use more or less the same program that Superchips does when they build these trucks. It seems odd to me that they choose not to increase power, fuel economy (maybe), and driveability with a minor upgrade at the factory. Is there something I am overlooking?

 

Hi Bumpkin,

Yes, there is more here than meets the eye.

First, from a power standpoint, the factory has to tune these truck engines to run on regular gasoline, 87 octane, as a lot of them would not be sold if their owners were required to use premium gas in stock trim from the factory. Retuning the engine specifically for the use of premium gas is how the Superchip makes most of it's power gains.

Also, the factory uses a soft-shift strategy in their automatic transmission vehicles to make them smoother and thus more appealing to female buyers. Sounds funny, but this is one of the biggest factors in how automakers, and not just Ford by the way, calibrate their automatic transmission shift characteristics, and overall powertrain response. Females are buying more than half of all new vehicles sold in this country (get 'em, ladies!), and they are involved in the purchasing decision over 70% of the time. That means that 3 out of 4 vehicles purchased have a female either making the decision, or being part of the decision making process. (Don't yell at me ladies, this isn't my thinking, my wife likes a good tire-chirping 1-2 upshift!)

For over a decade now, and especially over the past 5-7 years, automakers have been doing many things to make their vehicles feel smoother, and so that the driver can't hear the intake or exhaust, can't feel the transmission shift, etc., it's all about "smoothness," which they feel is a large appealing factor to females. They've also redesigned, resized & repositioned things like seats, seat belts, armrests, etc.

So I guess you could say that it's "market forces" that drive this. And in the case of the F-150, we're talking about the world's #1 selling vehicle, with just under a million of them built for the 2001 model year, so this is one of the vehicles most affected by these factors.

The nice thing is that we have access to the kinds of aftermarket parts we want to personalize our vehicles, making them drive, feel & respond the way *we* want.

 

Mike, I agree with you to a point. What about Lightnings or cobra R's.

 

Thanks for the enlightenment Mike. I knew there must be a good reason. Maybe that is the angle I'll use to get the CFO (my wife) to open up the vault for some superchip money... "Honey, I can't be driving around in a darn WOMEN's truck".

 

Mike, you have the prefect wife though !! She loves Fords and loves to make them go fast !!! What could be better than that ???

These vehicles are for people like us who wish to get there in a hurry and look good at the sametime. I sometimes wish I had a Lightning.

Man, with a comment like that you may be lucky to get a truck next time !!! LOL !!!!!

Have Fun & Keep on Truckin'
Dean

 

Hi Popeye,

You really can't compare a Lightning or a Cobra R, both of which are extremely limited production vehicles and designed *specifically* to be specialty-purpose high performance vehicles, to the F-150 pickup trucks we're discussing in this thread.

Same goes for all the other SVO, SVT & other specialty FoMoCo vehicles that this also does not apply to, such as all of the non-R model Cobras, the Focus SVT, the Contour SVT, etc. However, even the Lightning is plagued by the soft-shift strategy & numerous other of these very same issues. These Lightnings shift very soft from the factory, not much firmer than a regular F-150 in stock trim, and only a little bit firmer at heavy throttle.

Remember, we're not talking about limited production special SVO, SVT or other specialty extremely limited production vehicles here, we're talking about the bread & butter vehicles, various "regular" FoMoCo & other vehicles, like the F-150's, Expeditions, Excursions, Taurus, T-bird, Lincoln, Escort, Escape, Focus, etc. In other words, the day in and day out high volume bread winners that represent 98+% of their production.

I hope that makes it a bit clearer,

 

Hi Bumpkin,

You're very welcome, & good luck with the CFO!

I call my wife our Internal Vice-President of Finance, if she sees your wife is CFO, then I'll be in *real* trouble & have to find a way to promote her even higher!

 

Hi Izzy,

You're right, she's a perfect hot-rodder's wife & I've earned it. My first wife was just the opposite, the proverbial banker's daughter (literally), and thought anyone who drove over the speed limit was an outlaw and probably a criminal too, no kidding. Perhaps that's why I was only married to her for 13 months, and waited over 20 years to get married again!