Hey guys,

Dropped the truck off at my shop to have the kenne-bell blower installed. The KB comes with a chip which is what i am gonna use for the beginning. the shop that is doing the work(Same shop that BTB Ford uses) hates superchip and he is gonna dyno my truck with and without the chip. i will give you the real real wheel numbers within a few days.

 

wow, did they say why they hate the superchip so much?

 

Hey ScottyBones,

Just wanted to throw a coupla comments your way, but even moreso for others that may come along and read that post.............

Inferring or assuming that whatever power gains you see from the initial baseline program for that particular supercharger setup are even remotely relevant to what anyone else gets from whatever program they happen to have in their particular Superchip for whatever modifications they may or may not have, including BTB, really couldn't be more incorrect. That seems to be your intention, based on the title of this thread you have posted, so you need to know that is not accurate.

Whatever additional power gains you do or do not see from that initial program for your supercharged application, which will not yet have been adjusted or fine-tuned based on the dyno data as it has to be, have absolutely nothing to do with what anyone else will ever see from any other Superchip, it is only relevant to *your* highly customized supercharged setup.

In any custom supercharged application it is not the *primary* purpose of a chip to make significant additional power gains, though that virtually always is accomplished as one of the final results of correct tuning. The primary role of a chip in any highly customized powertrain is to properly **tune and calibrate the powertrain for it's modifications**, first and foremost. If additional power is made as part of that process (which we almost always do), that is really just a byproduct of that tuning process, in other words. How much additional power is made is a function of just how far off the tuning was to begin with for the vehicle's present mechanical configuration.

The way your post can be perceived (beyond directly inferring something obviously negative about Superchips with the "hate Superchips" comment), is that whatever gains you do or do not see are supposed to be relevant to anyone else, which is of course dead wrong.

It can also be construed as meaning if you don't see big power gains, that is somehow supposed to infer something negative about Superchips, or that it somehow reflects on Superchips abilities, and that too is wrong.

The Superchip is there to properly tune for the modifications in a custom situation, and in such a highly customized application as supercharging, for example, any additional power gains made by the Superchip are strictly relative to just how well the **supercharger kit itself** is actually configured for that exact vehicle, combined with the net effect of any other modifications you may have made on tuning. In other words, just how far off the tuning is to begin with is the primary determing factor in the potential for additional power gains from a custom powertrain program/tune. For example, just what the resultant Air/Fuel ratios are, just for one point. The better the supercharger kit is set up for each specific vehicle, the less power gain from custom tuning; now in reality, here at Performance we have seen nice additional power gains on every F-150 that has added a supercharger that we have provided the tuning for and has been dubjected to properly controlled dyno testing for an accurate before & after result.

The bottom line is, the potential for additional power gains from the Superchip in an F-150 that has had a supercharger installed is a matter of primarily just how well that supercharger kit is configured for the vehicle and how far off the resultant A/F ratios are, *not* what Superchips' skills are or a reflection of what they can or cannot do.

It's a matter of simply proper tuning for the vehicle's configuration, fuel quality and use, so the futher off the tuning is to begin with as a result of installing any supercharger (or any other modifications that affect tuning), the more potential for additional power gains via custom powertrain programming/tuning, *that's* the real point.

The kinds of power gains we usually see from custom tuning for most out-of-the-box supercharger kits are usually larger than what anyone just putting a standard Superchip on their stock to lightly modified F-150 will see, and that too means nothing with regard to any other custom Superchip program for any other supercharged application in any other vehicle. Again, it's a matter of properly tuning each individual vehicle.

This next point you are obviously well aware of from your post, so this is just for those others reading this...........It is a mistake to expect the baseline, or initial program in a highly custom situation like this to be the final finished program, as it's very common to need to do adjustments & changes to fine-tune each individual vehicle for it's own quirks, exactly modifications, location (inlcuding elevation) and fuel quality. Custom means exactly that *custom*, and all that comes with that, which includes the need for fine-tuning adjustments based on dyno & other data is generally required for any supercharged application.

