i ordered my excal and am still pacing around waiting for the ups man. My question is, does a tune make winter driving more difficult? I like to do alot of skiing and thus i do alot of driving when the weather is not the greatest. Has anyone had a tune for a bad winter, and how did you like it?
Thank you
antelope555

 

not sure how a tune would make it more difficult unless your not use to the throttle response by then, i cant believe it would be so responsive that it would cause an more problems in the winter then it does in a rainstorm. good luck man.

 

First, you can’t go wrong with a tune from Mike. It will be safe for winter as far as the motor is concerned (lean conditions).

My personal opinion is horsepower and torque have very little to do with how well any vehicle will handle bad driving conditions, rain and snow etc.

What is most important is the attributes of the vehicle. The most important attribute that will affect how well a vehicle does in bad weather is the type of tires it has. Are they all season or high performance?

Take my 03 Lightning and an 03 F150 4x4. The Lightning comes with performance tires, Goodyear F1’s, they are NOT recommended for snow or rain. The tires that come on a 4x4 are all season and can handle all driving conditions, to a point.

If you swapped tires off my Lightning with a 4x4 that 4x4 isn’t going to do very well at all. The Lightning has more horsepower and torque but with the 4x4 all season tires it would do just fine in bad conditions such as rain and snow and would be able to out drive the 4x4 with the Goodyear F1’s.

It really is all about the proper equipment and driving techniques. I think you will be fine with the proper set of tires and it really has little to do with any tune you may or may not have…

 

Hi Antelope - great question, and an intriguing one.

I did a quick search, didn't find much, but I came up with this post:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...+driving+tunes

Note near the bottom, Mike talks a bit about utilizing the control over torque management he has via his custom tunes...

So - if you are concerned that an agressive 'perf' tune would cause concern in marginal traction conditions ( snow/ice), than this may be an option - ask for a 'winter traction' tune as mentioned in the above post?

That, coupled with the usual common-sense alterations to driving style in winter, should help.

I have noticed my perf tunes do allow more sideways fun in the slippery stuff, but then I wake up and caution takes over. . Beware - the 'polar' moment of inertia (unintended pun) is huge in these trucks ... once you start yawing, it's hard to stop. Ask me how I know....

Cheers!
Vic

 

If the truck is driven carefully like you should in the snow anyway antelope you should be fine. My x-cal 2 has been in for a couple of months now and the only thing that would scare me in the winter is wide open upshifts. I guarantee you that if you let it upshift at full throttle from first to second you WILL end up in the ditch! However under normal driving or easy driving (snow) it shifts like stock so should be no problem. Just my .02

 

I have gone through two winters with my 01 2wd supercrew (daily driver) and have had no problems. I have the factory tech valve body and the truck shifts firm at light throttle but truck is very drivable. I feel it is at it's worst on a rainy day trying to get on to a highway, 1/2 shift at that point can get squirly. But snowy weather driving is great start up and cold driving are same as stock. we had -10 last winter and start up was great.

 

If you are worried about hooking up too quickly off the line and breaking traction, you can put your shift lever at 2 instead of drive. On my truck at least there is quit a bit of difference in how the truck takes off when the shifter is in drive Vs when it is in 2. Maybe it's an anomaly only in mine? But if I start out with the shifter in 2 it seems like the tranny slips or hesitates quite a bit before the truck actually moves. This would allow you to ease into the throttle and not spin the tires as easily on icey roads.

 

All Ford vehicles equiped with an automatic transmittion (to my knowledge) will start off in 2nd if that is the gear you select. This is purposely done for slippery conditions.

 

This is the first Ford I've ever owned that had an auto, so I had no idea they did that. Every other auto I've driven started out in 1st regardless if you had it in drive, 2, 1, unless it had a full manual valve body. I had heard of some cars that had a option for slick roads where you pressed a button and it would start in 2nd for just that reason. I guess I should have read my owners manual, thanks for that bit of info.

 

Hi Antelope,

No, our tuning is not going to cause any changes in your ability to drive the vehicle in inclement weather like snow & ice, etc. You'll notice you don't ever see any such posts here, and we've been tuning F-150's for 14 years that are driven in winter everywhere from Alaska to Europe to you name it - so that is not a concern.

Also, just as the others said, you can start off in "2" and the tranny will stay in 2nd gear all the time - Ford has done that for many years in their vehicles for this very reason.