I dyno'd 262hp and 300ft lbs at the wheels after intake, exhaust and Superchips tuner. That is SAE uncorrected in 80 degree weather and 90% humidity. I am at sea level

 

You say you don't beileve what is on Mike's web site. Mike put those numbers there. That seems to me to say "Mike, your numbers are not believable and what you put on your web site is not believable" . Does the infer that Mike is a liar? Seems so to me.

Mike says he stands behind those numbers. Good enough for me. Its nice that you think he is a great guy and yes you and most consumers are skeptical people. But I don't care how skeptical you may be, what you said was not right and I think you still own him an apology.

 

Im not an a$$hole, however i am pretty stubborn. This said, if i felt that anyone deserved an apology i went give it to them without hesitation, however as i explained before, this was taken the wrong way. I would much rather clear this up than admit that i was wrong in what i did b/c then this whole thread would be wrong. I AM NOT SAYING IN ANYWAY THAT MIKE IS A LIAR.

-Ham you are putting words into my mouth that i never said, also you just used the biggest logical fallacy that i have ever seen in my life.

I was merly saying there was bias in the numbers becuase there was no way that there could not be, i started this thread to find numbers not from the manufacturer and that i what i still hope to get.

I will apologize to mike and his team if they took this the wrong way but that would be all i am apolgizing for becuase thats all that could have could have happened to merit an apology.

I hope that we can all work this out because grudges are something that do not belong on this site.

 

I thought Troyer Performance did their own in-house dyno testing on F150’s as they added mods to get real numbers (hp & torque) so they can verify what different performance parts (tuner, pulleys, e-fans, exhaust, etc, etc) actually give you.

Southern-Fx4 maybe you should do a dyno on your truck now to see what you got stock then you could do dyno’s after each mod to see the actual gain each one gives you for comparison.

 

Well I guess if I used the biggest logical fallacy in your life then Mike did too.

No your not an a$$hole. I don't resort to name calling. I think what you really should have said and what you mean is that you would like to have backup dyno testing by a source other than the manufacturer to backup the manufacturers claims. Mainly because you feel that the manufacturer may be biased. Is that a safe assumption?

I think you may have said it the wrong way in the beginning by saying there is no way you believe what was on his web site. This in itself apparently was a bit insulting to Mike.

Yes you are apologizing to Mike for him taking it the wrong way. Again you should apologize to them for you saying it the wrong way.

jpdadeo gave some very good advice. If you want dyno numbers that you can fully trust then go get them yourself. Otherwise you will have to compare what the manufacturer tells you and the third partys numbers. Which one would you then trust? Don't you think that if a performance company like Mike's gave out product claims that in the end were not true that he'd be in business very long. Don't think so.

Anyway, hope you find the information you seek and maybe share them here with all of us.

 

OK guys, let's not let this get out of hand, & *my* apologies for my role in this, to everyone.

There is a very important point here in what Southern FX4 originally said that I *do* think should be considered & pointed out, as what I think his actual thought process was when he first posted what he said in in fact valid..............

And that is, as Southern FX4 and many of us know, many performance manufacturers (and vendors) do things like only express a best case scenario, or it will be on a vehicle with other additional modifications that increased the effect of another part's, gains, exaggerate, etc. Many manufacturers design their advertising & marketing materials to prey on people who look at catalogs trying to find the biggest HP gain claim for the lowest price - a mistake that unfortunately, many people make. Many of us know that game, and it's a valid concern - and that is *precisely* why we, unlike many companies, actually do our own testing on many products and do not just take manufacturer's claims at face value.

I'll give you a perfect example - one of a certain "big name" chipmaker's ads that used to run right here some time ago (I'll cut them a break and not say their name since they no longer use that ad) used to claim a gigantic **45 HP** gain on these F-150's just from their tuning alone! Well, what they *really* did was take a 1999 F-250 Light Duty 5.4 automatic truck whose factory PCM revision prevented the engine from being able to properly transition over into open loop at heavy throttle (something we don't see in these vehicles for some years now), which caused it to be down something like 30 HP from it's STOCK factory rating - (that's right, that particular truck couldn't even make anywhere close to it's advertised stock power level), and then applied their normal tuning, which usually adds maybe 12-15 HP to the 5.4 motor, and used that to claim a whopping 45 HP gain in these F-150's we discuss here. Very deceptive, even though it was true on that *one* F-250 truck because it couldn't go open loop in stock trim. That does NOT happen on the vast majority of these vehicles, of course. Heck, if I had tuned that particular truck, the gains would have been significantly even more than their claim of 45 HP at the rear wheels, just as they are any time I tune the rare F-250 5.4 that can't go open loop in stock trim (which affects a few of the older trucks) and thus can't even make it's advertised stock power rating.