I don't personally know what the current program BTB has actually is, as we did not provide it so obviously we don't know anything about it, other than he has some issues. We have never had any such problem as BTB is currently having with any custom supercharger program of ours, and we have provided the custom tuning for more late-model F-150's that have had superchargers added than any other company we're aware of.

The primary role of any chip in a highly modified & custom situation such as adding a supercharger, nitrous, etc., is to **properly and safely tune the powertrain,** set proper Air/Fuel ratios, etc., so that the motor is running healthy, strong and safe. As a byproduct of that process, we do indeed usually pick up nice power gains with just about any supercharger kit out there. Most of the supercharger kits as installed "out of the box" do not actually do anything to tune the engine, they generally just provide supplemental fuel delivery via an FMU/FRU, and either upgrade the fuel pump (preferred) use a boost-a-pump arrangement like Kenne Bell does. So they are generally not achieving optimal tuning, most are way too rich in most places with a lean spot in one area in these mod-motor'd F-150's, unless very specific custom tuning is done. Which is exactly why many of the supercharger companies themselves come directly to Superchips for the tuning R&D on their kits, and some go so far as to *include* the Superchip with their kit. However, even with that being the case, fine-tuning should always be done based on dyno & A/F data for each individual vehicle in any case where a supercharger has been added, and in some other instances as well, in anything that is highly modified.

I don't know if you have talked to BTB in the last 16-18 hours (from the time of this post, 2pm Tuesday), but if not, you might want to talk with him about the latest developments.

Best of luck with your supercharger installation!

 

Mike,

I am not even going to read all that you typed, but you need to relax.


I love my superchip and i always have. I bought the damn thing from you.

My posts was that the shop that is Installing the Supercharger is going to do a baseline on my truck with the stock burn superchip i bought from you. then they are going to yank the chip and run it without any chip. that will then give me the rwhp that the stock chip i bought from you really give the customers.

I do not have a 'custom' superchip, i emailed you a few weeks back and i got a sort of negative email from you about my questions. i was really not happy but that is beside the point. I really think you need to understand that just because the shop that BTB and myself use does not like superchips does not mean that i do not like it either.

I do not know why you read so far into my short post but all i said is that i will have real dyno numbers on my stock burn superchip i bought from you.

take it easy mike

Scott

 

BOY!! I can't wait for the next smoking key-board post-- This is better then day time soaps.
JUST KIDDING

 

I meant nothing negative toward mike, i like mike a lot and he knows his stuff better than anybody i have ever met, my slight discomfort with mike came when in a email i told him my situation and i told him i needed the chip burned right.

Quote:
"i want you guys to do the reburn as long as you can do it. I will not have it reburned unless i know you guys can do this properly. I have full faith with superchip but not many people do this and i want it done right, the first time. "


Mike's Responce:
"So to insist that it "be right the first time" is a clear indication that somebody doesn't understand anything about custom powertrain programming/tuning."

This may have been taken out of context, but it made me feel like he was saying that i am completly ignorant to anything that has to do with performance.

Now with the real business at hand.

My truck was dynoed last night to see what the baseline is before the blower goes on. i had them do 4 passes.
-one with the superchip on and the AC off(i have the feeling that my AC does not turn off under WOT)
-one withe the superchip on but with the AC on
-one with the superchip out and AC off
-one with the superchip out and the AC on

here is what i got:
-Superchip/No AC -Max Power 212.8 rwhp/293.4 ft/lbs
-Superchip/AC On- Max Power 197.8 rwhp/270.3 ft/lbs
-No Superchip/No AC -Max power 208.7rwhp/283.4 ft/lbs
-No Superchip/AC On-Max power 196.9 rwhp/264.8 ft/lbs

so at peak hp the superchip gave me 4.1 rwhp/10 ft/lbs now add about 25% for the drivetrain loss and it is 5.125 flywheel hp/12.5 ft/lbs of torque.

