xCal2 First Impressions
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Joined: Mar 2005
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From: Southeast Iowa
xCal2 First Impressions
Well, after much anticipation, I received my xCal2 on Friday and installed it on Friday night. VERY easy to install!! After driving it about 100 miles this weekend my first impressions are WOW. Off the line it feels a little sluggish but I remember there was a recent previous post stating that it needed time to learn.....which I am hoping it will do. Coasting along at 20 mph or more and flooring it will set you back in your seat!!!!!
One question for those that already have it, about what RPM does it shift out of 2nd and 3rd? I am around 5400 if I keep my foot into it. At times I let off cause I thinks she'll blow!!!
And when it does shift, it shifts harder than stock. Which it probably should, just making sure it is normal.
BTW, I ordered 87 tow, 91 tow and 91 perf. I loaded the 91 perf tune.
Not knowing much about motors, tuning, etc. I am a little overwhelmed about datalogging. I live in SE Iowa and the closest dyno is about 200 miles away. Overall, without getting too detailed, is this fairly easy to do? Has anyone NOT done it and just left the tunes as is?
Lastly, thanks Mike and Anita, you are both very helpful, sell great products and are A#1 in service!!!!
One question for those that already have it, about what RPM does it shift out of 2nd and 3rd? I am around 5400 if I keep my foot into it. At times I let off cause I thinks she'll blow!!!
And when it does shift, it shifts harder than stock. Which it probably should, just making sure it is normal.BTW, I ordered 87 tow, 91 tow and 91 perf. I loaded the 91 perf tune.
Not knowing much about motors, tuning, etc. I am a little overwhelmed about datalogging. I live in SE Iowa and the closest dyno is about 200 miles away. Overall, without getting too detailed, is this fairly easy to do? Has anyone NOT done it and just left the tunes as is?
Lastly, thanks Mike and Anita, you are both very helpful, sell great products and are A#1 in service!!!!
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Joined: Mar 1998
Posts: 13,385
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From: Virginia
Hi tbagr,
A few points...........
First - don't worry about the shift points, they do precisely what they are supposed to when you hold your foot to the floor. Your shift points are perfectly safe, you will *not* hurt anything in that powertrain at those levels, so you do NOT need to pull your foot out of it. Just let it do what it's supposed to do if you actually need to accelerate at wide-open throttle for that long a period of time.
You are simply over-reacting to the fact that the stock factory WOT (wide-open throttle) shift points are so abnormally low that they do not even allow you to get up to the engine's stock advertised peak power in most cases, as it shifts in stock trim in the 4600-4700 rpm range - assuming the truck has an accurate tach, and they usually aren't - they usually indicate a couple hundred rpm high at full-throttle.
Also, remember that nothing short of a positive-displacement supercharger and/or a big gearing change is going to turn that 3+ ton King Ranch into a rocketship at idle (off the line) - that simply is not going to happen with tuning alone, no matter how long you wait. Tuning does not cut your vehicle's power-to-weigh ratio in half, or suddenly force the engine to make 400 JP at 1500 rpm, etc. Your vehicle's power to weight ratio, which stock is about 22:1 and now with our premium gas performance tuning is about 19:1 prevents any such possibility without doing more modifications in a 3.5 ton truck - I'd say your expectations are just too high in that regard.
Remember that when you see posts from guys talking about being able to burn the tires off the line is that there is more than 3000 lb of potential weight difference between the various F-150 configurations, 5 different tire compounds, 3 different gear ratios, and numerous other things that make up a scenario in which some trucks will fry the tires off the line with our tuning, while others, like yours, will not - and let's not forget that you haven't even datalogged your truck yet, so you don't know if your truck is one of the significant percentage of 5.4 3V's that run too lean from the factory!
So you will need to do the datalogging - no custom tuning is completed until the datalogging is done any any needed adjustments are made, *that* is what custom tuning is all about, and how you get the best (and safest) results. So you have to datalog to find out if we need to make adjustments which would correct lean A/F's from the factory and gain further increases in power.
The fact is, it is significantly quicker off the line with our tuning than it is without it - and remember that at 1000 or 1500 rpm, even at full-throttle that engine is making only 80 to maybe 120 HP, and that isn't much to try to move 3+ tons with, especially with the extremely tall gearing that these trucks have - that is why they feel better as you gain more rpms, it's simple physics - up to the power peak, ALL engines make significantly more and more power the higher you wind them.
These are just some general points of course, most of which (like datalogging and not trying to judge by the seat of the pants, etc.) are already covered in detail in our documentation that comes with our tuning - if you'd like to go over any of this in more detail, just give us a call at our number listed below, OK?
Thanks for your post, I'm glad you are enjoying your new Troyer Performance custom tuning & have fun (and remember, do your datalogging, that is a must and is easy to do is you just read & follow our instructions).
