Has your 2011 or 2012 F150 3.5L Ecoboost engine blown up and you need to install a new one? 2011 and 2012 engines are the same. However 2013 and 2014 are a little different. Are you considering installing a 2013 or 2014 engine instead of a 2011 - 2012? Besides the engine you will need several other components listed below, If you can, I highly recommend having an entire truck to get parts from (which is what I bought); or be sure to gather ALL required parts at once when you acquire the 2013 2014 engine. The 2013 – 2014 engine is not a direct bolt up replacement but does have advantages over the 2011 - 2012. In this guide I will try to cover all the things I have learned, and everything that is necessary to do in order to successfully get a 2013 2014 3.5L EB engine working without any problems in a 2011 or 2012 F150.
As a disclaimer, I am not a professional mechanic or Ford engineer. This is only my observations after completing this from start to finish. I have made all efforts to make this complete and not leave anything out. I am also writing this guide up several months after completing this build, but I don't believe I am forgetting anything. First let me go over the differences between the 2 sets of years.
This is a big job, but if you are capable and able to swap a 2011 engine into a 2011 truck then the extra steps required to get a 2013 to 2014 engine going should not be too difficult for you.
Have fun.
As a disclaimer, I am not a professional mechanic or Ford engineer. This is only my observations after completing this from start to finish. I have made all efforts to make this complete and not leave anything out. I am also writing this guide up several months after completing this build, but I don't believe I am forgetting anything. First let me go over the differences between the 2 sets of years.
- The turbo chargers. The newer engine has larger turbos, and no built in blow off valves on each turbo. It may be possible to reuse your old turbos from your 2011 2012, but I do not know. Even though they are different sizes internally and push more air I do not know if they bolt up or not. In my situation I had no choice but to use the 2013 2014 turbos due to one of my older ones being blown. From what I have read you should keep the turbos from the 2013 2014 and not reuse your smaller turbos. If you do change the turbos along with the engine you will need to: 1) Change the intercooler and some/all plumbing, 2) wire in the new Electronic Blow off Valve (EBOV) on the intercooler to your truck, and 3) Change your Engine control Module (ECM) because (from what I have read) the larger turbos push more air which means the fuel map is different. It may also be possible to have your 2011 – 2012 ECM re-flashed at the dealer to 2013 programming but I do not have any information as to if this is indeed really possible or not. Changing the ECM will cause you to change other computers and electronics as well, see below.
- The 2011 and 2012 use an electric vacuum pump that is behind the left head light. The 2013 – 2014 has a built in mechanical vacuum pump which runs off of one of the overhead cams on the right side head on the engine by the firewall. I decided to unplug my electric vacuum pump and run the built in vacuum pump of the new engine. The only thing you will need to do this is the new hose which runs into the brake booster. It may be possible to also run your electric pump instead; I do not know.
- The third difference is the 2013 – 2014 uses a 4 wire Mass Air Flow sensor (MAF) while the 2011 – 2012 only has 2 wires going to the sensor. This will require either swapping the entire wiring harness from a 2013 2014 into your 2011 2012, OR running 3 new wires to 2 different areas and splicing / hooking into 2 connectors.
- Acquire these parts:
- A 2013 – 2014 engine with its harness
- MAF and intake pipe to mount it, and MAF electrical connector to wire in
- Vacuum pump hose (although you may be able to use your old pump and hose)
- Possibly the transfer case motor (or may require a rewire, see blow)
- Ford requires all engine mount bolts to be replaced and not reused for an engine swap. I reused some of mine. Others were indeed stretched and I replaced them
- IF you plan on changing your turbo to the 2013 2014 turbos you will also need:
- Turbos (obviously)
- Intercooler with EBOV (with electrical connector) and intercooler plumbing
- Unless ECM re-flashing is possible you need: ECM, and possibly Body control Module (BCM) and ABS computer (see below), and Key FOB
- Either a complete engine compartment wire harness, or a few pin plugs from the ECM connector
- Prep engine for installation. My engine was a 2014 with 135000 KMs (83,800 miles) on it. I decided to check the timing chain auto tensioner throw out distance using a bore scope and found it to be 6 teeth out (which is out of spec). I decided to do the timing chain with the engine out of the truck. This job is about 10 times easier to do with it out of the truck, so I highly recommend doing it. Now is the time!! You can also drain oil and install new filter.
