The 3.5 has let me down a little bit.

[Vortech347]

Okay, so first before I stay negative things, there are some good things about this SHO I have liked.  The AC seats were nice when I had my fire jacket on.

Went to the track yesterday.  Last time I ran the SHO it was 2017 around the same month.  Temps were around 70* and it was at a night event.  The car ran 13.5@102mph. Yesterday..While in the tech line someone in an Explorer sport came and talked to me.  We chatted a few and it turns out (small world) we used to street race together about 18 years ago.  Funny how we end up in family cars but still haul ass.  Further conversation mentioned having 3 tunes available.  3 bar from xxx and 3 bar from yyy, and a 2 bar from xxx.

First pass of the day, I run a 14.4@96mph.  What in the ever lasting hell.  I even had Torco in the tank to hold off knock a little bit.  He comes back after his first run and was just as thrilled.  His sport was running 15.10@93.  He was like it runs this almost stock!  He ended up changing to all his different tunes and even doing a stock tune.  His times were from 14.98 to 15.3.  My car stayed 14.3-14.4 out of 7 passes.  It would come out 2.1 60's all 7 runs then fall on it's FACE in 3rd gear, down 1-3* of total timing.  Seriously, it felt NA or like my F-150 pulling a trailer.

Our ambient temps started at 98* and ended at around *85.  We only ran until the sun went down.  It was the last test and tune ever for this facility.

It's so frustrating how crippled these engines are in these conditions.  Sitting in the staging lanes the ambient temp getting sucked in was as high as 150*.  With the IC being sandwiched in soaking up the heat there's no hope.  Our track surface is usually around 145*  My buddies RS with front mount ran it's usual 12.5's without breaking a sweat.  It caused nothing but SS envy watching a completely stock 16' with manual trans running 13.20's.

P.S. Our air sucks.  Our calculated density is usually around 7600-8000ft.  Rumor has it a new drag facility will be built within the next 2 years.  Maybe I'll be able to get some more passes in before I move on to another daily driver. 

 

[SHOdded]

Track conditions were just not favorable.  As it is, the needle sweeps visibly slower once you get past 60 mph.  Do you have logs to post?  Your sig only notes a tune, is that correct?  What were all the temps for powertrain fluids looking like and when were they last refreshed?

 

[shoNoff]

I can attest to these cars not making any power in the heat. I ran my car last night in 88 degree air and humidity. The car was struggling to 13.0x @ 105.xx. This is after my retune and downpipe install. I too dumped some torco in and could only get the car to a 12.9x @ 106. My dads ecoboost mustang with a big intercooler was even 3/4mph slower last night. I was fully expecting 108+ last night. Your 60’ seems terribly slow I’m usually in the 1.82-1.84 range but clearly your car wasn’t making any power in that air. So that could kill the 60’ easily being down on power. God 7600 feet hell may as well race on the moon. I’m at sea level here and like I said the heat ate the SHO alive last night. But I also have a front turbo near shitting itself so that could be hurting me as well

 

[TopherSho]

It's not the 3.5,  it's the Taurus engine layout.  Without cooling the intake with METH,  or going E30 (if the fuel pump pressure is 'ok') you are going to see much slower numbers once things get hotter.  Mine would loose as much as .4 tenths at PIR at 105f before i went meth. 

The engine is a stout mofo,  change turbos, HF-cats, 110 octane or meth spray and these engines make north of 700FTlbs easy.

Your 2.1 60' really says you have a elevation problem 1st,  and a tune/heat problem second. 

when i traveled to 4500ft elevation my tune from 200ft absolutely sucked. (not your fault AJP, roadtrip) so my spooling took MUCH longer to occur. 

Here is my thought and 2c.  if you live way up there at 6000+ feet,  you have a double wammy.  your thin on air to start with,  so spooling will be slower but when it gets hot, you go thinner on the air yet.  your engine control will pull butloads of timing to compensate for AFR and SAFETY. 

now one thing i will say,  Torco is a bad idea stop using that.  if you are tuned for 92 octane\93 octane you are tuned for a specific flame front.  adding a bunch of flame retardant will cause your fuel to burn SLOWER and reduce spark>TQ. 

I get adding to prevent knock,  but unless you run 2-3 runs and see +3 or more KNOCK on launch or in the run in multiple places,  you don't need fuel adders messing with your burn rates and slowing you down. 

all in all i think you ran slow because of thin air brought on by elevation AND heat,  and the Torco.

IF it were me,  i'd hit my tuner up for 2 pr three tunes at that elevation

-Under 80f tune
-over 80f tune
-winter tune,  at that elevation you get snow and ice and AWD cant stop 600lbfts TQ trying to kill you.

Regards!

 

[Vortech347]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

 

[TopherSho]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

I would expect limited knock bopping around town, but knock at wide open throttle is an issue.  Do you have a SCT tuner?  Do a safe 0-90 run and log it.  Post it here.  Let's see if you have a tune issue.. or a spark plug fueling issue

 

[FoMoCoSHO]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

Right there is why open element filters are a terrible idea in these cars.

 

[FoMoCoSHO]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

I would expect limited knock bopping around town, but knock at wide open throttle is an issue.  Do you have a SCT tuner?  Do a safe 0-90 run and log it.  Post it here.  Let's see if you have a tune issue.. or a spark plug fueling issue

Why would you think he has a tune issue?

