Hey Jason...I feel the same way about those Xcal2. I really wanted to get Xcal2, but if I get reflashed, the thing is useless until you get reprogrammed. Therefore, this thing could get little more pricey than initial $450 or so; more visits to the dealer more it will cost to reprogram.

 

Be up front with your service department and tell them you don’t want the PCM code revised and why; that’s what I do

 

Was there a charge by Troyer for him to do this?

 

I thought that if they knew you had a tuner they would void your warranty....Did your dealer give you a hard time about the tuner since they know about it?

 

No, but he made it pretty clear that No Charge wasn't normal. They are just good people over at Troyer and wanted to make things right. It was no way the fault of anything that they had done.

 

Sorry guys, I was wrong!! Glad somebody corrected me! I guess reflashes from the dealer WILL effect your tune if you try and load up a Xcal 2 tune! From Mike himself...

 

MHP would you let me knwo the symptoms you had with your truck when you loaded the programs prior to having your truck reflashed? I may be having the same issues. THX

 

If you guys buy the Edge Evolution you can update it over the internet. For the extra 5hp you might get out of the xcal2 it doesn't seem worth it to me to purchase the xcal.

 

CrAz3D I’ve had both. I got my Xcalibrator from Mike approximately 12-03-04 and I was one of the first. As you know the Xcalibrator with the proper tunes is all good, no question about it. I upgraded to the XCal2 approximately June 30, 05. Mike tweaked my tunes a little in the XCal2 that made noticeable improvements in shifting and off the line performance. The biggest advantage of the XCal2 over the Xcalibrator IMO is the fact that you can datalog with the XCal2, read and clear DTC codes and has end user capability to make adjustments with the Mako programming. I personally don’t have the Mako because it wasn’t perfected when I got my XCal2, as I was one of the first. I’m waiting for the email utility to be completed to change to Mako so I don’t have to send my unit back to Mike. The bottom line is, the Xcalibrator and the XCal2 will hold the exact same tunes, as it is only a delivery device. The most important piece of the puzzle is who makes the tunes, and IMO Mike is the tune maestro

 

I was complaining of no power and passing gear and the dealer told me I had the latest update. So the head service manager told me to either get gears or a tuner and it would not void the warrante. But if before coming in for service return the tune back to stock. He even told me to look at Super chips on e-bay.

 

I ask Mike this question last week in the Chips section, here is his answer :

HI Silverfish,

That is an EXCELLENT question!

Normally I do NOT recommend getting ANY factory reflash/update, as most of them do not actually fix the problem they are supposed to - and we usually can take care of any issues when we do our custom tuning, anyway.

No, you cannot count on the XCal (and by the way, it's not the XCal that does *anything* - it's my *tuning* that changes things - all the XCal 2 does is allow you to deliver my tuning to the vehicle) to automatically cure any and all TSB's - that's hardly appropriate to expect, and cannot ever happen. there are many TSB's, of all kinds of natures, many of which require HARDWARE changes to be made to the vehicle - only a relatively small number of actual TSB's can addressed by PCM programming from the factory, and most of those attempts are not very successful, as they don't test them much. So no, I would NEVER claim that we are somehow going to magically be able to administer the cure for each and every TSB for any vehicle made just by tuning - that's not even remotely a realistic expectation. You have to actually KNOW what the TSB is, what is required to effect Ford's recommended fix for the TSB, just for openers, to even know if there is a CHANCE of addressing all of the hundreds of different TSB's that exist just by us doing a performance tune on a vehicle - that is NOT the purpose of any performance tuning,and should never be expected.

Perhaps the most prudent thing to do is to give us a call to go over what you are experiencing so I can tell you in detail exactly what we can do about it.

Now in terms of idle quality - as long as YOU have done all the proper maintenance, then yes, we do typically make significant improvements in idle quality and in the inherent throttle response, simply because those areas are not tuned very well from the factory, and those are tow of the most raved-about results of our performance tuning if you spend some time reading a significant number of posts here from our customers, just to give you a rough idea of can we potentially address those 2 specific concerns you expressed, idle quality & throttle response.

One point - you have a 5000+ lb truck there, so when you nail the throttle, it's not ever going to instantly respond - and NOTHING is going to cure that shy of maybe a supercharger AND a gear ratio change to vastly alter your power to weight ratio AND improve your basic torque multiplication. However, our custom tuning WILL most certainly make a nice improvement in your throttle response, and far better than anything the factory can do.

Now if this "throttle lag" (which is NOT a common problem in the 1997-2003 F-150's except those who expect them to respond like a Mustang or a much lighter vehicle or some type of "performance" style of vehicle, just for example) actually IS related to the tuning, then YES! We most certainly CAN improve that quite a bit - what I suspect is that you are simply experiencing less throttle response than you would like, because you have a heavy truck with highly compromised factory tuning, a lot of torque management, etc., and we DO take care of those kinds of things, absolutely.

The bottom line is no, I do NOT recommend that people just go running into their dealer to get reflashed, and I can guarantee that your truck will run significantly better when we tune it, both in terms of inherent throttle response, idle quality, power, performance, top speed, etc.

Now can we manage to somehow magically fix *everything* you want to see made better about your vehicle? Well, that I can't honestly promise you, and we certainly cannot fix everything for which Ford has issued a TSB - but we can certainly make it idle better and give it better throttle response along with a lot of other improvements that will make you much happier with your truck, that must I *can* guarantee you.

I suggest you call us to go over this in specific detail, so that you'll have a much better idea of what we really can and cannot do for you just by our tuning, as I don't want to give you an incorrect impression - even though I know we can make you much happier with how your truck runs, I don't want to make any misrepresentations to you and possibly make you unhappy with you - You know what I mean.

So please feel free to call us at our number listed below & we can go over this with you so you can decide if what e can offer you is worth doing for you - I think you'll find that it is.
__________________
Mike Troyer
Troyer Performance/Performance Products, Inc.
Truck & SUV Performance Specialists
Supercharging & Custom Tuning Experts - America's Oldest Superchips Distributor & 1st Superchips Custom Tuning Dealer
Web Site: TroyerPerformance.com