Ford Performance 3D Metal-Printed Intake Manifold For Ken Block’s “Hoonitruck”

When Ken Block was looking for his latest vehicle to build for his Gymkhana series, he knew it would be an old Ford pickup truck. He learned how to drive and performed his first burnout in an old Ford pickup. He found the 1977 Ford F-150 he dubbed the “Hoonicorn” and turned it into an AWD rally beast. Inside the engine bay is a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 EcoBoost used in the Ford GT that has been tuned to make over 900 horsepower. There was one thing missing in his build, a unique intake manifold that would keep the air flowing sufficiently from the twin turbochargers to the cylinders.

That’s when Ford Performance stepped in. They 3D metal-printed the intake manifold. Ford use its 3D printing technology in Germany to build this large, webbed intake manifold, and it was built layer by layer over five days. It is “the largest 3D metal-printed part for a working vehicle in automotive history”. According to the YouTube description, “The project was a global effort. Ford Performance engineers in the U.S. ran engine performance simulations and collaborated with a team of Ford research engineers based in Europe to design the part and conduct structural analysis.”