Hey guys!

Gotta say this is the best place ever for finding out the do's and dont's for the blue oval. I've been on pins and needles waiting for my account to be activated so I can participate in the boards!
I test drove and ordered a 2004 crewcab 5.4 that should be delivered in the next couple of weeks. The only prob I found with the truck is that is seemed underpowered. When I stomped on the gas I expected to cut them 300 horses loose, but instead it felt like I spurred about 100 sled dogs. I know the new F-150 is much heavier and safer than last years model but I am a guy that loves to feel the horses run! Also the thought of toeing it up with a bow tie and watching his tail lights fade in the distance makes me wanna puke.

So, now I am already considering adding an exhaust system, K&N filter, and of course a chip to bring this fine truck up to SPEED! But what will I get for my investment? I'd hate to invest all this $$ to be disappointed. Does anyone know what performance gains I would get from these add on's, particularly relating to HP and MPG? I was told a chip alone would get me about 30 hp, 2 mpg increase, and all the go go I want.
Thanks for any input!

 

HI!... Welcome to the boards! If you do a search in this section you will see a chip tuner by the name of MIKE TROYER *AKA* "SUPERCHIPS DISTRIBUTOR". He sells SUPERCHIPS and most of the people around here buy from him and let him tune their trucks. He now has the new programmer for the "04" 5.4 3-valve. If I remember correctly they got 247RWH.P and 350RWTQ from just the programmer.

 

I had the same feeling when I test drove a 2004 extended cab FX4 in early September. The truck seemed to have less performance than the 1979 Ford truck with a 6 cylinder that I drove ten years ago. When I ordered my 2004 truck, like you, I thought that I would need an exhaust, filter and a chip to equal the seat of the pants feel of the 302 in my 1994 Ford truck.

My 2004 truck was built in the middle of October and was delivered at the end of November. There is no similarity in the performance of the truck that I test drove and the truck that I ordered. The test drive truck felt like it would eventually float up to the speed limit from a full stop. The truck that I ordered spins the rear tires for 20'-30' when taking off from a full stop on dry ashpalt (I waited 450 miles before trying this). With 2000 miles on the truck now, I can say that I no longer have the urge to buy performance upgrades.

It looks like Ford made a change to the computer programming in the 2004 truck in early to mid October. Looking at the performance difference between the truck I test drove and the truck sitting in my driveway, I would be concerned that performance might suffer with a chip or reburn if the chip manufacturer did not take into account the changes Ford made after early October.

 

the power and hrottle response is due to drive by wire -throttle!

 

Thanks for the info. I've read many posts by Mike Troyer and find his knowledge on chips and tuning to be truely outstanding! I'll definately give him a call.
I'm hoping the truck I test drove was a pre Oct model. Mine is currently being built so it should have the updated tune computerguy mentioned. Man, better performance right out of the box plus a chip outta give me the go-go I'm looking for!

 

Fly by wire is not the greatest thing for performance, it softens up the response alot.

SCT can tune your truck but you have to send your computer away to be reflashed, there is no chip port. Alot of the 04s including your truck use the new p-tech processor. SCT is working on a flasher for the new processors, it will be out in a few months.

 

Hi Bogie,

As of this time, Troyer Performance is the only company offering that tuning for the 2004 Ford F-150 5.4 motor - it is done by flashing the PCM. We participated in the R&D sessions to develop that tuning with SCT (Superchips Custom Tuning), and we have the exclusive on that from December 1st 2003 until the CAN flasher (the next generation of Micro Tuner that will be able to work on the 2004 5.4 F-150) comes out at some point down the road.

The 2004 F-150 is different from another other F-150 (and different form almost all other FoMoCo vehicles, too) in numerous aspects - it no longer has a traditional MAF so you can just slap on any intake kit and not worry about the A/F ratios, but instead has a mass airflow sensor whose transfer function is specifically calibrated to the stock air intake tract, and almost any change made to that will cause a gross lean condition - we've R&D'd that, too.

The throttle-by-wire is somewhat of an issue - having thousands of miles of seat time in the 2004 5.4 F-150 in both stock trim and with that tuning, the tuning alone does help that perception, thanks to the additional power available at any throttle position. That alone won't "cure" it, but it does help.

To specifically address the issue of speed of throttle response on the throttle-by-wire 2004 F-150, we have come up with a combination of mods for the 2004 5.4 F-150 that achieves a much better throttle response at any rpm, at any throttle position, and at any vehicle speed - particularly down low, where it's felt the most, and in any situation actually - from towing to drag racing to just normal everyday driving. The real issue most '94 5.4 owners complain about is when moving at very light throttle from a stationary position - for example, like when backing up slowly in a situation here you have to give it just a little bit of throttle, or when "rocking" the vehicle to get it unstuck from mud or snow, etc. For details on that, give us a call & I'll be happy to go over that with you.

Currently, at a weight of 6600 lbs., at an altitude of 2400 ft. and at a temperature of 40 degrees in 100% humidity, our 2004 5.4 F-150 SuperCrew Lariat 4WD will pull 73.8 mph in the 1/8th mile and light the rear tires up in the process, when in bone-stock trim it would only turn 68 mph and couldn't even turn the tires over once.

