Ford Performance Intake Manifold Boss 302R Mustang GT 2011-2014

Enthusiasts were thrilled when Ford revived the Boss 302 nameplate in 2012. Unlike many special additions that are made up of stripes and scoops, the Boss had forged internals, revised cam shafts, ported heads and this all new intake manifold, making 32 horsepower more than a stock GT. Along with better wheels and tires and an improved suspension, the Boss was a true performance package.

One of the most popular parts to swap on to a GT has been the Boss 302 manifold. These have shown considerable power gains on power adder cars and even naturally aspirated guys can benefit from the increased rpms. Today, we're going to install this intake on a 2013 Gotta Have It Street car.

The Boss 302 intake is a composite intake with shorter runners designed for higher RPM use. It's also going to look great under our hood. When installing the intake, you'll also need the installation kit, which gives you the proper fuel and vapor lines along with this bracket and hardware necessary for installation. In the case of our 2013 Street car, it has a factory strut tower brace, which will not clear to the intake. We're going to go with this brace here which is specifically designed for the Boss 302.

For this installation you'll need a 3/8 ratchet, 13 mm deep socket, 1/4" ratchet, 8mm deep socket, 10mm deep socket, a couple extensions, Phillips head screwdriver, T30 Torx bit, flat head screwdriver, small flat head screwdriver, needle nose pliers, standard pliers, wire strippers, wire cutters, torque wrench, soldering iron and solder, wire, shrink wrap, a lighter, and safety glasses.

Our 2013 Gotta Have It Street car is mainly used for autocross so we've done a lot of modifications to the suspension and the brakes. Under the hood, the only real performance gain so far we've done is the JLT intake. Many of the tracks that we run at, the cars runs in second gear and comes pretty close to red line. To feel the increased RPM of the Boss 302 intake will be a perfect fit for our Street car.

We're going to have to remove our stock intake, fuel rails, as well as our JLT cold air. The first step in the process is to pull out the factory strut tower brace. Now, remove the intake cover: simply lift up and it will pop right off. Now, we're going to remove the lines from the valve cover to the throttle body. In our case, we have JLT oil separators installed. Pull back on the little gray clips and pull off. Disconnect the last line of the cold air kit.

To disconnect the mass air sensor, pull the little red tab underneath. Now remove the hose clamp that holds the cold air intake to the throttle body, and remove the cold air intake. Next, remove the electrical connectors for the throttle body. Now, remove the two clamps for the vacuum line to our booster. This part can be tricky because you actually need two sets of pliers to get this off. One clamp works in opposite directions.

Now, we're going to pull the coolant hoses out of the way and start on the fuel rails. Remove the top two retaining nuts and remove the classic retainer. Then, remove the foam. Now, do the other side. Once you remove the foam on the driver's side, you can remove the brake line that goes to the booster. Now, we'll remove the retaining bolts for the fuel rails. Now, disconnect all the plugs to the injectors.

Now, we'll disconnect the fuel line from the fuel rail. You want to make sure you have a rag to catch any fuel. When you're messing with fuel it's a good idea to have some safety glasses, as well. Simply press these blue connectors and push them through, and now we can carefully lift off our fuel rails. The injectors will stay attached to the rail. Just kind of shimmy it back and forth and lift straight up.

Now, we're ready to remove the manifold itself. It's held on by three bolts; one in the front, one right here in the middle, and then one at the back on each side. The bolts stay attached to the intake manifold, so they won't come all the way out. We can start removing our intake. There are several harnesses on the back. You just need to pop them off. Now, we're going to give the surface a quick clean. Then, we'll go prep our Boss 302 intake for installation.

Now, we're going to transfer the throttle body and the fuel rails over to our new intake. Now, we're finished with the stock intake. We leave the purge valve here. The install kit for the Boss 302 intake comes with its own purge valve which is installed a little bit differently. Now, we'll install our throttle body onto our Boss intake. The intake has the gasket built in, so it's ready to install. There are two alignment tabs on the intake that match up with these two holes on our throttle body.

Now, we're ready to reinstall the stock fuel rails actually you're going to go under the intake as opposed to on top like the stock one. Get the injectors in place and then push them down. Now, we're going to install the purge valve on the Boss 302 intake. The install kit includes the hardware, bracket, and the Boss 302 specific purge valve. Pop it on the side up here, and this will go right here on this bracket that gets screwed into place.

Now, we're ready to install the Boss 302 intake onto our car. Now, we'll tighten all the bolts down and then we'll torque them down in the proper sequence when we're done. Now we're going to torque the intake bolts to 89 inch pounds. There is a specific sequence you're going to use. You're going to start with one on the passenger side in the middle; two, driver's side middle; three, four, five and six.

Now we'll reinstall the fuel rail bolts, again just hand tight for now. These will be torqued down as well. The fuel rail bolts will also be torqued down to 89 inch pounds and again there is a specific sequence. It's going to be one, two , three four.

These lines are part of the Boss intake kit. The actual fuel line here is the same. It just has these grommets on it. You don't have to change the fuel line if you don't want to, and it can kind of be difficult to get down to this fitting. In our case, we're going to leave our fuel line and just add this direct line here.

Then, connect our stock injectors before I reconnect the fuel line. You want to make sure you hear a click every time you install one. Now, we can reconnect our fuel line. Reconnect the injectors over on the other side. Now, we're going to get the line from the brake booster up into place. Now, we're going to reconnect our vacuum line to our intake. To make it a little bit easier to get to, we're going to remove the vapor line. What you want to do is kind of spin this and put it right down here on the bottom hose. Now I'll need some pliers to reattach those clamps. Reconnect the vapor line.

This is the next line we have to remove. It goes down below the brake booster right next to the metal fuel line. There'll be a little green clip on it. Release the clip and pull out the line. Remove the line. Now we're going to remove the stock fuel line clamp. Pull that out and twist that off. Now we'll install the new line to our purge valve. The red clip is going to go on top behind the intake, the green clip underneath the brake booster where we just removed the other line.

This is the factory wiring harness for the purge valve. On the original intake, the purge valve was located up front so it reaches fine. In the case of the Boss, we've now moved the purge valve to the back. We're going to have to cut this harness off and extend it over to the other side.

Now, we're ready to extend our harness by soldering our lead onto some new primary wire. Ford recommends about 40 inches. I would stick with the recommendations. You'd rather have too much than too little. Now, we'll shrink wrap it up before we install the other side. Now, we're going to strip the wires on the car for our new harness. Now we'll fish the harness over to the other side.

Now, we can plug in our purge valve and move on to our covers. Now we can reinstall the foam over our fuel rails, and then the covers can go on next. Then the cooling hose goes back on top. Reinstall our JLT cold air kit. Reconnect our throttle body harness, our passenger side JLT oil separator, the vacuum line for our master cylinder, and then our driver side JLT oil separator.

The last step is the new strut tower brace to clear our intake. When installing it, make sure the arrows are facing forward. And our installation is finished. Now we'll start it up and check everything out.

In my opinion, the Boss 302 intake is worth the install for looks alone, but you'll also see some nice high rpm performance gains out of it. Because of the increased flow, you will want to get it custom tuned before running the car. Installation will take you between three and four hours. You'll be back on the road in no time.