune for the increase in air intake. What’s even crazier is that we swapped to the Boss 302 on the dyno rollers themselves. It never left the rollers, and both tests were performed on the same day, within about two hours of the initial run.”

Now if that’s not a testament to the capability of OEM quality performance parts, then we don’t know what is. What’s your opinion on the Boss 302 intake manifold? Is this component in the cards for your Coyote’s next upgrade? For more information on the components used and the vehicle, check out Blow By Racing’s website here.

Article Sources

About the author

Harrison Noble

Living in San Diego for most of his life, Harrison was exposed to a variety of cars at an early age. His passion for anything that is fast, or has a V8, brought him to Power Automedia.
Read My Articles

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