Hello everybody , I have a 95 f150 with a 302 and auto trans., I recently installed a Diablo chip and sometimes it won't start unless it is cranked on and the key turned to off a few times. The upper and lower contacts on the ECU have been cleaned and recleaned several times .



Thanks in advance ....Mike

 

Hi Mike,

That chip probably doesn't have anything to do with your hard starting unless it's an installation issue, which is always possible. That's too much to get into troubleshooting here, but in short, just make sure you have removed BOTH the top and the bottom covers of your PCM when gaining access to the J3 connector to clean it thoroughly, otherwise you will not be able to get to one side of the connector. That's the single most common mistake, that may or may not be applicable in your situation.

So it *might* be an installation issue.

There's really nothing inside a Diablo chip, or a Superchip, etc., in terms of what's going on in the performance program that would have that kind of effect. Now it's possible that perhaps your PCM is just old & giving up the ghost slowly, and thus only acting up when you engage it's J3 circuit (that's the J3 connector you attach the chip to), that does happen from time to time.

It may be a problem with the chip itself, which can easily be checked for you by whoever you purchased it from.

I'd suggest calling whoever you bought the chip from right away and ask them for help, go over your symptoms with them & then take it from there. If you bought it used & you're in a jam with nobody you can call for help, you can call us and we'll try to help you with this.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for replying Mike! , I have removed both the top and bottom covers several times to clean the contacts , then swabbed them real good with rubbing alcohol. My pickup has a complete fresh tune up and fires right up without the chip in. The starting issue only happens from time to time.

On a side note my truck runs alot better with the chip in though .




....Mike

 

Now I have never dealt with Mike (yet), but from that post all I can say is that is some EXCELLENT customer service, willing to help someone with a competing chip. When I am ready and have the money I know who I am going to be buying from.

 

Mike, I'm just about to order my parts and was wondering if you can give me some prices on the things I'll be getting? I'll most likely get them from you. Did the Transgo Kit install set for Stage 1 but went back in and did it for stage 2. All works great and am now ready for some other parts! LOL......... I'm wanting to get a 6 inch lift from Fabtech or maybe from RCD. I know you really deal with lowered trucks but maybe you can help here on possiable prices or recomendations? I was also wondering on a ignition package, plugs,wires,coil packs etc? Also, what is the best cold air kit on the market that will be the best for my 98 F150 4.6 4x4 auto? If you want you can E-mail me at jessesmustang@hotmail.com it will be easier for me to see you responds! Mike thanks again for you help and the info you had givven me over the phone, I appreciated your time and will be doing business with you very shortly.

 

Hi Mike (Fordtruck),

OK, so you did the smart thing & pulled both covers to clean the connector, excellent! So many people don't pull the bottom cover, it's the single biggest culprit in not being able to properly clean the connector.

Since this is an intermittant problem, it really could be just about anything, but if you'd like to get some help troubleshooting this, give us a call & we'll try to assist you. We'll need to go over a number of things & ask you a number of specific questions, so we'll need to do that over the phone.

In general, you should be able to have your normal trouble-free reliability with your performance chip installed, so if this is actually related to the chip or it's installation, we should be able to find the problem, or at least point you in the right direction!

Talk to you soon,

 

Hi BLU98,

Yes, we can help you with all of that as we carry all those parts & many more, but we will need to go over all of that by phone, as our email load is just too heavy for me to personally be able to provide detailed individual replies to every email. As you can probably imagine, we get swamped with email!

We have a great ignition upgrade package for these trucks that will add an easy 14 HP over new factory coil packs, plug wires & plugs, and even more, usually about 18-20 hp when compared to existing worn factory parts on the 4.6 F-150. These 4.6's respond *very* well to ignition upgrades in general, & we've got a very cost-effective ignition upgrade package for owners with F-150's like yours. It consists of high-performance coil packs, spark plug wires & the best performance spark plugs made, you'll love it.

With regard to the best intake kit on the market, that's easy, hands down it's the Air Force One. It adds the most actual raw power, uses the highest quality materials and looks the best under the hood. Using true aircraft-grade T-304 stainless steel that is mirror-polished **by hand**, it's not more expensive than the cheap black plastic intake kits that so many manufacturers are pushing, yet it's far better in quality and function, the actual power gains.

Give us a quick call when you get a chance & we can go over all of that with you in proper detail, get you all the pricing, etc., we'll be happy to help you with this, maybe put together a package deal on everything for you, etc.

Talk to you soon,

 

Mike,

After reading your reply to BLU98, I'm wondering if an ignition upgrade for a 5.4 would be a good idea. What would it involve and what should I expect from it? I've already installed a Magnflow catback exhaust, K&N FIPK, and the Microtuner performance program. Thanks for any information you can provide.

Doug

 

Mike thanks for getting back to me so fast1 Yeah I can understand all the E-mails you get each day and how hard it must be to respond to them all! I'll give you call ASAP and it would be great on possibably a package deal on everything I'm looking for. Should I contact you yourself like I did on the tranny info or can I ask for one of your sales reps? Mike, again thanks for the help and all the info you provided me when we spoke on the phone. Talk to you soon, Jesse..........................

 

Hi Doug,

Well, of course I'm going to say that ignition mods are always beneficial & should be done, as we're in the business of selling parts (go figure). But it's actually true, overall, getting the ignition firing as powerfully & hot as it can reasonably be made to do is *always* a good idea, as it maximizes *everything* else you've already done and will ever do in the future, think of it kinda like infrastructure, in other words. And these COP systems aren't exactly overbounding with excess spark energy, these COP coil packs deteriorate pretty quickly & need all the help they can get.

