DannyMack 13 MKS "Old Man" Build and Maintenance Thread

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Dannymack

New member
About 3 weeks ago I picked up a 2013 MKS EB with just shy of 100K on the clock. This thread will be to track all the work, costs and additions to it as time progresses.

This build is going to be true street sleeper style. No noticeable exterior modifications unless you know what to look for. Only real exterior mods will be removing the EcoBoost badge and adding a roof rack for my mountain bikes (I'm from Colorado, what do you expect).

My goal is to get this into the low 12's within a year. Since I live outside Denver I know this is a big goal for our altitude. Thankfully I have a job where I can create more income as I need it so that should help with the goal. This car is now my DD so all mods will be for long term use and not quick jumps of power.

I'll post here any time work is done on the MKS. Pics will be posted soon.
 
1st update.

Within a day or two of purchasing the MKS I noticed an annoying clunk from the suspension while driving over fairly normal road cracks. Figured I would have the dealer look at it and take a look at the rest of the car while they're at it. Dropped it off just about a week ago and got a call later that day. Suspension problem was the sway bar links. Simple enough fix for me to do myself. They also said it needed new spark plugs, rear brake pads, a shaft seal and... a water pump, ugh. Well I know what happens when the pumps go out so I told them go ahead and do the pump and seal. I'll take care of the rest.

Got the car back today. All in for $3200. They replaced the water pump, all the timing chain parts, new gaskets due to disassembly, new coolant, new tranny fluid, new oil and the shaft seal. Not an cheap job, but I have good piece of mind now moving forward.

Also during the past week ordered new 534 plugs, front sway links and a new air filter from Rockauto. Also ordered some EBC Yellow pads. Got the fronts off Amazon for a steal at $52. Rears I had to pay full price at $109.

Immediately after getting the car back from the dealer I brought it home to get to work. Sway links were not too bad, just tedious. Front pads and air filter went fine. I forgot to look if the rear calipers were the twist type so had to put the rear back together and got a tool this evening for those. Took it out for a romp to break them in. Much more bite than before. Did realize half way through the drive though that my dumb ass forgot to put the brake reservoir cap back on so have to go find a new one tomorrow. Either way, brakes work great, suspension clunk is gone.

Later this week the plugs will go in, PTU fluid and RDU fluid will get swapped out and some fresh all season tires will go on. My Dragy unit should show up tomorrow as well.

Also ordered an SCT X4 from Brad (AJP) which should show up in a couple days as well as a 3 bar map. Once the car is back to a good baseline in terms of maintenance I'll do some base runs with the Dragy before throwing in the tune.
 
Great update! Glad to see the maintenance stuff has been handled, and it would appear your well on your way to the fun things next!

Look'n forward to your experiences with the latter. Keep keeping the community updated!

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 
Plugs nowadays the SP542 seems to be the way to go, but your tuner can best guide you on that.

Great to see weak points addressed.

If your road conditions permit, you can consider H&Rs, coilovers, and mounts to get the suspension where it should be for a hip(p)o ride :D
 
SHOdded said:
Plugs nowadays the SP542 seems to be the way to go, but your tuner can best guide you on that.

Great to see weak points addressed.

If your road conditions permit, you can consider H&Rs, coilovers, and mounts to get the suspension where it should be for a hip(p)o ride :D
Click to expand...

Yeah I'll use whatever plugs he recommends.

I've considered suspension mods, but half mind the suspension it has. Not nearly raked like the SHO and here with the snow having some more space in the wheel wells can be useful. Played with the different suspension setting last night on the drive and can now tell between the modes. I have it set for comfort in drive and sport in sport. Comfort you can still feel the dramatic cracks in the road, but as far as larger humps it floats and bounces a bit as if the struts are worn. Throw it in sport and it sucks itself right back to the road.
 
Plugs have been swapped. Took about 40 minutes. Pic is the old ones.

Opened the SCT and started to run the updates for the device and those failed so I've got some digging later this week to get those figured out so I can actually use it.
 
I'm guessing more accurate than "seat of the pants" methods! Does it use GPS? Accelerometer? Does it plug into your car computer? Your phone?

Never mind, I went to You-tube.
Looks like a fun tool.
 
SHOdded said:
Plugs nowadays the SP542
Click to expand...

I've looked around and I can't find what the actual heat range is for some of the plugs.  People say "one range colder than stock" but what is the stock heat range?  I haven't been able to find the actual numerical value for them.  And it looks like the SP542 has been replaced by another plug by ford... which I also can't find the actual heat range for, lol.

Also, GRATS on the MKS!  Best of luck at the drag strip in the future.  Hopefully you have better luck than I have lately.
 
Got the SCT updated finally. Had to manually download some drivers and update from the laptop. After seeing how many people have issues with the wifi updates I will likely just use the computer for further updates now.

Anyways, got the brake res cap today and did some 0-60 baseline pulls. Dragy is saying 5215 DA, but Dragtimes calc is saying 4138 so I'll go with the actual calculator.

Pull 1 - 5.62
Pull 2 - 5.80
Pull 3 - 5.48

Peaked out at just over 10.5 psi of boost.

Anxious to see how it improves once the tune is in.
 
It'll be a whole new beast!  Dragy works well for performance Data, has been about 5-7 hundredths within my Drag Strip times. 
 
802SHO said:
It'll be a whole new beast!  Dragy works well for performance Data, has been about 5-7 hundredths within my Drag Strip times.
Click to expand...

Excited to feel the difference.

One thing I will note about running the 0-60 times right now is that the car shifts at exactly 60 mph at WOT so I do think even without tuning there is another 1-3 tenths that could be gained on those times. Either way though. Still fun to play with so far.
 
Did the PTU this morning. Sure is tight in that spot. Got just a couple ounces out. Couldn't get anymore so I added the new fluid until it reached the fill hole. Will let that loosen some things up and do a drain again soon. Likely will put in a drain plug in the near future.
 
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