CVF Titan Intercooler: Installation and Review

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jgree32

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Been on the sidelines waiting to get into the mod/tune game until an affordable intercooler upgrade was available.
I saw Jason@CVF post on the forums recently and decided to give it a go.

Initial Impressions:
Most dramatic thing to me was the weight vs the OEM part. The CVF had a noticeable heft to it in comparison.
All welds looked solid and inside of end tanks appeared smooth. Fin pack had a nice staggered fin design
View media item 14382View media item 14381View media item 14379View media item 14378
Install:
While no installation instructions were provided it was a relatively straight forward install. I followed some youtube videos of other stock location ICs.
I did remove the shrouding around the stock shutter system.
While ive seen comments stating the fans on the IC must go back on with the intercooler I was able to fit the IC and connect all hoses and then mount the fans.
One difference vs some other ICs is the stock cold side piping to charge pipe must be removed and replaced with a single elbow vs the clip on joint(pictured below)
View media item 14380Hoses and diverter valve transferred over and ready to install!
View media item 14383I would recommend leaving the cold side piping loose to allow you to twist the hose into the correct orientation to mate with the stock charge air piping.

Performance:
I didnt expect the butt dyno to notice much difference being i did the comparison on the stock tune but i was pleasantly surprised. Boost seem to come on quicker and truck was noticeably more responsive.

Logging:
I did some logging the day prior with the stock FMIC and tried as best i could to recreate same condition with the CVF part.
In each case i did 2 pulls spaced about a minute apart.
Temperature on day of stock run: 91 degrees
CVF run: 95 degrees
Both logs were trimmed to be on the same timeframe for comparison. 4th gear pull from 30mph to 80mph

Results across 4th gear pull were:
Stock Charge Air Temp
111deg start and 151deg end

CVF Charge Air Temp
122deg start and 127deg end

So we're looking at a 35deg improvement in temp rise from start to end of a single pull!
Noting the 4degree increase in temperature on the day I logged the CVF would put the delta at ~39degrees basically in line with the logs on the CVF site.

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Im quite happy with the results and I believe CVF has shown you don't need to spend $1k on a intercooler to gain substantial improvement over stock.
 
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Trackar

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Works now.
Such a big difference in temperatures, the stock intercooler is terrible. The truck was so gutless one day I thought something was wrong till it occurred to me to check the intake temp since it was so hot outside. Iirc it was 160-170
 

titanjc

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Thanks for sharing your feedback, especially the hard data. I’ve been considering the CVF unit as well as $900+ for an intercooler just seems a little excessive to me.
 
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