just bought my new KR and exploring the wealth of information on this site.
when I came across some posts that claimed easy mods that gave 20+ hp it got my attention.
I started to look for mods that would give me the best bang for the buck and then the confusion started to set in.

this is what I mean:
I thought something close to the following order would be the best for me.
ford F150 05 KR with 3 valve 5.4

1. Air Force One Intake Kit
2. XCalibrator 2
from the Superchips "MAX" Micro Tuner (the XCalibrator 2 should be at least as good) 3. Magnaflow Cat-Back Exhaust System
4. Dual Electric Fan Kit
5. Underdrive Pulley Set
now, if I would do just one of these mods with the smallest HP gain and worse case scenario, it would be the underdrive pulley set with 11.8HP

if I would do one mod with the most HP gain and best case scenario, it would be the XCalibrator 2 with 30+ HP gain.

so far so good.

how about doing them all and have the minimum HP gain?
that should be 91.8 HP
and doing them all with the max HP gain should be 103.7HP WOW

if I would buy the Stage 2 Performance Package, which is the 5 mods listed obove
and
that means power gain from 40-65HP
worse case scenario under 3000rpm = 40HP
best case scenario from XCalibrator 2 = 30+ HP

now I'm really confused, first, where did all my HP go when I install all 5 mods, why only 65HP at the most????
and if it only gets me 40HP below 3000rpm, why should I spend all this money? below 3000rpm an Air Force One Intake Kit should give me 25HP and the Underdrive Pulley another 15HP and voilą I saved a hell of a lot of money.

now I need a doctor

 

Xcal2 with Mikes custom tunes loaded in it
Airforce One
Magnaflow cat-back
E-Fans
Under-drive pulleys

Go for it, you won’t be sorry

 

I'm with you man...the numbers game is confusing. What the deal is?

 

You need to understand that all these power gains are NOT cummulative! They put gains in different parts of the power band. Some have a more profound effect on an unmodified engine, some have a more profound effect on a modified engine. You can't just add all the numbers up and expect that to be your total gain. As you modify your engine, the gains become harder to achieve. A good tune with the right mods will give you a good boost in power and driveability, but don't expect to just keep adding up the numbers.

Here is a tongue in cheek example I posted regarding gas mileage:

 

What you need to take into account is that all of those advertised gains are usually off of a base motor. The gains do not usually stack on top of each other like you would think. The best way to truly measure your gains would be to go to a dyno and get a base line number and as you add products go back and do another run to see what you actually gained.

But I will admit it can me misleading.....but that sells products doesnt it?

Edit** Desperado beat me to this but oh well.**

 

Hello Data,

There are some excellent responses here pointing out some very important facts - for example, the AF1 does in fact add 25 HP at the wheels at 3000 rpm - we have done that numerous times - but you will notice that NOWHERE do we say that it adds 25 HP to the engine's in PEAK power. I did just go back and take a look at our separate listing for the AF1 for the 5.4 3V, and it would probably be a good idea for us to explain that a bit more thoroughly as we do in the Airaid kit's description for the 5.4 3V F-150. To be clear, the AF1 does NOT add 25 PEAK HP in that application, nor do we say that - it's increase to the actual *peak* engine power, (no gas engine peaks power at 3000 rpm in these trucks of course) is roughly about 10-12 HP on average. The gain from the AF1 on the 5.4 3V at just 2000 rpm is 20 HP, and at 3000 rpm is 25 HP -

We do NOT inflate power gains - period. If anything, especially in our Stage packages, we UNDERSTATE the power gains, simply because we try to be conservative in those Stage kits. We do not publish some grossly inflated number as we see some dyno shops churn out because it helps to sell product. We don't do that - period. We don't care what a given manufacturer's part does - we test to determine which parts do the best job, and *that* is why people trust us and use us, and is why the trucks we modify generally out-perform vehicles with modifications in the same basic areas but using different parts. We try to state the gains so that they can be recreated by any *reasonable* dyno operator with a dyno that is properly maintained & calibrated, etc.