("Open Loop" should occur at about 70-80% or so of throttle opening, and is when the engine transitions over from running at stoich A/F - 14.64:1 - over to about 12.0-12.5:1 and thus can tolerate, and gets, significantly more spark advance so power goes up significantly - automakers sometimes did that to prevent some obscure trucks from being able to go open loop in an effort to get better MPG when towing a heavy load - but it's dumb because when you're pulling a heavy load, you don't care about MPG nearly as much as being able to get up the darned hill, and Ford doesn't do that on current trucks - that is generally seen only in a few of the 97-99 trucks for the most part.)

Anyway, on that particular vehicle that chipmaker used as an example for their advertising claims, instead of it making about 190-195 HP at the rear wheels in stock trim as it should have (and as a 5.4 2WD will usually show on a good dyno), instead, because it couldn't go open loop it made only 163 or 167 at the wheels (I can't remember the exact figure now, but we did save the info and have it filed way here "just in case" that chipmaker ever tried to dispute what we found). So they used that one abnormally large power gain that happened *only* because that one vehicle couldn't make close to it's stock rated power and advertised that was what you would normally gain in all these trucks - extremely deceptive, and they stopped advertising that some time ago.

Anyway, I mention that particular example because not only does it apply directly to the subject of power gains resulting from tuning as Southern FX4 was concerned about, but also was an excellent example of a manufacturer playing fast & loose with the truth in terms of what you can *realistically* expect on any vehicle from their product - and they knew full well why they got that abnormally big gain and that it was not a typical result for the vast majority of these trucks.

The point being, many of us know all too well that a lot of performance manufacturers will blow smoke, misrepresent, etc. their power gains - so after careful consideration, I think what Southern FX4 was really trying to convey was not to actually call me a liar (as I and some others took it), but instead was just expressing his healthy skepticism regarding power gain claims from performance parts manufacturers in general. I do bristle any time something someone says can be construed as calling our integrity into question, so I tend to be quick to take offense to something like that due to just how hard we work here to *know* the truth. So at that time, Southern FX4 may not have been aware of the fact that when we tell someone what a part or product gains, it's because we have in fact tested it or were present during it's testing by the manufacturer and have seen the power numbers we tell people actually being made - that we do NOT just blindly accept the manufacturer's claims and parrot that to the world, as the vast majority of vendors do.

I took it badly, and I confess to "wearing my heart on my sleeve," so to speak, because of just how hard we work and how much testing we have done over the years in our efforts to be the best at what we do so that our customers can believe us when we tell them what kind of results we have seen.

So let's wrap all of this up, gang - thanks to everyone who "came to our defense," so to speak, and I certainly accept Southern FX4's apology and understand what I think he was really trying to say - and now I do NOT believe that he intended his statement in the manner that I and some others took it.

Bottom line - no harm, no foul, and perhaps we all learned a little something from this - like perhaps not automatically assuming that *everyone* is dishonest and will say anything to sell a part, for example - or not to immediately read the worst possible interpretation into a particular statement, for another. Etc., etc.

Now let's all please get back to enjoying the site & helping each other out as we normally do, gentlemen - and thanks to Southern FX4 for clarifying, etc - we're all cool.

 

Mike, yet again you have displayed an amazing amount of self integrity, buisness skills, and personal intellegence. I am so glad that we can draw an end to this petty argument like men. I think that i will give you a call and talk to you about what your tuning can do for my specific truck. Maybe i can get some of your dyno tests on a similar vehicle, since you have definitly tested my 5.4, so expect a call this week. Also, are you open on MLK day because I am having a hard time catching you in your buisness hours with my current schedual.

Ham- I am sorry for what i did to you, There i apologized lol. As i caught Mike in a bad plpace, i guess you caught me in one. I am sorry

To everyone else who has tried to hepl me, thanx for the numbers that i have recived and i will try to locate a dyno around my house to get some numebrs for my own reference.

Sorry
-TIM-

 

Southern-Fx4

No porblem, lets get on with the show! I realize now I was sticking up for Mike which he is certainly capable of doing so by himslef.

I also looked around at what was available before finding Troyer. There wasn't much at he time I was looking so I took a chance and put faith in Troyers hands. Glad I did. Mike is right about the numbers found in catalogs and such. The JEGS catalog is almost unbelievable. But as you were expressing in your posts, who ya gona believe.

I guess in the end, ya pays your money and ya takes your choice or maybe chance. Lets have a Beer

Larry

P.S. Sorry Mike...

