I bought the Superchips 1715 unit last year for my 97 F-150. I have been having probllems with the check engine light coming on. The only two error codes that keep popping up are 1133 and 1153 (Bank 1 shifted Lean & Bank 2 shifted Lean). The only time this seems to happen is on a flat stretch of road with my foot barely on the throttle.

I have sent the unit back a couple of times to Superchips, but to no avail. The problem remains. Last time due to a shipping error they had to give me a new tuning unit, still the same thing happens, only this time it seems more temperature dependent.

My truck is a 1997 F-150 Supercab Flareside. The manufacture time was between March 1996 and May 1996 when Ford was producing the new and old models.

1997 F-150 Flareside with:

K & N FIPK intake kit
Gibson Super Truck Cat-Back Exhaust
Flex-a-lite Dual Electric Fans
Accel Super EDIS Coil Packs
Ford Racing Wires
Bosch Platinum +4 Plugs

New Century Hard Tonnaeu
Pioneer ODR Stereo
Dynaudio Speakers
JL Sub & Amp
PPI Amps

 

Sounds like something else is actually going on, as those are NOT just "lean codes" - the actual problem is that your O2 sensors are not switching, thus they are failing that switching test.

That can be caused by numerous different issues, the potential list of causes is literally dozens of items long.

If you can isolate this to actually show with absolute certainty this happens ONLY when the 1715 is installed (and as Superchip's oldest distributor in America, we have *never* seen a 1715 ever cause that problem, nor do you see any posts here from others using the 1715 having that happen), then we may be able to help with this issue - Superchips would need to contact us directly for that to happen, this is not something you can just have us fix for you, that has to come from the manufacturer - *assuming* it was actually being caused by the 1715, which we've never seen happen.

As you probably already know, your support has to come from whoever you actually purchased the unit from - now if you purchased that unit brand new directly from us, then you should call us so we can confirm your purchase records here and work with the manufacturer on this. But if it was purchased elsewhere, then we cannot get involved unless Superchips feels it is being caused by the 1715 and contacts us directly.

If I had to guess, I'd think this is something going on with your vehicle, as it is an older vehicle with probably a significant number of miles on it - and I'll bet that the O2 sensors probably have more than 30K miles on them, which means they're due for replacement anyway - and it could be something else altogether, as like I said, there are literally dozens of potential causes for that kind of problem, where the O2's aren't switching. But the upstream O2's themselves are the first thing to look at, along with their wiring harness.

If this were a tuning issue, meaning something going on in the PCM programming causing this (and we have seen that happen, but never with a 1715), in our experience that would happen all the time, not just once in a while and only under 1 specific type of operating condition like that. So for a number of reasons, I suspect there is an issue with the vehicle itself - there just isn't any track record of any other vehicles having that type of problem who are using the 1715 Micro Tuner, thus it's likely something that Superchips has nothing to do with.

Now of course I'm just guessing here (though I do have experience with those kinds of codes), so I can't say for sure without having access to the vehicle and doing a significant amount of testing.............

 

Thank you for giving me some guidance as to where to start.

You are correct that my vehicle has some miles on it (actually 172000+). The last time I changed the O2 sensors was back in 2002 when I was getting O2 sensor failure codes. I will work on replacing them again.

To clarify, the issue with the fuel system switching lean only happens when I have tried the 87 Octane and Performance settings. It does not occur with the stock program.

I purchase the original unit from PIE at the All-Ford Nationals in Carlisle, PA last June. The module I have now is a replacement from Superchips due to a shipping error with the original unit.

Thanx
Mike Smith

 

Mike,

Are you sure of the code numbers? I don't show an 1133 or 1153 code.

JMC

 

Basically, any of those series of codes (113X/115X) means the O2's aren't switching. Now what we normally see in that scenario are the classic 1131/1151 (lean with O2's not switching) or 1132/1152 (rich with O2's not switching) that you can see on that CD - but what any of the 113x/1152 codes are saying is that the O2's are not switching - they have failed a switching time test, basically. And no, you won't see that on the CD you have, I know, I don't see it either on that same CD.

Because the 1715 changes *nothing* in closed loop (cruise) regarding A/F's or O2 operation, and this happens only rarely & under 1 specific condition (and having 172K miles), I suspect this is a vehicle problem of some kind, somewhere - O2's (and all 4 should be replaced), and I'd bet $1 there are some nicks in the wiring harness and I have yet to see a truck with just 50K miles not have a nick somewhere in the harness somewhere - whether it's actually causing a problem or not.

Only time will tell....................