The Gatorback is the resolution to the belt squeal... it's that simple.

As for shift firmness... after a period of time, you may notice that it backs off a tad because of the adaptive kicking in but, that will be something that you'll probably notice as long as you're running that tune... Sorry that you're disappointed...

 

DesertOasis - How much will TP charge you for having them put their tune on your xcal2?

 

Hi Desertoasis,

I'm glad to hear we are going to take care of this for you.

This most likely was an issue of a Mustang-oriented tuner, and I'm sure he probably meant well. He may be a *great* Mustang tuner, but that does not do you much good with these trucks - that's just the truth of the matter, and we get a lot of referrals from Mustang tuners who do not know these vehicles, and prefer to stick with what they know, which is perfectly acceptable and professional.

Actually, we have more problems having to fix tunes from other so-called "F-150 tuners" than we have from other Mustang oriented tuners, truth be told.

Just as an aside, and this is a worst-case scenario I must say up front, we have a truck here right now that a "Mustang" shop literally ruined the engine in because of their lack of knowledge of F-150 tuning (and caused the need for a lot of other repairs & re-working due to some rather poor workmanship in general) - they did a very poor installation of a supercharger and an even worse job tuning it, leaving it running constant 1132 & 1152 codes, as well as a 1299 code - in a 1997 model, no less! The poor blower install took out the cylinder heads from superheated air (you'd have to see to understand it), and the poor tuning resulted in constant 8:1 A/F's and no closed loop operation took out the piston rings. Combined, this resulted in a *extremely* expensive repair bill for one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, he's right here on these boards - so now we just dropped a 1000 HP-capable motor into his truck and are in the process of getting it finished up. I mention this only because it just recently happened, and the piston rings were ruined specifically by a lack of knowledge of tuning the F-150 engines.

(And by the way, I do NOT mean to "knock" so called Mustang-oriented tuners - there are some great ones out there and there have even been a couple over the years that I have gotten some advice from!)

It takes us many adjustments in *many* separate parameters to end up with a shift characteristic that is appropriate for these trucks, especially as we get into the newer vehicles - and even with us, it took a good deal of R&D to get to where we were happy with the various levels of firmness that we offer.

So I do tend to agree that it all gets down to individual vehicle platform-specific knowledge & experience, assuming we have a competent tuner to begin with - tuning these trucks is NOT like tuning anything else.

The bottom line is, this should be easy to take care of assuming a basically healthy vehicle, and I'm sure we'll be able to get this take care of for you so that you can enjoy your truck properly - thanks for your post!

Oh PS - before I forget - having the belt squeal is common in these trucks, it can happen even without a tune - there is an easy way to take care of that, and that is simply to change over your serpentine belt to a Goodyear Gatorback belt - we carry them in stock if you like, we discount them heavily and can easily add that to your order and that will *instantly* stop your belt squeal. We find this happens commonly with tuned trucks, as at full-throttle you have more power and a quicker shift, and that tends to make the cheap factory belts slip on the various pulleys & idlers, so there is a simple cure for that - in fact, we recommend every F-150 owner changing over to a Gatorback belt - just FYI.