"HELP Hesitant and Poor Shifting HELP"
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Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 170
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From: Anderson, IN U.S.A.
"HELP Hesitant and Poor Shifting HELP"
I have a 99' 5.4 4X4 Supercab shortbed. I had noticed when I got the truck that it has a delay in the throttle when you step on it at a standstill. I've built an open air intake, installed Superchip, and dual exhaust. I have more power once the truck is moving, but getting it to move is another question. I did put 33" tires on the stock rims, and I know it won't help, but I thought with 3.73LS rearend that It would of helped over a 3.55LS. Plus I've noticed when the tranny shifts into 3rd, that it loses too much power- almost like it didn't hold second gear out long enough. It basically is really boggy once it shifts. Would a shift kit help???
I use to have a 80' Ford F-250 Supercab 4X4 with 3.54LS and a 400M that I traded for this truck. It had 33" tires and It may not of smoked the tires, but I could get them to bark from a standstill. That motor had same type of add ons, but I know the computer in this motor plays a part.
I would just like to find out what I can do to get rid of the hesitation and maybe get the tires to bark, plus help with the shifting!! Any help from Mike or anyone else would be appreciated.
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1999 F-250LD 4X4 XLT Supercab, Short Bed, 5.4L, AT, 3.73LS, 33"Wrangler ATS, Custom Dual Exhaust, Custom Air Intake, Superchip, Factory Step Bars, Tinted Windows, Vent Visors, Diamond Tool Box & Bed Rails, Color: Harvest Gold cc "Ready to Farm"
I use to have a 80' Ford F-250 Supercab 4X4 with 3.54LS and a 400M that I traded for this truck. It had 33" tires and It may not of smoked the tires, but I could get them to bark from a standstill. That motor had same type of add ons, but I know the computer in this motor plays a part.
I would just like to find out what I can do to get rid of the hesitation and maybe get the tires to bark, plus help with the shifting!! Any help from Mike or anyone else would be appreciated.
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1999 F-250LD 4X4 XLT Supercab, Short Bed, 5.4L, AT, 3.73LS, 33"Wrangler ATS, Custom Dual Exhaust, Custom Air Intake, Superchip, Factory Step Bars, Tinted Windows, Vent Visors, Diamond Tool Box & Bed Rails, Color: Harvest Gold cc "Ready to Farm"
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 820
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From: LA
My truck seems to lose alot when it shifts into third gear also. I raced a 2001 reg. cab chevy with the 290hp who had a weight advantage on me. We stayed even until I shifted into third gear he pulled away easily. HMMMMMNNN, I guess I need help too
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1999 F-150 Lariat SC 2 WD, White/Silver, 5.4L, 3.55LS, K & N FIPK, Superchip, underdrive pulley set, Dynomax Super Turbo Series Exhaust, six disc CD changer, towing package and captain chairs
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1999 F-150 Lariat SC 2 WD, White/Silver, 5.4L, 3.55LS, K & N FIPK, Superchip, underdrive pulley set, Dynomax Super Turbo Series Exhaust, six disc CD changer, towing package and captain chairs
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Joined: Mar 1998
Posts: 13,385
Likes: 4
From: Virginia
Hi Funkster,
Well, your most immediate problem is those 33" tires, and 3.73 gearing is not near enough to compensate for them. You need to do a gear change to a ratio that will restore your engine back to turning the same rpm's for a given speed in Overdrive that you were turning *before* you installed the 33' tires. If you don't do that, you will *never* get your truck running "right", or anywhere near like it should.
This is an area that is perhaps the single most commonly made "mistake", for lack of a better term, that people make when installing larger tires, and what I mean specifically is installing tires that are this much larger without doing a gear change to bring your rpms back up to where they used to be. Doing that also automatically restores your speedometer & odometer accuracy if done correctly.
