Has anybody heard of a break in period for our P221s?
My saleman suggested that I wait until I have 1000 miles on the truck before I make any powertrain mods.
Claims the ECM is programed to run rich at first.
I have a feeling he's talking through his hat.

 

The P221 (which is Ford's internal designation for the current generation new body style F-150) can be modified at any time, from the very first day you own it.

That being said, I do think it's a good idea to put a few hundred miles on any brand new vehicle before doing any modifications, just so you know that everything is OK and there are no immediate problems that require service, and so you have a good feel for how the vehicle performs in stock trim, etc. Now in our vehicles,m in many cases we don't even get off the dealer's lot before we start our modifications, but then that's *us* - we've specialized in F-series performance for many years & do a lot of testing, modifying of these vehicles, racing, etc., so we know what's "doable" & what's not, etc. Each new model year we have to do a lot of additional testing, as you never know what Ford (or any automaker) is going to do.

We've been tuning these P221 vehicles (including the 5.4 3V) since just after they were first released, and there is no difference in the O/L A/F's at any mileage number that we have observed - they run at stoich in C/L, and we've dyno'd them at literally 8 miles, at 50 miles, at 100 miles, and so on, up thru about 40K miles, and have seen no pattern of A/F's magically changing on their own in C/L or O/L with no modifications, as long as there are no vacuum leaks & the O2's are working properly.

Now if you disconnect the battery, sure, as always, you wipe out any existing adaptive strategy adjustments, and that might cause you to see, short term, a bit of a difference in some areas - but no, we have not seen any evidence that would support a claim of them "running richer" when they are new.

Bottom line? Put a few hundred miles on it and then do any intelligent & reasonable modifications you want - what will get you the best result in terms of tuning is to go with our custom tuning. FYI - you do need to be *very* careful with any changes to the air intake tract with the new MAS setup - most intake kits will cause a gross lean condition on the 3-valve motors. Right now there is only 1 intake kit that is safe to use and that actually adds significant power anywhere on the 5.4 3V F-150, for example.

Please feel free to give us a call at our number listed below to go over any of this in ore detail, or to discuss what we can do for your truck's tuning or any other aspects of improving it's performance - we specialize in F-150 performance and can take any of these trucks just as far as the owner wants to go performance-wise. For example, we've been shipping supercharger kit for the P221 for some time now, etc.

Best of luck whatever you decide, & congrats on your beautiful new truck!

 

Hello,
I heard there was a 3000 mile period that the '04 and '05s were "detuned for break-in".

I had just put 1014 miles on my '05 the other day going to work. When I went lunch it seemed like my truck suddenly had more power, better throttle response etc... I have not measured the mileage yet. It took me by surprise, it was that noticeable. I may imagineing things but I kinda expected it to happen at 3000 miles.

The way it seems to work (to me) is 1000 miles and an ignition cycle. I know Mike really is quite the expert and knows what he is talking on tuning of these trucks but this is my experience, real or imagined.

Does anyone know if Ford can scan the computer to find if it was reprogrammed? Even though you return it to the original program? Is there anyway they can tell the write cycles to the eprom/flash memory or whatever the storage device they use?

Thanks,

 

Good question and I have yet to see a definite answer to that question. Personally, I would think there is a way that Ford could detect if the computer has been written to.

 

As has in fact been posted here literally thousands of times (to the point that we generally refer people to simply look it up themselves in any of the thousands of previous posts on this topic via the SEARCH feature) ------

No, with our tuning once the PCM has been returned to it's stock factory program they can't tell at a dealership level if the PCM's binary file had changes made to the thousands of lines of code **other than it being reflashed to a different factory revision** at some time in the past. If the PCM gets a dealer update, then the hex code revision changes - that does not change when we tune it.