To give you a frame of reference, a 1995 Mustang 5.0 w/automatic with headers & intake kit pulled only 73.0 mph in the 1/8th mile at that same location under the same conditions - sure, the Mustang should (and probably can) accelerate quicker, but it didn't quite match the speed our truck achieved in the 1/8th mile. (We were not able to run them side-by-side, they were run one after the other.)

Another frame of reference is in comparison to a 2003 Dodge 1500 with the 345 HP HEMI motor - a lighter truck than ours, by a good bit. It was only able to achieve a speed of about 68.5 mph in the 1/8th mile in those same conditions, so with the few mods on our truck, we blew that HEMI away in terms of 1/8th mile trap speed - surprisingly so. Perhaps we had a slower example of HEMI, but most of the half-ton HEMI's are basically about a low-15 second 1/4 mile machine at best, from what we've seen of them so far.

The throttle by wire system is doing numerous system checks, and that slows down it's basic response - and there are very effective ways to combat & improve that - we had to, if for no other reason than having owned numerous F-150's, we couldn't tolerate that on our own truck.

With regard to the exact results & costs, etc., you'll need to give us a call for that - while I do agree that a flywheel gain of about 30 HP can be achieved with our tuning, I do *not* agree that it can be fairly expected to also see a full 2.0 mpg gain in every truck - some will see that, but I think that might be a bit much to expect another 2.0 mpg in every vehicle from the tuning alone, though there may be some trucks that achieve that result. Now some of this depends on just where we set the throttle position required to go open loop - if we set it to a very performance-oriented 550 TP, then depending on your driving style, you could see the mpg drop a little bit if you spend significant time using more than half-throttle (which is a good deal of throttle opening, certainly far more than just normal cruising around, etc.). In our truck, we left that at 685 and left a 4.5 second delay to transition over into open loop because we will be doing some towing, and we wanted to keep it in closed loop a little bit longer, for better mpg. It's all a matter of choices, with performance generally being the first consideration - then come things like towing & other ways in which the vehicle will be used, etc.

As you can probably see by now, this gets detailed & a bit involved, too much so to type it all out, so the hot tip is to just give us a call when you can, and that way I can spend some time going over all of that with you in proper detail, going over the exact mods, results, costs, benefits, etc., so you can then give all of that some thought & make your decisions from a fully informed position.

Thanks for your post, & best of luck with your 2004!

 

Double post, oops!

 

mike do you know when the canned tuner will be available for 2004 f150's so i can flash my own pcm?

 

Hi Fort R,

It's going to be several months before the CAN flasher is ready for the 2004 5.4 3-valve F-150's - the exact timeframe we really can't say (that's the nature of R&D, of course), it's just a matter of how quickly all of the new hardware gets done, both in terms of finalized design and then all the various testing after that prior to it actually being released to the general public.

Overall, we're guessing about 3-4 months from now - we may get lucky and see that knocked it out sooner, but I'd say to think along the lines of 3-4 months - that's about the best estimation at this point.

For those who are interested, you can shoot us an email and have us automatically notify you when it's ready, if you like. We'll also be making the announcement here, of course.

Here's the email address to get put on our notification list: sales@troyerperformance.com

We already have a number of other go-fast parts available for the 2004 F-150's that are already shipping - for example, our own 2004 F-150 Lariat SuperCrew 4WD, at a weight of 6600 lbs., pulled 73.8 mph in the 1/8th mile, and will light up the tires coming off the line - stock, it couldn't even make a hint of a chirp.

Good luck with your 2004!

 

i'd think it weighs less -my 03 5.4 4x4 supercab 3.55 ran 64.87 bone stock with 1000 miles on ododmeter at about 1000' ft 55 degrees. i returned my diablo chip- spedlimiter was succesfully raised - but from 4300 in drive to 4600- i'll be placing my order this week for the custom 3 tune tuner-think 87 , 93 tow and 94 performance- thinking you'll extract some more pep than the regular tuner provides- i referred my boss to you and he picked the max 1715 up from you and is very pleased-phil

 

Hi Phil,

Nice to see you again.............

Yeah, our 2004 is very heavy - with a full tank of gas (30 gallons) but no driver on board, it weights right at 6200 lbs. according to a vehicle scale we got it on at a recycling yard down in Florida. The day we did the 1/8th mile speed runs up here, we had a full tank as well as a couple of 200 lb. lugs on board (that would be me and our top wrench, we each weigh about 200), for roughly about 6600 lbs., assuming that scale was right. I feel it was fairly close, based on our experience with the other F-150's we've owned & weighed on scales at race tracks. Our last loaded Lariat 5.4, a 2001 model with towing package, H/D cooling, ORP, hard tonneau cover, etc., was about 5900-6000 lbs.

Thanks very kindly for your referral, and we look forward to working with you too, should you decide to have us set up one of our new 3-custom tune Micro Tuners for you.

Have fun & talk to you soon!