By the way - not datalogging is a very bad and short-sighted idea that only results in you taking chances with your engine that you shouldn't - our tuning isn't going to hurt anything, but the problem is that you have no idea if it is running lean from the factory or not, as roughly about 25% of the 5.4 3V's we have seen in stock trim do run lean and thus require significant correction for that via tuning. Only proper datalogging will provide the info to let us know if it is OK or not, so don't shortchange yourself by not datalogging, as there are ways you can do this without a dyno for those who do not have a dyno facility within 100 miles of their ship-to address (and we check that out, so we know if there is a dyno within 100 miles or not, so we can help in that way, too - just FYI.)
Read your docs thoroughly, including the datalogging instructions, and get familiar with using the Live Link software (it's just like using any other software, and you already know how to use software, this does NOT require a mechanic or anyone particularity knowledgeable with our instructions which are written for the first time datalogger!
Call us if you have any questions on how to datalog once you have thoroughly read those docs and fired up the Live Link software, etc., OK? Hang in there, it's easier than you think and remember that we are happy to help you with this!
Have fun,
A few points...........
First - don't worry about the shift points, they do precisely what they are supposed to when you hold your foot to the floor. Your shift points are perfectly safe, you will *not* hurt anything in that powertrain at those levels, so you do NOT need to pull your foot out of it. Just let it do what it's supposed to do if you actually need to accelerate at wide-open throttle for that long a period of time.
You are simply over-reacting to the fact that the stock factory WOT (wide-open throttle) shift points are so abnormally low that they do not even allow you to get up to the engine's stock advertised peak power in most cases, as it shifts in stock trim in the 4600-4700 rpm range - assuming the truck has an accurate tach, and they usually aren't - they usually indicate a couple hundred rpm high at full-throttle.
Also, remember that nothing short of a positive-displacement supercharger and/or a big gearing change is going to turn that 3+ ton King Ranch into a rocketship at idle (off the line) - that simply is not going to happen with tuning alone, no matter how long you wait. Tuning does not cut your vehicle's power-to-weigh ratio in half, or suddenly force the engine to make 400 JP at 1500 rpm, etc. Your vehicle's power to weight ratio, which stock is about 22:1 and now with our premium gas performance tuning is about 19:1 prevents any such possibility without doing more modifications in a 3.5 ton truck - I'd say your expectations are just too high in that regard.
Remember that when you see posts from guys talking about being able to burn the tires off the line is that there is more than 3000 lb of potential weight difference between the various F-150 configurations, 5 different tire compounds, 3 different gear ratios, and numerous other things that make up a scenario in which some trucks will fry the tires off the line with our tuning, while others, like yours, will not - and let's not forget that you haven't even datalogged your truck yet, so you don't know if your truck is one of the significant percentage of 5.4 3V's that run too lean from the factory!
So you will need to do the datalogging - no custom tuning is completed until the datalogging is done any any needed adjustments are made, *that* is what custom tuning is all about, and how you get the best (and safest) results. So you have to datalog to find out if we need to make adjustments which would correct lean A/F's from the factory and gain further increases in power.
The fact is, it is significantly quicker off the line with our tuning than it is without it - and remember that at 1000 or 1500 rpm, even at full-throttle that engine is making only 80 to maybe 120 HP, and that isn't much to try to move 3+ tons with, especially with the extremely tall gearing that these trucks have - that is why they feel better as you gain more rpms, it's simple physics - up to the power peak, ALL engines make significantly more and more power the higher you wind them.
These are just some general points of course, most of which (like datalogging and not trying to judge by the seat of the pants, etc.) are already covered in detail in our documentation that comes with our tuning - if you'd like to go over any of this in more detail, just give us a call at our number listed below, OK?
Thanks for your post, I'm glad you are enjoying your new Troyer Performance custom tuning & have fun (and remember, do your datalogging, that is a must and is easy to do is you just read & follow our instructions).
By the way - not datalogging is a very bad and short-sighted idea that only results in you taking chances with your engine that you shouldn't - our tuning isn't going to hurt anything, but the problem is that you have no idea if it is running lean from the factory or not, as roughly about 25% of the 5.4 3V's we have seen in stock trim do run lean and thus require significant correction for that via tuning. Only proper datalogging will provide the info to let us know if it is OK or not, so don't shortchange yourself by not datalogging, as there are ways you can do this without a dyno for those who do not have a dyno facility within 100 miles of their ship-to address (and we check that out, so we know if there is a dyno within 100 miles or not, so we can help in that way, too - just FYI.)
Read your docs thoroughly, including the datalogging instructions, and get familiar with using the Live Link software (it's just like using any other software, and you already know how to use software, this does NOT require a mechanic or anyone particularity knowledgeable with our instructions which are written for the first time datalogger!
Call us if you have any questions on how to datalog once you have thoroughly read those docs and fired up the Live Link software, etc., OK? Hang in there, it's easier than you think and remember that we are happy to help you with this!
Have fun,