i have been following the latest threads on the xcal and other chips and was wondering if anyone has heard of one of these causing a transmission to blow or anything else for that matter...i emailed a friend about a certian tuner and his reply was not unless you want to void your warranty! earlier in the day i spoke with another friend at a ford dealership whom i ride motorcycles with and mentioned some of the new toys available and if he is running anything on his f150. he told me he has a truck in his shop now with a blown pcm and tranny. and made it sound like it was not uncommon???? now i am really confused. was ready to take the next step but now a little gun shy. especially after just getting my truck all back the way it is supposed to be after the trailer towing accident in which the truck proved it is indeed built ford tuff! tia

 

Id be willing to bet those problems werent due to the tuner (at least, not due to the stock programs). More likely the user changed settings that were too advanced for the truck to handle, or they flashed it improperly.

 

im with him on this. people need to go to the pros (MT) for their tuning so this stuff doesnt happen

 

Without any knowledge about the truck in the shop, you cannot take any position as to the aftermarket tuner being a cause factor.
Yes there is a possibility that the owner had the ability to change program parameters. There are lines in the program that are identical but the parameters that can be set must not come close or cross over each other with out consequence.
Like anything else we do to an engineered design; you must accept an element of risk if you go outside estabished limits just to see how much you can get from the truck.

 

i asked my friend at the dealership to give more details.....will let you know. i think i would have to agree on the person tuning it etc. have heard nothing but good about mike at troyer etc. i was just curious as to see if it was more widespread then what we hear about....

 

my friend replied....said it was "POWER DOG MUSCLE MAX", from jegs he believes....never heard of it before.

 

Sweet Maxxy Jim. I love the sound of them with the aftermarket pipes. They sound like a V-8 stock car.

 

thanks for the compliment! a blast to drive.

 

This is very simple - and no, it is NOT a matter of doing anything different from what was originally "engineered," that is not engineering, that is a "calibration."

Frankly, the truth is all of the major name brands (save one) do not raise the risk of transmission damage on these F-150's unless the owner does something stupid like raise the shift points as high as possible AND raises the shift pressures as high as possible - which is why we do not allow those kinds of limits to be exceeded in *our* tuning.

Now using any of the "in-line" devices (all they are is fuel adders) on diesel-engine superduty's is an EXCELLENT way to ruin an automatic transmission quickly, which is why we don't use any type of in-line device - they don't' do a thing to properly program the PCM anyway, all they do is trick the PCM into adding more fuel - we don't' do that, instead, we calibrate the tranny properly.

The bottom line is, it's in the knowledge level & skill of whoever is doing the actual tuning, and not once has there ever been one of our customers who lost a transmission, or had transmission damage occur due to our calibrations/tuning - that can easily be seen by the many years of posts here.

I hope that info helps,

 

mike, what do you mean in line fuel adders? you talking about the edge system? something else....?