 

I also had baught "performance parts" from different sources claiming horsepower gains, One being a certin branded mass air claiming this box contains 25 horsepower, they were right I had it on the dyno and with that mass air I lost 25 hp. At this time I met Mike through this forum and began tuning my truck his way. And will not do anything without his approval. And with his pricing and knoledge there is no sense looking elswhere. And thats a fact!!!! I might also add that mass air made the truck run dangerasly lean, and if left on could have dammaged my engine.

 

Excellent - we're back on track my thanks to *everyone*.

One point about why we do not post or publish dyno graphs - I thought I'd talk about that briefly because so many people ask us for "dyno plots," and we simply do not publish them - for a number of reasons..............

The first of which is that when we used to do that years & years ago, if we supplied one dyno plot to one person, then we immediately got swamped with literally hundreds of emails, phone calls & posts here demanding *more* dyno plots - not only do we not have time for that, but it mostly came from those who had no intention of purchasing anything anyway - they had an Internet connection and thought it was fun to go around demanding & collecting dyno plots.

Heck, even Superchips themselves does not keep, store & disseminate all their dyno plots - they stopped doing that years & years ago, back when the number of their applications topped about 5,000 or so. At one point when their chief engineer & I went thru just their American-made vehicle data and got it all sorted out, it took us *months* to do so! Back when they were still doing all the imports, they had something like over 16,000 different applications, and just keeping 32,000+ dyno plots (a minimum of two for each application, a before and an after) would require immense storage & staffing just to maintain dyno plots alone!

Another reason is that it's *proprietary* information - our competitors would seize on any such information, and we're not here to help them. There are some tuners & chipmakers who will do anything they could in an effort to "make the most power" and show a higher number than we talk about - some of them not bothering to think about making the most *safe & sustainable* power. In other words, if the motor doesn't have to live, we can make them deliver even more power and run even quicker down the 1/4 mile - but they won't last long doing that if we hammer them with everything we can do in the PCM to make them quicker. It's very important to provide programs for street-driven vehicles that do not compromise the service life of the powertrain. Now most major name chipmakers won't do that, usually their products are very safe these days when installed & used properly - but there is one who *has* consistently done anything they could to make a bigger dyno number, and we've seen some of the results - no thanks, we have to live with our customers for the entire time they own their vehicles, not just the first week or month - and most of our customers stay with us for many years, having us modify every vehicle they buy, because they trust us.

Another reason is that - and please don't anyone be offended by this - most people really don't know how to properly interpret "dyno plots" or have knowledge of proper dyno testing procedures to get accurate "before and after" numbers, or to make sure the dyno operator didn't pull a fast one entering data into the dyno software to skew the numbers (any skilled operator can make a dyno say anything they want to). For example, when we test to see how much power we gain in a premium gas tune over a factory 87 octane tune, think about that for a second - you can't do that with premium gas in the tank for both tests - not if you want *accurate* numbers on *all* vehicles, as there are some that can advance the timing a little bit if the knock sensor doesn't pick up detonation - to say nothing of the fact that some vehicles lay down and make terrible power running them on premium gas on an 87 octane tune, etc., etc. So what do you do? Well, you can run the vehicle on 87 octane fuel to do the before testing and to see what gains can be had on 87 octane fuel - and then drain the tank (or run it dry, which is NOT a good thing to do to the system or the motor) to refill it with 100% premium gas - something that virtually nobody actually does. Or, you can do dyno testing on different days - which presents another problem, even with so-called "corrected" numbers. Yes, there are correction factors, but we don't like using them unless we have to, we prefer to test in a climate-controlled test cell on the same day - even though it's climate controlled, it's still not 100% perfect. Another method is to have multiple vehicles (which we tend to do more often than not), so that you can have a couple with 87 on board, and then a couple with premium gas on board, doing thorough testing on each to see just what power each made stock on both 87 and 93, and then start tuning. In other words, as you can quickly see, there are numerous variables that affect the results that many people simply aren't aware of, or just ignore, etc., as we do have to draw some kind of reasonable line and say that's how you're gong to do it and get on with it.

Then there are the testing methods themselves - few dyno tests actually lock an automatic transmission vehicle in 3rd gear (so you get 1:1 loading for best accuracy and can start the dyno pull at very low rpms, etc), instead what is usually done is to take the vehicle up to a speed at which when you nail the throttle the tranny can no longer downshift into 2nd gear and skew the results, and begin your dyno run from that point - but that also means you get *no* data below about 3200 rpm or so at best. And as we all know, you spend the majority of your time below 3000 rpm in "normal" everyday driving in most vehicles, especially these trucks. Or, you can put these FoMoCo's in 2nd gear, where it can't upshift or downshift, and do the pulls that way, if it's a god load-variable dyno that you can plug that in to. etc., etc. So "dyno tests" are done in all kinds of different ways that affect the results.

