That's not it at all. When I did my ride along with the Ford factory rep in early 2011 he stated that the engineers felt that the intercooler needed as much unobstructed air flow as possible. His words, not mine.

The 2014 F-150 ecoboost has an insert in the opening that cleans up the hole nicely but still leaves lots of space for air flow. Kinda weird since Ford put a shield over a portion of the intercooler as a fix for the condensation issues.

 

You got a sharp truck though..lol

 

So I don't see restricting the air flow much with the billet grill…Right?

 

Thanks Sammy -- someone said it's "all hat and no cattle"…but I got a 150 to replace my 13 year old diesel Excursion because I just do't tow much anymore. I used to tow a 31 ft Airstream. Now twice/year I tow my boat (in and out of the water) and I have a flatbed tandem axel trailer that I also occasionally use. As Long as the 150 isn't getting hurt…I can live the the low gas mileage. Although yesterday…after I took the trailer off…I was only getting 12 mpg. But the truck has less than 500 miles on it.
I should have kept thew Excursion -- but wife said..only one truck per person.

 

You'll be fine. I went back and forth with trading in my F350 6.0 before finally pulling the trigger.. The 150 handles all my needs, mileage will get better with miles. I'm at 4k miles and see about 19mpg, but I have 3:55 gears vs your 3:73 gears. I came real close to buying a limited myself. Enjoy your truck..

 

When I bought my truck, I installed a billet grill that I bought off ebay. No issues what so ever. The grill however was a POS and fell apart so I took it off and now I'm waiting for the part from the 2014 models to become available. All I care to do is dress up the opening.

 

That looks real good! I just found one on Amazon for $36. Should be here Wednesday!