Hello everyone,

I work as a dispatch and fleet mechanic's assistant for a transportation company. Being that our vehicles put on several hundred miles a day, fuel economy is important. in the past i had several personal vehicles where i had installed Ram Air Intakes and saw noticeable mpg gains. we have a 2015 Chrysler Town & Country in our fleet and my manager has said that we should install said intake on this van first, monitor the mpg gains, and then decide if it would be a worthy investment to modify the rest of the fleet. we 30+ vehicles so if we can see 1-3 mpg gains across the fleet then we figure it would be a worthy investment. my question to you guys is will there be any issues installing the intake? i have been told with newer ECUs that adjusting the amount of air the motor receives can cause it to go into a "limp mode". i was also told that it may not produce any MPG gains due the ECU being an "adaptive ECU" and that it will try and remain within factory parameters even if a modification is done. i was told that i need to make sure that the piping between the throttle body and the cone filter must be the same diameter as the throttle body and i shouldn't see any issues. can anyone confirm or deny this? also are there other issues that may be produced from this modification?

Thank you in advance

 

The only way to know is to compare two identically equipped vehicles. One with and one without. However, both will need to be operated in a like manner.

The ECU is closed loop. So, they are adaptive to an extent. Anoter issue is what goes in has to have a way out. In this case, exhaust. The key issue being EPA. And, in many states it is not allowable to modify the systems.

You need not be concerned with the ECU as it will not operate outside Federal Requirements.

Hop this helps somewhat.

 

we have only one 2015 T&C, it is solely operated by the owner of the company so the operation of the vehicle should be consistent. We also record and monitor fuel mileage from each day, so i have data from the last six-seven months to compare it too. we are located in Wisconsin and my manager tells me that there are no regulations in place to prohibit modification to our vehicles. as far as an exhaust, the majority of our vans are equipped to transport clients in wheelchairs, so they have already been modified for that conversion. thank you very much for your help Ford SMT, it was useful and informative information.

 

does anyone else no of anything that might be an issue with this? thanks in advance for the help.

 

One of the things we did with our fleet vehicles was to change oil @ 5000, Trans at 50, coolant @ 5 years regardless. We ha seen, and this a guess as I'm home recovering from surgery, a longevity increase of about 40%.

Oh and test the oil 2 times annual., the Trans @ 25k. Helps identify failure patterns and save on repairs.

Doing this on a phone so don't know how this looks

 

Thank you very much for you're help sir. i wish you a speedy recovery from you're procedure.