Then there are the different types of dynos - primarily the difference between inertia style dynos, which are by far the most common (Dynojet is by far the most commonly seen chassis dyno, which is a great lower cost dyno and works well for an inertia dyno) - but they only provide a static 3600 lb load, where these trucks weight far more than that, and in addition have a very large aero load from wind resistance when actually being operated, which cannot be simulated for on that type of dyno. These trucks will in many cases see different A/F ratios & timing numbers when under the much heavier loads of actually being operated, as opposed to what they'll show on an inertia dyno with only 3600 lb of static load, for example. You also cannot do (well, in practical terms) part-throttle testing on these types of dynos for driveability work & part-throttle tuning & power results, etc. Then there are the load-bearing or load-variable dynos (sometimes called "eddy-current") that we prefer to use like the unit we used down at Superchips for years, or the Mustang dynos, etc. But you will see significantly lower power numbers & power gains on an eddy-current dyno on these trucks compared to what you'll see on an inertia dyno, generally speaking.

Add to that all the differences in methods used in how the vehicle is placed on the dyno & operated on the dyno - a 1 inch difference in where the wheels are positioned on the rollers can skew readings.......

Then there are the vehicles themselves, which can and *do* vary, both in their stock power output and in how much they gain from various modifications, due to variances in engine tolerances, different lubricants used (yes, different engine oil viscosities cause variances in power numbers), whether it's an E4OD tranny, or a 4R100 tranny, or a 4R70W, or a 4R75-E - and that's just in the automatics placed in these trucks based on what model year & what configuration, and they all absorb different amounts of power in terms of the driveline losses - worth mentioning as the E4OD's & 4R100's will show lower power numbers at the wheels compared to a 4R70 or a 4R75, etc. Same goes for 2WD versus 4WD, the 4WD's will show lower numbers.

(Continued in next post..)

 

And on, and on, and on, and on................... all of which gives us the scenario where some people who take their trucks to their local dyno get numbers different than what we get - sometimes higher, and sometimes lower. And God forbid someone should ever get any number even 1-5 HP lower than what we talk about, as then we're "lying," or making up numbers, etc,., etc., instead of what *really* happened - which is usually they don't know much about dynos or testing methods (many dyno operators don't know proper testing methods themselves with as relatively cheap as inertia dynos are these days - any shop can sign a lease on one for a few hundred bucks a month, but that doesn't make them proficient in "dyno testing"), etc. And I don't mean to insult anyone when i say these things, I mean it from the standpoint of human nature - like if you're not a trial lawyer, you probably don't know much about selecting a jury, or if you're not a dentist, you don't know how to do root canal work - just like I probably don't know anything about what most of *you* do for your livelihood, etc. - you get my point. So then we get slammed out on the Internet, where there are hundreds of "lurkers" for every one poster, many of whom get the wrong impression and only see that someone got say, 7 or 12 horsepower less (forget those that might have gotten 5 HP more) than what we say we got on a given vehicle, and automatically assume we have no credibility, and are just hyping numbers to sell products.

Sooo............for all these reasons & more, we just don't publish our dyno plots - nor do we tend to respond to posts from those who went to a dyno and got a different number (most of whom never take into consideration all of these factors simply because they don't know about them, which is quite natural if you're not an experienced pro in this field) complaining all about how they didn't get the same power numbers we've expressed for their particular vehicle, and now you can't trust Troyer - etc., etc.

Instead, we prefer to see the actual difference in *performance* o the vehicles - the before & after 0-60 times, the before & after 1/4 mile times, etc. Even there you have all kinds of factors that will skew the results if properly controlled testing is not observed, but when done properly, the actual performance of the vehicle and how well it tows, it's part-throttle driveability, etc. mean far more than a "dyno plot" ever could. We also prefer to use our mobile gear to tune these vehicles & datalog A/F ratios and everything else, so we don't use dynos in many cases, unless we're doing say, new vehicle R&D for a new vehicle just released or just newly redesigned (like the 2004 5.4 3V F-150's when they first came out), or we're doing something that we actually prefer to do on a dyno rather than while driving the vehicle on the road or at a track.

OK, I'm off my "dyno soapbox" - just wanted to provide a bit of insight into why we do not provide everyone who asks with dyno plots on demand, why "dynos" really aren't some mythically accurate dead-nuts 100% perfect machine or even particularly accurate or relevant sometimes, etc., etc. In other words - take dyno numbers with a large grain of salt, as they aren't the be-all & end-all of performance or tuning.

Thanks for reading my silly diatribe, gang.

 

<-- dizzy after that one...
gonna have to go back and take notes.

Always a pleasure learning from someone who knows their shizznet.

Here's a nanner for ya...

 

Take a break, your working too hard. But its to our advantage I can see..... Thanks