You're going to need at least a 4.20-4.30 gear ratio or so to accomplish this, just guessing, to et your rpms back up to what it was turning with the factory tires and 3.73 gearing, but don't just take that as the "correct" number, that is strictly "ballpark", and you need to do the math properly to determine the exact ratio you need. Here is the way we do this: take the number of rpm's your truck was turning at say, 65 mph in Overdrive, *BEFORE* the tire size change, see how many rpm's it's turning now with your 33's at that same speed, and then do the straight math to determine how much your current gear ratio of 3.73 needs to be increased by numerically, add that number to 3.73, and you have your new gear ratio. There are also lots of gear & tire size "calculators" on the Internet, some of which are correct & accurate, some of which are not, so you have to be careful. We don't use those "calculators" becauase of this error in some of them, we prefer to just do the straight math, so we get the rpm's properly restored to the same rpms it was turning before for any given speed.
The other point of all this is that your speedometer is now off, so you now have a conflict in your vehicle's VSS (vehicle speed sensor) data stream, as your computer compares that number to numerous other sources of data that it uses to confirm the VSS data. Until you get your speedometer accuracy restored, you could have issues with shift points, top speed limiter, etc.
Until you do this, you are *always* going to be in a situaiton where your engine is laboring far below it's power band, and this causes poor performance in *every* gear, and at *all* speeds, but most noticeably on the lower end, and after each upshift, of course. This will also hurt your gas mileage quite a bit, because you now have to use a lot more throttle opening that you had to before to get the same rate of velocity out of your vehicle.
Either your dealer or a good 4X4 shop should be able to help you get this done properly.
And no, to answer your question, and shift kit will not do anything to help this situation, my friend, sorry!
Good luck, and feel free to give us a call if you'd like to go over this in a bit more detail.
There is no shortcut for this, and nothing else you can do to "fix" this, other than changin your tire size back to what it was before.
------------------
Mike Troyer
Performance Products, Inc.
National Distributor of Superchips
(540) 862-9515
Email: mtroyer@compuserve.com
Performance Products F150Online Superchip ordering system: F150Online Superchip Ordering System
First National F-150 Online Rally Event Organizer
Well, your most immediate problem is those 33" tires, and 3.73 gearing is not near enough to compensate for them. You need to do a gear change to a ratio that will restore your engine back to turning the same rpm's for a given speed in Overdrive that you were turning *before* you installed the 33' tires. If you don't do that, you will *never* get your truck running "right", or anywhere near like it should.
This is an area that is perhaps the single most commonly made "mistake", for lack of a better term, that people make when installing larger tires, and what I mean specifically is installing tires that are this much larger without doing a gear change to bring your rpms back up to where they used to be. Doing that also automatically restores your speedometer & odometer accuracy if done correctly.
You're going to need at least a 4.20-4.30 gear ratio or so to accomplish this, just guessing, to et your rpms back up to what it was turning with the factory tires and 3.73 gearing, but don't just take that as the "correct" number, that is strictly "ballpark", and you need to do the math properly to determine the exact ratio you need. Here is the way we do this: take the number of rpm's your truck was turning at say, 65 mph in Overdrive, *BEFORE* the tire size change, see how many rpm's it's turning now with your 33's at that same speed, and then do the straight math to determine how much your current gear ratio of 3.73 needs to be increased by numerically, add that number to 3.73, and you have your new gear ratio. There are also lots of gear & tire size "calculators" on the Internet, some of which are correct & accurate, some of which are not, so you have to be careful. We don't use those "calculators" becauase of this error in some of them, we prefer to just do the straight math, so we get the rpm's properly restored to the same rpms it was turning before for any given speed.
The other point of all this is that your speedometer is now off, so you now have a conflict in your vehicle's VSS (vehicle speed sensor) data stream, as your computer compares that number to numerous other sources of data that it uses to confirm the VSS data. Until you get your speedometer accuracy restored, you could have issues with shift points, top speed limiter, etc.
