Tuners...

[derjack]

Has anybody used Tuners on their vans ? I've talked to a few people and they have said a tune on the 5.3 motor would be so beneficial. Has anybody had any experience with tuning their van ?


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There are almost no parameters you can electrically configure on a natural aspirated engine, especially gas. Nobody want´s to hear that, but it's true.
Totally different on a turbo engine.

Save your money for something else. Get a different cam or gearing or tranny tune or...

A gas engine needs exactly 14.7:1 air to gas and a specific ignition point, depending on gas quality mostly - which is pretty bad in the US. You cannot get any benefits from changing these parameters! It will get worse instead.

 

[pugslyyy]

There are almost no parameters you can electrically configure on a natural aspirated engine, especially gas. Nobody will wants to hear that, but it's thrue.
Totally different on a turbo engine.

Save your money on a tune. Get a different cam or gearing or tranny tune or...

A gas engine needs exactly 14.7:1 air to gas and a specific ignition point, depending on gas quality mostly - which is pretty bad in the US. You cannot get any benefits from changing these parameters! It will get worse instead.

Agreed. For gassers about the only thing that really works is a cat delete with a tune to take advantage of that, but from what I've seen the benefits are still pretty small (and you have the whole violation of Federal law thing).

 

[stormlover]

I'm having some trouble getting the tunes to take on my 2010 6.0. Jody has tried a couple of things and yesterday kicked it upstairs to SCT tech support. They downloaded some stuff from my X4 and I'm waiting to hear back from them.

Did you try returning to the stock strategy before loading the new tune? I had to do that with the SRL tune from Gearhead. Never really could get the tune to work right wrt transmission shifting. You might also need to bump up the REV limiter. Anyhow, good customer support from SCT. When I had to reload the software to even get the device to load a tune they were quite helpful. That turned out to be a windows compatibility issue.

 

[pugslyyy]

Did you try returning to the stock strategy before loading the new tune? I had to do that with the SRL tune from Gearhead. Never really could get the tune to work right wrt transmission shifting. You might also need to bump up the REV limiter. Anyhow, good customer support from SCT. When I had to reload the software to even get the device to load a tune they were quite helpful. That turned out to be a windows compatibility issue.

Yes, returning to stock didn't make any difference.

Jody was seeing an issue with tuning my tear tag (BDZ7) because it didn't give him the options he was expecting, and they were available on the previous one (BDZ6, which was 2008 model year), so we don't know if it is an issue with the tuning software or something else.

We tried a BDZ6 tune but that didn't make any difference either. I'm prepared to take it to the dealership and get the ECM reflashed if need be, but waiting to hear back from SCT.

 

[stormlover]

Yes, returning to stock didn't make any difference.

Jody was seeing an issue with tuning my tear tag (BDZ7) because it didn't give him the options he was expecting, and they were available on the previous one (BDZ6, which was 2008 model year), so we don't know if it is an issue with the tuning software or something else.

We tried a BDZ6 tune but that didn't make any difference either. I'm prepared to take it to the dealership and get the ECM reflashed if need be, but waiting to hear back from SCT.

BDZ7 is the PCM code? There should be a sticker on the PCM and whatever is on that label let's the tuner know what hardware is inside the computer. In my case, on a 2005 the PCM code is UGB4. My base strategy was VXCF9A4. This is the base calibration that is modified by the tuner. Some tuners believe the 6.0 ran better on an older strategy so they will do a rollback to an earlier strategy like the VXCF4. ONe reason is the older calibrations utilize the exhaust back pressure (EBP) reading to more accurately control the VGT. More recent strategies like the VXCF7 and VXCF9 control the turbo by using an "inferred EBP" reading, meaning the PCM is calculating the EBP based off several attributes.

The earlier strategies apparently have more HP and better mileage. But because Ford upped the HP on the trucks in order to compete with the newer cummins and duramax they had issues right? Blown head gaskets among other things so the more recent strategies were fixes that reduce HP and other issues but performance suffered. That's why most tuners do a rollback of some sort to an older strategy or at the very least tweak things in the stock strategy that make it a bad format.

Anyhow, my point in all this is many of these tuners don't know the vans very well and PCM codes and strategies were even more screwy than on the trucks. I've tried tunes now fro 4 different reputable tuners and two of them botched the rollback not knowing or forgetting it was an e series and the body control module wasn't responding. Things like the odometer, speedometer, or cruise control wouldn't work. The computer thought it was running an F series pickup. They are also more than likely to base the fueling off tables intended for the truck rather than a van so you could end up with more HP than you think you're getting. It pays to be knowledgeable about this stuff when you start messing with tunes and your van's computer. My 2 cents. Sorry for the long-winded treatise but maybe it will help someone.

 

[fire_strom]

Do any of the tuner boxes like the Bullydog give manual control of the transmission? That seems to be the biggest performance limiter on my '13 5.3l Express, especially while towing my light trailer.
-G