I'm sure this question has been asked and answered thousands of times before, but can someone give me the bottom line on engine inprovements with the addition of a chip?

I have a 2003 FX4 Lariat with the 5.4L.

My brother in law added a chip to his 2002 7.3L diesel excursion and went from 17 mpg to 24 to 28 mpg. I thought it was a glitch when I saw it on the overhaed display, but he says sometimes it will push 30mpg during flat highway trips.

What can you expect with a gas engine?

Thanks!

 

I have an 03 Screw FX4 and I was really disappointed in the mileage. I had 3 F-350's with the diesel before this truck and all of them got considerably better gas mileage.

The overhead display on all my F-350's was way off on the mileage estimate, it always indicated better mileage than I actually was getting (5-12 mpg at times). I had to check it at the pump with a calculator to get an accurate MPG.

On my F-150 SCrew I have improved the mileage for combination city/hiway driving by 2 mpg, it has a lot more power and it is more fun to drive.

I put an AFE ProGuard washable/re-usable filter in the stock housing and enlarged the breathing tube into the fender along with a magnaflow exhaust. I also adjusted the computer with a Superchips 1715 tuner set on the tow program.

 

most who update pcm via a chip or tuner don't see a gain - sometimes a loss in mpg- as with the newfound power their foot is always on the gas -in my case when i drive it normally- with the addition of my chip i see a staedy 1 1/2- 2 mpg gain-phil

 

Hi Marc,

That has indeed been asked and answered literally tens of thousands of times - it's one of "the basics" around here. Try using the excellent search feature (the icon to access it is in the upper right area of your screen here) to retrieve and read any of the many thousands of posts already here that painstakingly discuss all of that - the search feature is your key to instantly accessing all that info, and far more.

Briefly.......

NEVER think you are going to get such huge mpg gains from performance tuning in these F-150's, that won't ever happen. And it's not happening in your friend's diesel Excursion, either - while it is true that we can get a 4-5 mpg gain under ideal conditions in the 7.3L turbocharged Powerstroke diesels (that display is wrong - we've found over time they all read a bit high on the instant mpg), never try to compare turbocharged diesel engine tuning results with any gasoline engine tuning results, either in terms of power gains or mpg results.

Now in these F-150's, many people do see 1.0-2.0 mpg gains from our tuning, and a few have reported as much as 3.5 mpg under ideal conditions - and all of that is *excellent* given the extremely small investment and the nice performance improvements. But don't try to "justify" performance tuning by thinking that it's somehow going to pay for itself, as that generally happens only in turbocharged diesels and in gasoline motors that already require premium gas from the factory - like PSD's & Lincoln Mark 8's, for example.

It's a *performance* product, so it's the power and performance gains that are important - mpg is strictly secondary and just a by-product. Nor is performance tuning going to deliver some great big seat of the pants BANG in these small-engined 2.5-3.5 ton trucks like the 70-100+ HP gains we deliver in the turbodiesels.................

BUT...........a properly optimized powertrain program is in fact the single best bang-for-the-buck performance enhancement you can make to these (and most other computer controlled vehicles) trucks, as nothing else for the same or less cost will reduce acceleration times by as much.

Now, what you can really expect? From our custom tune setup, 5.4 engines with "soft" factory tuning (and most of the 2003's are like that) can easily see 30+ HP gains, while others will see 20-25 more HP - again, that is an excellent result. But it will never be a 50Hp+ gain. Exactly how much each individual vehicle actually gains depends on just how bad the factory tune is, as we tune each vehicle is individually according to it's exact factory PCM software revision, of which there can be hundreds each model year alone in the F-150.

The potential for mpg gain via tuning in gasoline engines is primarily as a by-product of the increased spark advance used on part-throttle - that lowers the load on the motor, increases the power and allows you to use less throttle to achieve the same velocity - and thus can potentially add some mpg, usually on the order of 1-2 more mpg - but not 5+ mpg.

Your best bet is always to have us do a custom tune for that truck to get the best possible performance gains - and we can do that without ever even seeing the vehicle. I'd suggest using our 3-program custom Micro Tuner, so you can have 3 different tunes (like an 87 octane program, then a towing program, and a full-performance program combination, for example - our customers love that setup). With our 87 octane program you can pick up some power and actually save some money on gas - not a lot, but some. Then with the higher-power tunes, you get more and more performance and a small mpg gain, usually enough so that even using premium gas, you spend maybe $100-$150 a year more for gasoline, a small price to pay for the performance gains.

So if it's *performance* you want, then our custom tuning is something you (and everyone else wanting more performance) should indeed get into - but if it's 5 more mpg you're looking for, that will not happen by tuning alone - though that *can* be made to happen with some of our performance packages that also include things like electric fans & underdrive pulleys, etc.

You can also read up on the details over on our web site at www.Troyer Performance.com - click on "Shop" once the home page loads, and then you can go into the Superchip section and read all about it - you should also take a look at the Performance Packages section there ad review our Stage 1 thru Stage 5 kits, and read the detailed descriptions to familiarize yourself with what parts give what kinds of power gains, etc.

Good luck with your truck!

 

Heck .. thanks to Mike... my mileage went down.. cant keep my foot out of it..... (just kidding Mike)

 

Hi Red 01,

Yeah, we call the dreaded lead-foot disease, etc. - there are several names for it among those of us who tend to really enjoy the additional performance (read: drive it like a hot-rod).

Have fun!

 

Mike,

Thanks so much for the reply. My #1 goal is to try to improve the lousy 13 to 15 mpg I get on my SCrew. After my brother-in-law installed his chip in his 7.3L diesel, his overhead readout consistently reads between 24 and 28 mpg. I am highly suspicious of its acuracy, and as other have noted, they are probably not very accurate.

I would be interested in talking with you further about any ideas you have to assist me in this goal to improve my mileage.

Thanks in advance,


Marc

 

Hi Marc,

You're very welcome - and yes, 15 mpg sure would be a lot better than 13 mpg, absolutely! I wish we could hand you another 4-5 mpg in that F-150 just from tuning alone like we can do for those Powerstroke diesels, but I'd say more along the lines of 1-2 mpg is closer to reality from tuning alone.

Feel free to give us a call and I can spend some time going over the types of modifications that result in the best mpg improvements in these gasoline engine F-series trucks with you, that can easily be done. Just so you'll know, I'll be "out of pocket" on Thursday as we're doing some more work to our 2004 F-150 (our staff will be here as always, of course, but I'll be gone), and then I'll be back in on Friday as normal.

Good luck & talk to you soon!

 

Mike,

I bet you have a successful business given the extraordinary level of attention to detail you post in your messages on the board. I will probably give you a call late Friday. I have my own business as well and am glad to see another business owner with a good sense of customer service.

Thanks,

Marc

 

about the search feature. Just type in key words and you can find all the information you'll ever need. By the time I was done, all I had to do was call Anita this afternoon and order my 1715. Can't wait till Monday when it arrives!

 

I am having mega trouble with my new computer my son built for me and can only get on line for very short periods and it locks up. I would have posted my report to Mike here and not started a new thread. Didn't have time to look for an existing thread, haven't been able to read this board for weeks. Anyway It appears I am getting 2-3 mpg better with the performance setting over stock. And like has been said here before, it's way more fun but you sacrifice fun for mileage. Gas is $2.50 a gallon here for premium, what a rip off. Jon