Until you do this, you are *always* going to be in a situaiton where your engine is laboring far below it's power band, and this causes poor performance in *every* gear, and at *all* speeds, but most noticeably on the lower end, and after each upshift, of course. This will also hurt your gas mileage quite a bit, because you now have to use a lot more throttle opening that you had to before to get the same rate of velocity out of your vehicle.
Either your dealer or a good 4X4 shop should be able to help you get this done properly.
And no, to answer your question, and shift kit will not do anything to help this situation, my friend, sorry!
Good luck, and feel free to give us a call if you'd like to go over this in a bit more detail.
There is no shortcut for this, and nothing else you can do to "fix" this, other than changin your tire size back to what it was before.
------------------
Mike Troyer
Performance Products, Inc.
National Distributor of Superchips
(540) 862-9515
Email: mtroyer@compuserve.com
Performance Products F150Online Superchip ordering system: F150Online Superchip Ordering System
First National F-150 Online Rally Event Organizer
Thread Starter
|
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 170
Likes: 0
From: Anderson, IN U.S.A.
Mike,
Can the dealership adjust this VSS or is this something I have to do on the aftermarket? My truck goes to FORD Wednesday afternoon and if it's something they can do I'll let them do it. I did put a shift kit on our diesel and it helped the truck not lose so many RPM's when it shifted. I know that it has the awful E40D and I think I read somewhere that my 250LD with the 5.4 has the E40D also. But it could have the 4R70W. I do some towing and hauling seed for my customers and farm work, so that's why I LOVE my 33" tires. I understand that I"ll never be as good as factory, but my old truck was never this doggy - even with 3.54LS.
I read on this site where a guy put a B&M shift plus on his truck and it helped him get rid of some of the hesitation. It just feels that the computer has a hesitation from the time I step on the pedal to when it actually takes off!
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1999 F-250LD 4X4 XLT Supercab, Short Bed, 5.4L, AT, 3.73LS, 33"Wrangler ATS, Custom Dual Exhaust, Custom Air Intake, Superchip, Factory Step Bars, Tinted Windows, Vent Visors, Diamond Tool Box & Bed Rails, Color: Harvest Gold cc "Ready to Farm"
Can the dealership adjust this VSS or is this something I have to do on the aftermarket? My truck goes to FORD Wednesday afternoon and if it's something they can do I'll let them do it. I did put a shift kit on our diesel and it helped the truck not lose so many RPM's when it shifted. I know that it has the awful E40D and I think I read somewhere that my 250LD with the 5.4 has the E40D also. But it could have the 4R70W. I do some towing and hauling seed for my customers and farm work, so that's why I LOVE my 33" tires. I understand that I"ll never be as good as factory, but my old truck was never this doggy - even with 3.54LS.
I read on this site where a guy put a B&M shift plus on his truck and it helped him get rid of some of the hesitation. It just feels that the computer has a hesitation from the time I step on the pedal to when it actually takes off!
------------------
1999 F-250LD 4X4 XLT Supercab, Short Bed, 5.4L, AT, 3.73LS, 33"Wrangler ATS, Custom Dual Exhaust, Custom Air Intake, Superchip, Factory Step Bars, Tinted Windows, Vent Visors, Diamond Tool Box & Bed Rails, Color: Harvest Gold cc "Ready to Farm"
Former Sponsor
Joined: Mar 1998
Posts: 13,385
Likes: 4
From: Virginia
Hi Funkster,
I understand your frustration and your situation, but nothing short of a gear change is going to help with those 33's, end of story. I don't mean to be blunt, but in a way, kinda/sorta, I do. It's my way of being emphatic about this, as the only thing that's going to help with those 33's is to change your gear ratio. Remember, you now also have an "out of range" condition in the VSS compared to all the other data streams it looks at to verify VSS, and that will cause differences in your shift characteristics as well, and no, your dealer cannot do anything about that, they probably can't even detect it. The gear change or going back to a shorter tire is the only thing that's going to really fix this.