Now if the PCM were removed from the vehicle and specifically sent to the right engineer internally at Ford - then sure, they should certainly be able to with those resources - but not at a dealership. Once the PCM has been reflashed to stock, dealerships cannot tell in our tunes if any of the lines of code in the PCM's binary file was actually altered from stock - any time you flash the PCM, you will get a P1000 code for the next drive cycle, just as happens if you simply disconnect the battery - that's all. They don't know what's in those lines of code, that isn't what they do - they don't do what we do. They generally have limited knowledge of the differences from one seemingly identical F-150 truck's stock factory program to the next, with the hundreds of different PCM revisions in the F-150 each model year, or that there are in fact some very significant variances from one stock factory PCM code to the next that affect the A/F ratio's, timing specs, EGT's, etc., from one stock factory PCM revision to the next in otherwise *identical* vehicles - let alone if we changed something at some point in the past, once the PCM has been flashed back to stock. That is not a "knock" on them at all, don't misunderstand - it's simply not something that is generally within the realm of the "typical" mechanic, that's all - just like if you're not a dentist, then you probably don't know how to do root canal work very well.

Some people will then ask why we advise returning to the stock factory program when taking a vehicle in for service - our customers know that we advise this whether the vehicle is under warranty or not, and regardless of where the vehicle is taken, dealership or independent shop - that it's done primarily so that if their vehicle's PCM needs to be updated to a different revision for some reason, they don't end up losing their performance tuning due to the tuner then being effectively "locked."

For any further information on this, anyone can refer to the SEARCH feature to look up, retrieve & read posts on any previous topic here - the SEARCH icon in the upper right portion of your screen here.

 

Mike, I am about to order a 1714 for my 2004 5.4 3v. I have a couple questions.

Here is the first scenario. I use the tuner and put in the 87 program and then I put it back to stock before I take it to the dealer for service. If they reflash the PCM while they have it, will the tuner read in the new Ford program from the PCM or will it always hold the program that was in the PCM the first time I used the tuner as the default?

That being said, are there any other changes that can come from a Ford PCM update that is not addressed in the 1714 programs, like programs for other things like engine or tranny? Can a PCM update from Ford change things like timeouts for lights or other non-drivetrain configs?

 

Mike,

Thank you for that detailed explanation. I had, in the past, tried to search for an answer and never found one so I apologize.

That is very interesting…

 

Mike, still waiting for a reply on my above post.

 

Hi Junior,

First - just to try to be clear on this - please don't expect "quick" personal responses from me here. It's not that I don't want to, it's simply that I can't - nor can any owner of a company as busy as ours, which is probably why you don't see any other owners of companies that do as much as ours does doing what I do manage to do here. The reality is, the time I can spend here is AFTER we take care of our customers on the phones and in person, and represents literally what time I basically "steal" from doing other things - so in other words, I get here when I can, as best I can, is probably the best way to put it.

As all our customers know, we do not provide Tech Support here, or in email, or anywhere else via the written word (typing) - we do that *only* in person of by telephone, as there aren't enough hours in the day to do that with the hundreds of emails & posts we get every day! Thus, any time you want what I would call a "timely" response, you'll want to call us at our number listed below. Typing comes last on my priority list, it simply has to because it takes literally hundreds of times longer than talking on the phone - which is why I don't get into details very much here, or provide Tech Support here or in email, etc., & thanks in advance for your understanding on that!

Now, to answer your question............

Even if the dealer updates you to a new code, when you reinstall the 1714, chances are it will already have that new code in it. Now back when it was *first* released long ago, because some of the early 2004 5.4 3V's had problems that needed to be corrected by an update, there were some people who had to send their 1714's back in to have them updated, just due to the sheer number of releases Ford was doing rapidly back when the 204 was first released. But that's pretty rare these days - worst case, as long as you return the PCM back to stock before it goes into the dealer, you can always use the 1714 again - we may have to update it, but you can always use it again. What happens when you plug the 1714 back in after a dealer reflash, it is will download a *copy* of that new program, and then do an internal lookup to see if it has code-matched performance tunes in side to once again replace that individual code-specific factory tune - if it does (which is almost always), then it simply acts like it did the very first time you installed, it and goes about it's business. If it does NOT have the corresponding code-matched performance tunes for that specific new factory revision, then it will tell you in its LCD screen that it needs an update, and to call Superchips - they'll give you an RMA number to send it in to them under, and quickly update it for you free of charge.

And no, we're not even remotely interested in our custom tuning being some kind of panacea/replacement for Ford's hundreds of different PCM revisions each model year on these vehicles. That isn't what we do - we're in the *performance* business, so what we do in our tunes is improve the performance of the vehicle - now if we see something that we don't like as part of *that* process in a given PCM revision, then sure - we'll go ahead and take care of it - including even sometimes using a completely different revision, or going back to the original code after a reflash, etc., etc - whatever we feel is most appropriate for each individual vehicle, basically.

