Can anyone tell me if cleaning the board down to the copper will effect the performance of the computer module? The truck has pre ign pulling hills and the exhaust seems to have gotten louder since chip install.
My truck is a 97 150 sc 4x4 4.6l comp.code YSL2 running 93 oct fuel.
Thank you,
Randy

 

Hi Randy,

Welcome to F-150 Online!

Over-cleaning those contacts will not cause detonation; however, it can cause problems like a no-start, or cause the vehicle to stall, etc. if a lot of copper is showing. Copper is a great conductor, but it's soft, so it's protected by the tin coating, which is what gives the contacts that silvery look, and then the clear conformal coating is sprayed over top of that.

Ideally, you only want to remove the clear conformal coating, but sometimes you'll have a little bit of copper being exposed in that process. A little bit of copper around a few edges is not a problem, that's generally ok. It's when you have a significant amount of copper showing that you could have the potential for problems.

It's normal for your exhaust to be a bit louder from the Superchip, that's just from the additional power, it changes the exhaust note a bit, making it a bit more muscular.

However, you should not be getting detonation. We have many customers using that YSL2 code, that's a 1997 4.6 automatic F-150, and it is *not* normal to have detonation. That can be caused by anything from something simple, such as the quality of fuel you are using, to something like EGR, O2 sensor or other maintenance-related issues.

For example, not all 93 octane fuels are the same, there are *huge* differences in fuel quality. Try to stay with brands like Texaco or Amoco, and you may find that Citgo does a good job, it's doing a greeat job here in the Mid-Altantic area. Steer clear of Exxon (very clean but low energy) and any off-brands & no-name sfuels. No Sam's Club or Costco gas, etc.

As long as you have good quality premium gas in that truck, it should never detonate with that Superchip. If it continues to detonate with a good quality fuel like Texaco or Amoco, then get with your vendor, meaning whoever you bought it from, for Tech Support on this. If that was us, then give us a call, if it was someone else, then give them a call, of course. This shouldn't be hard to take care of.

Good luck!

 

Mike if there is a lot of copper showing on the contacts can anything be done about it?
Thanks for the help.

 

Hi carF150,

Yes, you can cover it back up by carefully laying a bead of solder down over the contacts. That needs to be done by someone who is experienced, otherwise you can have a mess and bridge contacts with solder in the wrong place, etc. It's a simple enough job for someone with good soldering experience, it just shouldn't be done by someone without that experience, that's all.

You could try going to a TV/VCR repair shop, CB Radio shop, etc. & have them do that for you, as those kinds of places usually tend to have good technicians that can do that kind of soldering.

Good luck!

 

Thank you for all the help,Went to radio shack today and got a PC board board pen and recoated the copper strips.
Put 100mi on the truck today and everything seems to be working well,the exhaust toned down and the ping seems to have gone away,crossing my fingers for the best.

Randy

 

Hi Randy,

Glad to see you got the copper covered back up, good move.

If the detonation does not come back, then most likely you just needed to put more miles on it to allow the ECU to go thru it's adaptive strategy adjustments & relearn cycle. It's just coincidental that this happened at the same time you covered the copper back up, but it's sure a happy result to have.

Have fun!