Tell me I'm Crazy
 

Hi,
I had a mechanic tell me to get more power out of my truck, 98' 4.6 XLT 4x2 I could fill it with supreme gas and then unhook the battery for about 15 minutes or so and then hook it back up. He said to start the truck and for the first 10 minutes or so pump the gas pedal like your revving the motor and then let it idle for about 10 minutes and the truck will relearn the timing curve and mixture settings for the higher octane gas. Well I tried this out of complete boredom and it seems to have made some difference!! The throttle responce seems to be better and the acceleration is stronger. Could this be true.......? I forgot and put in regular gas the next time and the truck pinged so bad it sounded like you were running over a bag of Ruffles. Does this motor relearn all its settings when the battery is unhooked then rehooked up? Somebody let me know cause if thats the case I'll put 105 octane racing gas in it and see what that'll do:D :D

YOU'RE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your truck has a computer that is very smart. What it does is it learns your driving style and adjusts to it. If you drive arressively all the time or right after you reset your computer then you'll find your truck is more responsive but the gas milage goes way down. If you always baby your truck then you''ll find that if you do push right off the line it hesitates for a monent.

I have a '97 4.2L that I drive very conservatively and average about 22 mpg. If I let my brother borrow it I find that when I get back in I can spin the tires even with my 3.08 gears but the gas milage has gone way down. (I checked one day after he brought it back and he was only getting 10 mpg).

Your computer takes about 10 minutes to relearn it's settings. If you drive hard all the time your truck will feel stronger but if you take it easy for too long then you're going to think something's wrong with it when you really step on the gas. You'll wonder where the power went.

If you want a real responsive engine, get the "Superchip". Just resetting the computer and reving the engine won't advance the timing but the Superchip will.


Also; if you put that 105 octane in your truck it'll be dead in about 5 minutes. Your engines 9.0:1 compression ratio won't be able to burn it correctly.