Nothing the dealer would be able to do is going to change this, unless perhaps you have an actual mechanical failure of some kind.
And we do not advise the use of those B&M or any other similar shift improver that splices into the ECU's wiring harness, because all they do is spike the voltage signal going to the shift solenoids, which aren't very rugged to begin with, and that will shorten their service life. Sure, they firm up the shift because they force the solenoid to work harder, which is a cheap "trick" that will cause them to fail sooner, instead of properly programming the transmission, or installing a proper shift kit. A lot of guys have installed them, and most of them like those units very much, because they only cost about $40 and they will firm up the shifts, but that isn't the way to do it, and you *will* shorten the service life of those shift solenoids over time. If you check their documentation, they even warn you not to use them on the firmest setting in day-to-day driving, and this is exactly why, because of what it does to the shift solenoids.
One last thing, and that is, you really can't compare your previous vehicle to this one in terms of expecting it to behave even *remotely* the same, it just won't, because it isn't remotely close to being the same. Completely different engines, transmissions, etc., and completely different animals as a result.
You have a great truck there, a beautiful new Ford truck that many people would love to own, and you've simply hobbled it by forcing it to work like that in this condition, that's all. If you'll fix this right, by doing the math and installing the correct gear ratio, you will fall in love with this truck all over again, trust me.
Best of luck my friend,
I wish I could make this easier for you.
------------------
Mike Troyer
Performance Products, Inc.
National Distributor of Superchips
(540) 862-9515
Email: mtroyer@compuserve.com
Performance Products F150Online Superchip ordering system: F150Online Superchip Ordering System
First National F-150 Online Rally Event Organizer
[This message has been edited by Superchips_Distributor (edited 09-12-2000).]
I understand your frustration and your situation, but nothing short of a gear change is going to help with those 33's, end of story. I don't mean to be blunt, but in a way, kinda/sorta, I do. It's my way of being emphatic about this, as the only thing that's going to help with those 33's is to change your gear ratio. Remember, you now also have an "out of range" condition in the VSS compared to all the other data streams it looks at to verify VSS, and that will cause differences in your shift characteristics as well, and no, your dealer cannot do anything about that, they probably can't even detect it. The gear change or going back to a shorter tire is the only thing that's going to really fix this.
Nothing the dealer would be able to do is going to change this, unless perhaps you have an actual mechanical failure of some kind.
And we do not advise the use of those B&M or any other similar shift improver that splices into the ECU's wiring harness, because all they do is spike the voltage signal going to the shift solenoids, which aren't very rugged to begin with, and that will shorten their service life. Sure, they firm up the shift because they force the solenoid to work harder, which is a cheap "trick" that will cause them to fail sooner, instead of properly programming the transmission, or installing a proper shift kit. A lot of guys have installed them, and most of them like those units very much, because they only cost about $40 and they will firm up the shifts, but that isn't the way to do it, and you *will* shorten the service life of those shift solenoids over time. If you check their documentation, they even warn you not to use them on the firmest setting in day-to-day driving, and this is exactly why, because of what it does to the shift solenoids.
One last thing, and that is, you really can't compare your previous vehicle to this one in terms of expecting it to behave even *remotely* the same, it just won't, because it isn't remotely close to being the same. Completely different engines, transmissions, etc., and completely different animals as a result.
You have a great truck there, a beautiful new Ford truck that many people would love to own, and you've simply hobbled it by forcing it to work like that in this condition, that's all. If you'll fix this right, by doing the math and installing the correct gear ratio, you will fall in love with this truck all over again, trust me.
Best of luck my friend,
I wish I could make this easier for you.
------------------
Mike Troyer
Performance Products, Inc.
National Distributor of Superchips
(540) 862-9515
Email: mtroyer@compuserve.com
Performance Products F150Online Superchip ordering system: F150Online Superchip Ordering System
First National F-150 Online Rally Event Organizer
[This message has been edited by Superchips_Distributor (edited 09-12-2000).]