But for superchips sake at around 3200 rpm i got about 12 rwhp/20 ft/lbs which is about 15 flywheel hp and 25 ft/lbs.

but these numbers do not tell the entire superchip story, the superchip gave me about 2 mpg higher and the tranny shifts were so much better. even though i only got 4 rwhp with the superchip it is still worth every penny.

Mike, if you are still interested in working with me on a custom chip i would love to call you and find out what dyno numbers you need from me when the blower is on the truck so that you guys can burn me a custom superchip.

let me know,
Scott

PS- i want everybody to know that i am not doing this to make superchip look bad in anyway, the numbers they claim are pretty close to what i got, which is much better than most performance mods.

 

Thanks for posting the data Scotty.
Nice to see some real world numbers.

Can someone explain this:

* Superchip/AC On- Max Power 197.8 rwhp/270.3 ft/lbs
* No Superchip/AC On-Max power 196.9 rwhp/264.8 ft/lbs

Why is it that with the AC on, there is hardly any change with chip in and chip out?

Anyone?
Really curious about this.

Thanks in advance
Habibi

 

ScottyBones, first of all I would like to say THANKS for sharing this info on your dyno runs. But one thing I was wondering is have you had your ride dynoed with NO MODS. Maybe I am a little too optimistic but I figured that with all of your exhaust and intake mods you would have had a little more horsepower and torque than what you had. Just curious!

 

Ok scotty I have one question for ya....

first off the superchip in question was it programmed for the super charger or just your expedition with no supercharger???

because to get accurate number you will have to have a custom burn for your mod ie boost, fuel pressure,injector sizes,headers,h pipe after market air mass sensor....

Superchips are programmed to each vehicle with the different computer codes. So give Superchips a chance..

Give Mike A call he will be able to help with the custom programming.after you get your custom chip for your mods. Then have it dynoed and then give us the numbers.....

 

MBTech,

Why is this so difficult for you. i have stated before that the program is for my stock expedition. THERE IS NO CUSTOM PROGRAM WITH MY CHIP. I did not have the supercharger in yet. The shop ran a baseline of my truck before they installed the supercharger so they have real numbers BEFORE AND AFTER the supercharger, these are the BEFORE numbers. I ordered the chip after all my mods and Mike said that i do not need a custom burn for only having headers, air raid, and catback, NO SUPERCHARGER. my program is for my truck which is a ZUT4 code. IT IS A OFF THE SHELF SUPERCHIP FOR A STOCK EXPEDITION!!!!!!

What are you talking about give them a chance???? I never said they did not have a chance.

 

I am sorry scotty I mis read the post I thought you put a stock superchip on a truck that had a supercharger so what you are saying is

You ran the truck stock without the supercharger installed with the correct superchip.

Thanks Scotty for clearing it up

MBTECH

 

I too thank you for posting your results.
It's seems pretty close to me.
I have seen a chart that breaks down the gains
in 100rpm increments. There were only two
points that there was a slight loss, I think it
was 2hp. At every other rpm there was an
increase. As little as 1hp and as much as 6hp
(I think?). I would say that the average was
about 4hp. I someone thinks they can do better
than that for a few hundred bucks, let me know how!
ScottyBones, you will see for your self that even a
supercharger wont make you feel like you have too
much power. Thats what I want, too much power,
so I can do what I want without reaching the limit.
If I can make things work the way I would like them
to, I'll supercharge a crate motor. It's a bit more that a few hundred bucks to do that but then, you get what you pay for.
I believe that the Superchip delivers the best gain per dollar
out there. I also would not run my supercharged 4.6
without the Superchip!

 

Hi ScottyBones,

Thanks very much for your detailed post, and particularly for clarifying. While I'm at it, for those who just can't wait to see the next post because they think it's going to be heated, or a war, or some kind of soap opera kinda deal, you'll be sorely disappointed, as Scotty & I are simply trying to communicate with each other. There is no animosity here at all, it's just "2 dudes" trying to understand each other typing words back and forth on a screen, when you get right down to it.