For the 5.4 with it's COP (Coil-On-Plug) ignition system, there is only 1 product on the market today that actually works to raise engine power and provide a significant increase in current & energy getting to the spark plugs, & that's our Ignition Plasma Booster (we know, the name *is* funny, & we've already heard all the Star Trek/Star Wars jokes about the name ).

You'll want to give us a call for details & pricing of course, but briefly, it connects to each coil switching wire on each coil pack (and provides for quick-disconnect), and then has a master ground, it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes and provides roughly about 4 times the amount of current to the spark plug. How much power each engine gains from this depends on how much power the motor is already making for the most part, along with other more obscure factors such as displacement & length of stroke, etc. Primarily, how much cylinder pressure & turbulence exist are the 2 main factors affecting power gains from ignition mods in general, and the more that's present, the more power gain you get, basically. On your truck, I'd say you're looking at anywhere from a 12-15 HP gain at the rear wheels, whereas on our 16+ PSI boost Lightning, we saw about a 23 HP gain. Now this is of course at the exact same spark plug gap, though enlarging the gap can be done with this unit to get even more power. There is also some potential for improving fuel mileage a little bit as well, as with most good ignition system upgrades.

On your 5.4, your current power level is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood (depending on altitude & fuel octane & quality) of roughly about 310 HP or so pretty easily, a bit more if you are at sea level & running on good 93 octane. So you're starting to get close to the point at which the fuel injectors & fuel pump will need to be upgraded on those 5.4's, though you can still do things like the Plasma Booster, our electric fan kit & underdrive pulleys, as those mods use very little *additional* fuel beyond what the motor was already burning.

Funny how that works, for example, in your case you could use the Plasma Booster, electric fans & underdrive pulleys & *still* have enough fuel delivery, but if instead you did say, the Plasma Booster, a set of headers and a bigger throttle body, you'd need to go ahead and upgrade the fuel delivery system to have enough fuel to pull hard all the way to redline in the higher gears wihtout going lean. Listing your exact vehicle configuration & modifications enabled me make sure of that for you very quickly, so thanks for listing all that info!

In addition to the Plasma Booster, installing a fresh set of Denso Iridium spark plugs is the other upgrade you can make to that ignition system, and we highly recommend them. These are the best performance plugs available & we use them in all our F-150's here at Performance. I wouldn't expect to see much *additional* power gain with them, maybe 3-5 HP or so, but they will fire thru higher humidity & more trying conditions, as well as last a good long time.

Give us a call to go over all the particulars & details if you like, and this brief info should help a bit for now.

Talk to you soon,

 

Hi Jesse (BLU98),

Sure, you can ask for me & I'll be happy to take the call if I'm in the office and not on another line, etc. when you call. Worst case, if I happen to be tied up when you call, you can always just leave a message for me and I'll personally return the call as soon as I possibly can. Usually most people looking for the best package deal on larger orders ask for me.

Talk to you soon!

 

Mike,

I appreciate the detailed response to my question. I'll call for more detailed data and prices. It seems that the fans and ignition upgrade might be the easiest upgrades for me that will increase horsepower and possibly mileage. Thanks again.

Doug

 

You're very welcome Doug, & talk to you soon!

 

Thanks for the help Mike Troyer. I haven't had any starting problems lately (knock on wood) , well any how my truck is a 95 F150 supercab with a 302 and auto trans. The only mods so far a K&N air filter, swiss cheesed airbox, 180* thermostat, Diablo sport chip and a Flowmaster 40 series si/do exhaust.

My truck is used as a tow vehicle 6 months out of the year, 3000lb boat, 7000lb fifth wheel. Can you recommend any other performance upgrades?, I have already been thinking about switching gears from 3.31's to 3.73's, is there anything else worth considering?.


Thanks in advance ...Mike

 

Hi Fordtruck,

OK, since you're only having intermittant problems with starting & not having any of those problems right now, this really sounds like a very simple connection-related issue that you may have already cured the last time around. Time will tell.

As far as additional mods that would be beneficial, sure, there are still plenty of things to do that will help that truck do it's job as a tow vehicle & a daily driver, too.

Your current mods are fine except for one thing, your exhaust for example, you'd get a better result having a Magnaflow on there in place of anything from Flowmaster, even just changing the muffler out for an appropriate Magnaflow unit would bring up your low end torque some. Flowmaster & most other lower-end exhaust systems & mufflers always cause loss of low-end torque, even while delivering a bit more horsepower at higher rpms, so this is just a suggestion to help get some of that torque back, a big help in these heavy vehicles................

OK, as far as new mods to do...............there are ignition mods, high-performance spark plug wires, coil, (and of course a good distributor cap & rotor botton, etc.) performance plugs like the Denso Iridium are generally worth anywhere from 10 to as much as 20+ HP depending on what's on there right now, better driveability, throttle response & some small potential for better fuel mileage.

Then there are underdrive pulleys & converting over to electric fans, both of which will add significant power to the rear wheels from reducing parasitic losses.

There are always more and more things that can be done to improve power and performance, so the best thing to do would really be to give us a call when you get a chance, & that way we can go over all of this in proper detail with you, & help map out the most cost-effective bang for the buck mods from where you are right now, to add the most power for the least cost. We really need to talk in detail about a number of things in order to give you our specific recommendation of exactly what you should do next, and what it will cost. Here I've just "painted a few broad strokes," so to speak, of what kinds of things in general are appropriate for considering right now, and we should talk in more detail before you finalize your decisions.