Just don't get confused with gains in areas "under the curve" with peak gains.

Additionally, on our web site you will in some cases generally see a bit lower gains that what these trucks actually get (especially the 5.4 3V F-150's) listed in our Stage kits section - that is our fault, and I'll explain - we do try to be conservative there, but there is also the fact that some of that was written before we made further advances in areas such as the intake and especially in our custom tuning. For example, we made additional gains on tuning roughly back in the January time frame, and some of that is not reflected in what we have listed there in our Stage kits on our site - For example, where we used to get "only" a 12-15 HP gain on our 87 octane tunes in the 5.4 3V F-150 from December of 2003 until January of this year, over the past 5-6 months we now see a worst gain of about 25 HP, and have seen as much as 37 HP at the wheels on some dynos just from our 87 octane tuning in the 5.4 3V F-150's - though you will never see us advertising a 37 HP gain from our 87 octane tuning. The point being, we do in fact now make double the power gains on our 87 octane tuning alone in the 5.4 3V F-150 compared to what we were getting at the time some of that was written in the Stage kits area - and we make more power gains in our premium gas tuning as well. There's just no way to keep everything number-perfect up to date with every advance we make - our R&D is always ongoing, and always will be - though I'd be the first to say we need to update some of that in our Stage kit areas to reflect those additional peak gains we have been getting for about 5-6 months now, that is absolutely true.

Last - as was also mentioned in other responses, you can't take each individual gain and have it be cumulative like that - anyone with experience modifying vehicles knows that. For example, what usually happens with our Stage 1 kits is you generally see a little bit *larger* power gain from the combination of all 3 of those exact parts compared to adding up what each one does when tested individually - however, usually that effect is just the **opposite**, as others correctly pointed out. Another example is from our electric fans & underdrive pulleys - the power gains from the underdrive pulleys are determined using the STOCK factory fan - so if you install them on a vehicle that already has an electric fan kit, then you will see a few HP LESS gain from those pulleys - same thing happens if you do it in reverse - so you can't take the 2 separate individual gains and say that you should see 35 HP or so from both, it's more like 25 HP at the wheels when doing both of those mods. And so on............

The bottom line is, if you want to know what kind of power gains you can currently expect from a given combination, the thing to do is to give us a call so we can go over that with you specifically, so you get the most accurate picture of what you can generally expect - and we'll try to get the Stage kits area info updated as soon as we can. I hope that info helps you understand this a bit better, & please don't hesitate to call us on any of this, our number is listed just below.

 

you guys are right, but only up to a certain point.
it shouldn't matter what I do to my engine to get HP, parasitic HP drain should be always the same.
no matter what else I did, the fan will use those 14-19HP that I gain with electrics, right?
also the pulleys, again, it's parasitic HP.
now we install the airforce 1 and the muffler, they should give me the same increase, no matter if I have electric fans or not, right?
and last the superchip programs.

I buy the fact that when I work on a highly modified engine with valves, heads etc, that it becomes more and more difficult to add additional HP and the gain will not be that high when the valves get bigger as if nothing would be modified on the engine, but if I hang a hammer on that engine that takes away 20 HP, it should get those 20 HP back when I take the hammer off.
in other words, no matter what, I should have the gain of the parasitic HP no matter what I did with the engine.
this means about 30HP from the fans and pulleys.
and now, the muffler, AF1 and programmer only give me another 10HP combined??????

 

I posted almost at the same time as you, didn't see that post before.

 

Hi Data,

Thanks for pointing that out - and I hope that my response gives you a bit better perspective on this overall. Like I said, you also have a valid point in that some of our info in the Stage kits does not reflect the additional gains we've made since that was originally written as well.

We do everything on our web site in-house - actually I do almost all of that personally, so it's really a matter of how much time I have available - our web site reflects only maybe 2% of what all we do as well - there are *so* many products we offer that aren't even shown there (sigh.......)

We really need about 35 hours in every day, or something.

Take care, & feel free to give us a call to go over anything.