Sometimes there is a subset of car culture that you’ve just missed out on somehow. That’s what happened to me and the 3.5-liter Ecoboost-swap Mustang community. I just didn’t know they existed, but it was brought to my attention today via a tweeted screenshot of a Facebook post, which naturally sent me into a research spiral YouTube hole. There are a lot more of these swapped machines out there than I otherwise might have believed, and now I desperately want one.
The recently-replaced S550-generation Mustang, and the S197 that came before it, were available with a 3.7-liter Cyclone V6. That was the boring choice, the one nobody really wanted, and it was unceremoniously discontinued for 2017. The 2.3 Ecoboost cars could have the boost cranked up, and the 5-liter V8 cars already had the performance most Mustang owners wanted. All those mid V6 Mustangs are now on the used market for a comparative song, and apparently it’s relatively easy to swap in the 3.5-liter Ecoboost, as they’re based on the same engine architecture.
The 3.5-liter Ecoboost was introduced in the 2011 F-150, delivering 365 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque. Since then the engine has been available in the Explorer, Expedition, and Flex, so you know there are hundreds of thousands of them out in the world just waiting to supply parts for your Mustang swap. If you spend the big money and get one out of a Raptor, you’ll be playing with 450 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque. There are tuners producing off-the-shelf kits for upwards of 700 horsepower. It’s entirely possible that you could build yourself a GT500-beating fire breather from a bottom-0f-the-barrell V6 ’Stang with a quarter the budget, and that’s kind of cool.
Okay, so you’re not going to have a song and dance of a time getting everything to work together, as modern electronics are a bit finicky and the boosted V6 was never available in the Mustang chassis. Considering the Ecoboost bolts up to the car and its transmission without much issue, a lot of the fitment is already solve for you, so you just need to figure out, you know, all the other stuff. Thankfully there are enough people doing this swap that you won’t be breaking new ground with this project. It’s still winter, so there’s time to get your Mustang V6 boosted for spring.