I have a 2002 F-150 4.6 and I am fixing to buy a Superchips programmer for it. My question is can you get these that will deliver different amounts of horsepower. I have seen programmers that give only about 15 to 25 horses, not really worth $300 to $400. I am looking for something that gives up to 80 to 100 horsepower. Is their such a thing, and if so what brand and model? Thanks.

 

call mike at troyer performance

 

There is NO tuner made that will give the increase (80-100) that you mentioned. Most will gain you 10-35hp, but with additional items such as intakes and exhaust you can gain 40+ at the wheels....

 

If tuners give so little horsepower, why such a large price. and why all the fuss about em, I know they do other stuff too, but come on 300 400 500 dollars for no more than 15 to 30 horsepower. Some cold air intakes can give you the same as that, maybe a little more. And more for less money.

 

Most of the intakes out there that claim 30 hp you will be LUCKY to see 10-15 to the wheels a tuner gives much better driveability as well as the extra power and fuel economy

 

Cold air intakes will give you about 10-15 hp tops and a good one such as an Air force 1 or an Airaid will run you 3 bills or more. Any one who claims thier intake gives gives 30 hp or more is full of s**t, it's not possible for an intake alone to give that much. There is one that claims 35 hp, but if you check it out, you have to run a custom tune with it to get that 35 hp. How much comes from the intake alone, maybe 15, the rest is from the tune.

 

Tuners, canned or custom can do a lot more than give you 20 hp. They can improve shift timing and firmness, improve the sloppy throttle response, correct the speedo for gear and/or tire size changes, etc. Most of the 04-up 3v 5.4's put about 200 to the wheels, Ford claims 300 at the flywheel, that's a 33% driveline loss, and with a tuner it is like you reduced the losses to a more reasonable level ( kinda like freeing up what ford purposly castrated with their factory tune). Ever wonder why an 05-up mustang with a 4.6 3v that is also rated at 300 hp puts down 260-265 at the wheels with a 5 speed and 245-250 with an auto, and our trucks only put down 200? The most logical reason is the tuning. My advice, get a tuner first then get whatever else you want,you won't be dissapointed.

 

tuning to a point- the trans and on 4x4's the transfer case is where the loss comes from

 

True to a point, the auto stangs are around 250 and their tranny is almost identical to ours, and even 2wd 5.4's are not putting down much more than a 4x4. The highest Mike has ever seen on any 3v 5.4 stock was 219 hp 2 or 4 wheel drive (his words not mine). I just think that most of the so called loss is from fords lousy tune.

 

I think you're thinking about tuners for disiels. They can net over 100 hp but gas engines are a different beast. Think about it this way, I bought my Edge for $330 which nets me 35 hp at the crank which is $9.42 per hp. A supercharger is around $5,000-6000 and will give you about 140 hp which equals around $40 per hp. I'd say its a damn good deal.

PS: Expect about a 27% drivetrain loss from a 4WD F150 with the 4-speed automatic.

 

Hi F-150SuperTruck,

I'm afraid you are in the same boat as a lot of people, looking at ads but not having any real world experience modifying these vehicles - and that's OK, but there's a lot you need to know that is VASTLY different from what you think right now.

For example - No, there is NOT any intake kit that will get you anywhere near that kind of power gain on your 4.6 truck - now in the newer 5.4 3V trucks, there are areas in the power curve down in the lower rpm ranges where the 3.5" version of the Air Force One gets those kinds of gains (meaning 20-30 HP), but nobody makes that much more PEAK HP just from an intake kit - nobody. We test them all, and *nobody* makes that kind of peak power gains - and yes, we are familiar with a certain manufacturer's ads that claim a 35 Hp gain for their intake kit for the 5.4 3V F-150 (which comes only in 2004 & newer F-150's), but it's not even remotely true - that gain is not only not seen in our testing, but also includes tuning that someone else did for them.

Remember that manufacturers claim all kinds of things, but when it gets down to the real world, life is much different - you aren't going to gain 30 HP for $100 or $200 - that has never happened and never will happen on these vehicles.

Getting the kinds of performance gains that you get from PROPER and thorough in-depth tuning like ours is by far the single best bang for the buck performance enhancement you can make to that vehicle - period. There is nothing else that is going to give you a better bang for the buck value in performance modifications than our Troyer Performance custom tuning, as we have specialized in these trucks for 15+ years.

Then the next best bang for the buck mod for your truck would be the Air Force One intake kit, followed by a top-notch cat-back exhaust system - that is the basic order of bang for the buck for the Top 3 mods, just to let you know.

This is just some brief info for you, and I hope it helps your understanding a bit better - please feel free to call us at our number listed below if you;d like to go over this in more detail, and find out what we can do in the real world for your truck, what the best mods are, what order to do them in based on whatever you are trying to achieve & how you use your vehicle, etc - that is what we do, we are F-150 performance experts, and we're happy to help.

Thanks for your post, & we hope to hear from you!