F150,

I hear ya!! I'm hoping to keep mine at least another 5-6 years. I have 77k and do 12-15 a year. So I think it's doable. One more year of payments and then hopefully a little play money as well.

Have a good one.

John

 

Hi John,

Oops, looks like I missed a few things in this thread!

Just to respond to your comments/questions about which mods do and do not require custom engine tuning a bit...............

A throttle body doesn't require program changes in these and many other vehicles, and on the subject of headers, it's really more a matter of what kind of header and the other mods to the vehicle as to whether or not it actually goes lean enough to require compensation. However, we can *always* do custom tuning for headers and thereby pick up more power, usually another 5 HP to the wheels. Shorty headers in some cases you can get away with, as you don't have any increase in distance to the O2 sensor like you do in long-tube headers.

Changing the MAF will *always* require custom tuning, and a good ibt of it at that, as it is the primary load signal for the entire powertrain (including automatic transmissions), and can affect not only engine tuning, but also transmission shift characteristics.

Now, with regard to whether it's worth goign to a larger throttle body & MAF, that vaies; they're great parts, and a larger TB is a cheap & easy mod to do that wont' require tuning changes, but teh MAF is a bit different. Its' bang-for-the-buck value is lower, due to the increased cost of the MAF as well as teh custom tuning required for it, so we recommend doing that only after thigns like the intake, exhaust, electric fans & underdrive pulleys.

The MAF enlargement is going to be worth more and more as engine power increases, basically. Dropping an 80mm Granatelli or Pro-M on a stock or close to stock F-150 will get you maybe 5-7 mroe peak hp, but take a 5.4 say, making 315-325 HP, and you can pick up a 10-12 HP gain, and with a supercharger, even larger gains, and more as boost rises.

It all gets down to how "strangled" each type of vehicle is, and in the Fords, most of them aren't strangled in MAF capacity at stock levels, other than the 4.6 DOHC motors in the Mustang Cobra starting in 1996 model year.

Once somebody has done say, a Superchip, an AF1 intake, a Magnaflow cat-back exhaust, electric fans & underdrive pulleys, then it's time to look at things like MAF & TB upgrade, then headers, etc. in terms of the rough bang for the buck order. And at that point in many of these trucks, you're also ready for fuel system upgrades as well.

It's amazing just how much power actually can be added to the 4.6 & 5.4 modular motors before you have to get into things like porting the cylinder heads or a blower. We have Stage 1 thru Stage 5 kits for these F-trucks (including the Expedition, of course), Stage 1 thru Stage 4 are naturally aspirated, and then our Stage 5 kit, which does include a supercharger, has total power gains of 200 HP, without porting the cylinder heads, changing the cams, forged rods, etc. And for those who want to do the bottom end & port the heads, etc., even bigger power numbers are attainable. What's the old saying, you can go just as fast as you want to spend? (or something like that) It only takes money..........

All kidding aside, I hope that information helps clear things up a bit about the mods & custom tuning, etc.

 

Hi polingt,

No problem at all my friend, I just wanted to let you know that, despite how busy I get sometimes as I do spend a *lot* of time on the phone helping people, I'm still very accessible, so if someone needed to leave a message, etc., I'll return the call.

By now it's a mute point as we've already had a chance to speak in detail, I'm just now responding the to the posts in this thread I missed.

By the way, we also got your message you left last night (Thursday evening), and as per your message, we'll wait for your call this afternoon instead of calling you back. Usually we'd call you back right away, but when someone says they'll call us, we wait for them to call so we're not bothering them & coming off like the horsepower peddlers we really are.

Thanks Tim, & talk to you this afternoon!

 

Hi Jay,

The power gains from the 75 mm throttle body will vary based on just how much power the motor is making (just like they do with a larger MAF, basically). In your case, I think you'll be able to see about an 8-10 HP gain roughly, whereas on a bone-stock 4.6 F-150 you'd see about 5 HP, and so on.

In terms of bang for the buck value, the throttle body is not bad at all (though we do recommend that it come after things like Superchip, intake & exhaust), as it's inexpensive and requires no custom tuniung, compared to changing the MAF, which costs more & does require custom tuning.

We do see some "overlap" in the power gains in this particular area (meaning from replacing both MAF & TB), and we replace them both at the same time in our Stage kit upgrade packages (we offer Stage 1 thru Stage 5).

By "overlap" I mean when we change both MAF & TB we generally aren't going to see a total power gain equal to the maximum potential power gain from each part individually, hence my slang term "overlap" with reference to the actual power gains. Where an MAF can be worth as much as 20+ HP in a 4.6 w/a blower, and the throttle body by itself can be worth say, as much as 15+ HP in a supercharged 4.6 F-150, doing both of them on that same engine won't necessarily get you a total power gain of 35+ HP. You probably already know all of that of course, this is just FEI in general..............

Have fun,

 

Mike,

I have a Flip Chip on my F150 but want to throw out something else.

One of my other vehicles is a 2000 Vette. While cruising the Vette forums I noticed that Diablo has come out with a Predator that can be used to tune Vettes and the Vette community is jumping on the bandwagon.

Is your new device the same? Or how does your new device compare to this because I am thinking about "chipping" or "tuning" my Vette.

Thanks

 

Hi F150aGoGo,

Yes, we can of course tune the newer Corvettes, and have been doing in much longer than any of the other "name" chipmakers have. I'm a bit of a Corvette nut myself, having owned 13 of them over the years.

Some of the newer Corvettes require a J-tool to reprogram the PCM (as is used at GM dealerships, for example), to get everything else on that same "network" to quiet down so the PCM can be flashed. There is also quite a bit of variance in what needs to be done in the programs from 2000 to 2001, then late 2001, then in 2002, & so on, and the Z06's even more different.

Give us a call & we can go over all of that with you in detail, & see what will be the case with your particular 2000 Corvette. You'll be well pleased with what the Superchips tuning will do for it.