Thanks for any replies in advance.

Lately I have been tossing around the idea of getting a tuner. I have an 06 5.4 4x4. Upon browsing this forum I have one major concern.

According to some posts I have read it seems one would want to take care of any maintenance issues as far as the engine and drivetrain before running a tuner on the truck. Since I have had the truck for about a year and a half I have noticed that every now and then the truck will just shut down. Dont really notice it until you go to step on the throttle again and nothing happens. I get no lights or error codes. All i have had to do is pull the truck over, cycle it once and starts right back up like nothing happened. This has happened me 3-4 time since ive had the truck. Also, I have a SI/SO exhaust with a cherry bomb style muffler. Once I did the exhaust i noticed the truck starting to "stumble" during WOT. It doesnt do it every time. %50 of the time it will do it when im WOT. I have searched the forum for threads of people with the same symptoms. Sounds like there isnt a specific issue that causes this symptoms. Could be any one of, or a combination of, mulitple issues. Most of the time though the truck runs great. Idle is not rough. Seems to shift ok. No problems for the most part except for these few.

The truck has 59K on it. I do not have any mods other than exhaust. No Gotts or air intake. I have cleaned the MAF recently as well as changed the fuel filter during the last oil change. I use the motorcraft oil filter. I have not changed the plugs and as far as I can tell it still has the original COPs and plugs.

Now for my question...

Do these problems sound severe enough that I need to get them checked and fixed before getting a tuner?

Has anyone ran a tuner that had the truck just shut down before? (Mine actually hasnt done it in a long time.)

Should I do a plug change and COPs before i get the tuner?

 

At 59k it wouldn't be a bad idea to do the plugs. Ford is currently recommending 60k plug changes on the 5.4 3V. The cops should be fine. You may want to remove and clean the throttle body.

 

I havent been looking forward to replacing the plugs. Still debating on whether to take it somewhere or just do it myself. I really prefer to do any work i can myself. After reading some of the stories on here I was not looking forward to paying out the nose to change the plugs. Have a feeling im just going to order the lisle tool and go for it.

The thing that scares me is the whole truck shutting down out of nowhere issue. I wonder if the tuner might exacerbate the problem.

 

One thing that will cause the dieing and no throttle until it resets is a dirty throttle body. Clean the throttle body and MAF while you are at it.

 

Sounds like a dirty TB.....try cleaning it....

 

Sounds like i will have a project for the weekend. Looks like I will be cleaning the TB and changing the plugs. Hopefully the plugs wont be a pain. I appreciate the input from everyone.

 

I recently ordered a gryphon cs with 3 custom tunes and am expecting to have it by the end of the week. I have tranny flush and replace fluid, oil and filter change, and fuel filter replacement scheduled with my dealership for saturday. Also have the plugs scheduled to be changed next week with a local shop that I trust MUCH more than ford to do the plug change. As tough as it may be,i plan to hold off on installing my tuner until all that work gets done. This way I know my truck will be running at it's best before I install my programer. And I also don't have to worry about sending my HEX code into php for my custom tunes only to have ford reflash my pcm.

 

May I suggest you also change the O2 sensors while you are at it.