I guess that's one of the inherent problems in the written word sometimes, and people who have been here any length of time have heard me say that before. I confess it certainly limits my understanding and my ability to explain sometimes, as perspective is *everything*, yet we have to respond most of the time before we get a chance to actually speak to that person. My apologies if my response seemed off, but that really was not the intent or tone as I saw it then, or as I see it now in going back and reading over it, but then, thats just my prespective. Again, only I know what's going thru my mind and what my actual thoughts are as I write, same as when you or anyone else posts.

With regard to our response to you in email, I of course don't remember many individual email responses, as we get far too many every day for me to remember many of them, but just to let you know in general on the chance that the following was the issue, and for others reading this post........................................

Anytime someone sends us a lengthy email, or one that has a number of questions, or anything that is detailed or that requires more than just a few sentences to answer properly and thoroughly explain, that can rarely be done in email these days. So we'll generally provide a short response, and ask the person to give us a call to go over everything properly. The reality is, we get many emails every day, and almost every one of them wants and needs information & answers (of course!) that really require a detailed reply to answer properly, correctly & thoroughly; it's just the nature of the beast. As much as I'd like to be able to do that for each and every email we get, that just is not possible, so all we can do is to try and explain, and hope that everyone understands. I don't know if that was the source of your issue with whatever was in our email response to you that you are referring to, this is just the most common issue that comes up, so I'm just going over that a bit.............we can talk about that off the boards as well.

OK, enough of all that...............

The results you posted are typical of what we see on most inertia dyno's, in that usually the *peak* gain numbers are almost always abnormally low. Yours also shows higher gains at other points than what we normally see on a Dynojet plot, interestingly.

Dyno's are thought of by most people as these mythical dead-nuts perfectly accurate machines, when they are far from it. One of the things that hurts even more in the case of an automatic transmission vehicle is the fact that they have to take it up in 3rd gear to a point at which it cannot downshift into 2nd gear when the throttle is nailed to begin the pull, so as a consequence of that, we usually don't see any numbers below about 3000 rpm or so on most chassis dyno pulls in autoamtics. Because the pull cannot begin until higher rpms, this gives the dyno less time to stabilize, and that can be a problem not only in an inertia dyno, but also with an eddy-current unit.

One thing I see on your plot is that it starts much lower than what most plots do on automatics, which usually don't even start until 3000+ rpm due to needing to get it up fast enough so it won't downshift when you nail it. This leads me to wonder if it was done in 3rd gear, it looks like it might have been done in 2nd gear instead. Looks like the dyno operator was trying to get you the widest possible pull, nice to see. that also tends to lower power numbers once the gearing skew the load factoring is a bit off. All in all, I'd say you're actually making a bit more power than what is shown there, and that's typical.

On Lightnings for example, we generally see that inertia dynos actually read a bit too *high*, as much as 30+ horsepower higher than it should be. This is why we have seen so many stock 1999 & 2000 Lightnings show 330+ horsepower to the rear wheels when in reality, a 360 HP stock Lighting is actually putting about 290 to the rear wheels, they have about a 70 hp loss in that 4R100 driveline when a proper drag-down is done. That has made many Lightning owners claim that the Lightning is underrated from the factory, but in reality is not the case.

Scotty, I thank you for your posts & details, and I hope we have not offended you, as that certainly isn't our intention. What we try to do here is to enlighten and share, and in that process we just respond to what our perception of the words posted is, and obviously, that's not always correct.

Sure, we'll be more than happy to work with you on a custom program/tune for your supercharger upgrade, that's what we do best. Since you are going to be doing a supercharger upgrade, we do need to go over the details of exactly how we do this, what is required and and what gets done when, etc., so we should probably start communicating about this as soon as it is reasonably comfortable for you, I don't know what your actual installation timeframe is at the moment.

Thanks again for your posts & data, we hope to talk with you soon!