- Install engine. I followed the service manual which did a pretty good job guiding me through it. If you are changing the engine compartment wire harness be sure to install it before you install the engine. I did not do this step and it only takes an hour or 2 to wire in the 2 missing plugs, it’s up to you. If I was going to redo this procedure again I would probably do the harness swap to avoid needing to rewire things.
- On my truck I was not able to plug the transfer case motor electrical connector into the new engine wire harness, they were slightly different. This may have been because my 2014 was equipped with the Automatic E locking rear differential, but my 2011 was not. What I did was change the transfer case motor from the 2014 (only took 10 minutes). 4X4 High works fine, but 4X4 Low does not engage, I do not know if this is the reason, I will update once I figure it out.
- At this point once you have your coolant and oil filled up and its safe to do so you are able to try and start it on the 2011 – 2012 ECM. It should run fine, I didn’t notice any real issues running the old ECM when taking it for a short test drive, but given what I have read about fuel mixtures I did swap to the other ECM. Also your blowoff valve is not connected, and I am not sure if you could damage something driving like this.
- If you did not swap over the engine compartment body harness you will need to wire up the EBOV and new MAF. Perhaps depending on options or built times of your truck these 2 sensor connections may be different for you. If you skip ahead and do step 7 next you should have 2 CEL codes now, P0113, and P012D, which should go away once these are wired in.
- A - First the EBOV. The EBOV is 2 wires (one white and one brown – light grey), the sensor is on the intercooler. These 2 wires can be run up to a plug behind the battery, somewhat below the ECM connection. This plug goes from your new engine harness back to a body harness. This connector is 16 pins, 12 smaller pins, and 4 larger ones in the corners (not all pins are used). Connect the EBOV white wire into the grey wire on the engine harness, it is a small wire corner pin. Connect the EBOV brown-grey wire into the yellow green engine harness wire, it is the other row and 2 spots over from the last connection.
- B - Second is the new MAF sensor which has 4 wires: yellow-brown, green-brown, yellow-green, and grey-blue. You will need to solder and run 3 wires over to the other side of the engine compartment. Two of which stop at a 16 pin plug behind the battery, a little before the other connector you ran the EBOV wires to. The yellow-brown and the yellow green wires from the MAF get run to the yellow-brown and yellow-green wires on that 16 pin plug (same color to same color). The third wire is the grey-blue. It will need to continue on and get plugged into one of two large connectors going into the ECM. However this is tricky because there is no pin on the connector to splice into. You will need to disassemble the connector and insert a plug into spot #72. This is doable and there are several videos on Youtube on the subject. I broke several pins before I managed to remove and replace one without damaging it. It is the 5th pin from the left on the 4th row down from the top when holding the connector looking into the plug with the 8 large raised pins on the left side. Finally the 4th green-brown wire simply gets connected into the existing purple wire that was going to the original MAF. This wire ends up at pin 75, 3 spots over from the pin you installed on the ECM plug if you are curious.
- A - First the EBOV. The EBOV is 2 wires (one white and one brown – light grey), the sensor is on the intercooler. These 2 wires can be run up to a plug behind the battery, somewhat below the ECM connection. This plug goes from your new engine harness back to a body harness. This connector is 16 pins, 12 smaller pins, and 4 larger ones in the corners (not all pins are used). Connect the EBOV white wire into the grey wire on the engine harness, it is a small wire corner pin. Connect the EBOV brown-grey wire into the yellow green engine harness wire, it is the other row and 2 spots over from the last connection.
- At this point, you can swap over your 2013 – 2014 ECM or get your older one re-flashed at a dealer (if possible). If you swap it over you should find that the truck won’t start due to a security issue because the ECM and BCM are a mismatch. So next swap over the BCM from the 2013 2014 (perhaps a re-flash on this is possible too?). You can find your new door unlock code printed on a barcode stuck to the BCM. The truck still will not be able to start with the key because the key FOB no longer matches the BCM (although remote start should work now using the other FOB). Simply disassemble your keys and move the electronics from the 2013 2014 FOB to you existing key. Now the truck should start with both the key and remote start, but you will have an ABS failure. Swap over the ABS computer (front half of the ABS unit located in the left of the engine compartment). Things should now be working.
- The intercooler and EBOV wiring
- The ECM - which then causes you to change:
- The ABS computer
- The BCM – which causes to the change
- Key FOB electronics
This is a big job, but if you are capable and able to swap a 2011 engine into a 2011 truck then the extra steps required to get a 2013 to 2014 engine going should not be too difficult for you.
Have fun.