Thanks for your post!

 

Hi 01 XLT Sport,

No problem at all, & certainly no need to "apologize" (though that's very kind of you) - please don't give it a thought!

I have to confess that with such incredible demands on my time due to how we insist on operating (meaning mainly all the testing, R&D, custom tuning, detailed Tech Support etc), I sometimes get a bit impatient - as my wife and even our staff here remind me from time to time. So I sometimes can come off a bit "brusk" when I'm in a hurry, but believe it or not, that really wasn't my intention - so please forgive me if I gave you that impression.

Thank you too, & talk to you soon!

 

Mike,

I am sorry to have seemed impatient, I was merely tagging the thread in case it fell off your active thread radar. By no means was I rushing you or critisizing your response time. Please accept my apology, I did not mean to strike a nerve.

Thank you for your reply, I think I will take the truck in to get a reflash for my flaky start situations and laggy throttle feel while it is in there being checked for the take off shudder. Then when it ia little warmer up here, I will order a 1714 and go from there. I was pleased with my original blue "chip" in my 2001 4.6, the 1714 is more appealing to me because I can avoid the cleaning of the contacts and all that jazz. Does this plan seem reasonable?

Again, I am sorry for rubbing you the wrong way, it was not intentional.

 

Hi Junior,

Thanks for your response - and no, please don't worry about that, you didn't "rub me the wrong way" or anything, not at all.

You know, as much as I love hanging out here with everyone, there is 1 major drawback to me trying to communicate via the written word sometimes - and that is the fact that I just don't have the English language/writing skills to be able to always convey my intended *perspective* or perhaps "tone" of what I'm trying to say - so sometimes, even though I may be thinking in a normal, cheerful manner, my words here may convey something with a much different perspective or give an impression that I really didn't intend - (sigh) - I'm just not a good writer, basically.

The point of all that simply being that I hope my response, in trying to explain what time I have available personally, and how to communicate with us if you need what I'd consider to be a "timely" response didn't convey an inappropriate tone, or make you feel that I somehow took offense at what you had written previously, etc - not at all!! And thank you for your concern & kindness, that's very considerate of you.

I went back and re-read your original post, as well as your last response - as long as there is something going on with your vehicle that your dealership feels will actually be addressed by them reflashing the PCM with a different/improved factory stock program, then by all means, go ahead and do that.

Now one thing to be aware of here - make SURE that if they do reflash your PCM, that they put the "Authorized Modification" sticker under the hood, and write in by hand the NEW calibration code - NOT THE TSB or service bulletin number, but the actual new calibration code - which may be expressed as a "hex" code, etc. It will be a sticker that is see-thru, kinda like some oil change stickers, and they will usually place it right on top of the black plastic radiator cover.

The reason I say to make sure they install that sticker is, it really won't matter if you use a 1714, as that isn't a custom tune - but if you decide that you want the BEST results and thus have us do our in-depth custom tuning in the Xcalibrator (hand held tuner), we'll need to know the original computer code of the vehicle as well as the info from the reflash sticker, too.

Generally speaking, hard cold starting sometimes isn't fixed with a reflash in the 2004 & newer 5.4 3V F-150's, and that really isn't a symptom we see in the stock factory programs, by and large - yeah, there can certainly be exceptions, but by and large, most of these trucks don't have a problem in their stock factory program causing that - and of course, I don't really know what your symptoms are, that's too detailed to get into here. They are seeing some throttle body failures in these new drive-by-wire systems, which can cause things like hard starting, stalling, etc - now I''m NOT saying that is the cause of your problems, mind you, I'm just kinda thinking out loud here.

At any rate, if you decide to have the dealership reflash the PCM, make sure the attach the Authorized Modification sticker under the hood and identify the new PCM program revision - not just write in the service bulletin number as some of them do.

Good luck!

 

Thanks Mike, that is very helpful. I think the first course of action will be a dealer trip because today I "stepped" on it to merge into traffic and there was what I feel is a real problem. The engine was pulling fine and then there was a noticable break in the acceleration almost like the throttle closed itself for a second then went back to where it was supposed to be, even though my foot did not change its position. Shocked the heck out of me when it happened.