He has a heat/elevation/pump gas issue.

 

[TopherSho]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

I would expect limited knock bopping around town, but knock at wide open throttle is an issue.  Do you have a SCT tuner?  Do a safe 0-90 run and log it.  Post it here.  Let's see if you have a tune issue.. or a spark plug fueling issue

Why would you think he has a tune issue?

He has a heat/elevation/pump gas issue.

If this is a generic tune and it was built under 1000ft and not updated to run at 6000+ ft elevation i would call it a tune issue.  Now.. not a 'omgwtfbbq' was someone thinking issue.. but a out of use range tune issue. 

I'm not dinging anyone's skills, no sir.  But after experiencing my own massive tune degradation at just 4500ft from 200ft ... I can see the possibility the tune is out of breath or element. 

A log would go a long way ..

EDIT: given the elevation tie in to my own observations i have a keen interest in the thread.

 

[FoMoCoSHO]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

I would expect limited knock bopping around town, but knock at wide open throttle is an issue.  Do you have a SCT tuner?  Do a safe 0-90 run and log it.  Post it here.  Let's see if you have a tune issue.. or a spark plug fueling issue

Why would you think he has a tune issue?

He has a heat/elevation/pump gas issue.

If this is a generic tune and it was built under 1000ft and not updated to run at 6000+ ft elevation i would call it a tune issue.  Now.. not a 'omgwtfbbq' was someone thinking issue.. but a out of use range tune issue. 

I'm not dinging anyone's skills, no sir.  But after experiencing my own massive tune degradation at just 4500ft from 200ft ... I can see the possibility the tune is out of breath or element. 

A log would go a long way ..

EDIT: given the elevation tie in to my own observations i have a keen interest in the thread.

Well Brad isn't known for generic tunes.

And yeah, his car can't breathe and its pulling a ton of spark with 170 IAT2

Add in less than optimal fuel and you will see KR...exactly what should happen.

 

[Vortech347]

It's not just the Taurus either.  I have friend's with X Sports and Flexes.  We've all called each other within the past few weeks asking "Does your car stop pulling in 3rd too?"

It's not the tune.  Brad has done all that he can to optimize.  I self tune my other two boosted cars using Advantage III and Binary Editor.  I 100% do not believe in any inadequacy on his end.  I'm running into mechanical restraints of sub part heat rejection and undersized turbo's when asking for more than stock effort.  I've referred him to other friends of mine so he's gathered up quite the experience with this crappy air.

Ford made these things to work "just enough" when they have to work hard to maintain stock power levels at high altitudes.  If you don't live in high elevation you won't get it.  Sub 2000ft when I have this car in Nevada or Cali it's a totally different machine.

FoMoCo.  My numbers given are with a stock airbox.  Fueling is fine.  I have a much lesser demand for fuel because of my altitude.  Correction factor here is around .15-.17.  Meaning my non corrected dyno numbers are 15-17% less than if I were at sea level.  If my fox TRUELY made 570rwhp uncorrected the stock block would be in two nice pieces.

Torco runs fantastic.  I've ran it in several high compression boosted cars with great results.  Our fuel here is 91. 

Also...I know I know...I'm bitching because I'm demanding more than it was "designed" to deal with.  It's probably just that I'm jealous that you SOB's are knocking out 12's on a tune only and I can't even get an effing 13 when it's hot outside.

 

[TopherSho]

Just cruising around in traffic I’m at 3.99 knock. Haha. It’s 100* today. Knock life for the win.  Just idling for 5 minutes while waiting for a client my IAT1 is 145 and IAT2 is 170.

I would expect limited knock bopping around town, but knock at wide open throttle is an issue.  Do you have a SCT tuner?  Do a safe 0-90 run and log it.  Post it here.  Let's see if you have a tune issue.. or a spark plug fueling issue

Why would you think he has a tune issue?

He has a heat/elevation/pump gas issue.

If this is a generic tune and it was built under 1000ft and not updated to run at 6000+ ft elevation i would call it a tune issue.  Now.. not a 'omgwtfbbq' was someone thinking issue.. but a out of use range tune issue. 

I'm not dinging anyone's skills, no sir.  But after experiencing my own massive tune degradation at just 4500ft from 200ft ... I can see the possibility the tune is out of breath or element. 

A log would go a long way ..

EDIT: given the elevation tie in to my own observations i have a keen interest in the thread.

Well Brad isn't known for generic tunes.

And yeah, his car can't breathe and its pulling a ton of spark with 170 IAT2

Add in less than optimal fuel and you will see KR...exactly what should happen.

I'll say it again as in my previous post,  wasn't knocking the tuner.  Brad did my beast, and it ran 12.6's on old broken turbos and has been the best tune thus far at 0-500ft ELE.  I am thankful for his efforts and have paid him a few times over. 

But in such adverse DA as the OP when the temps go extreme the tune IMO likely needs to be logged again when it is running way lower on power and spooling so slow to take a look and adjust it,  or build a second tune for the environment.

If i had time to find a safe place to datalog Bend Oregon,  I would have had Brad spin me up a higher altitude tune because the car needed a adjustment.  it ran, but it was running way out of sorts..

Having played with high octane fuels on my current tune,  I still firmly believe going more than 2-3 points over your tunes octane curve/base/setting is going to hurt times.  going way over will be worse with the programming.    I'd focus on solving the Knock at WoT if there a bunch of it... but that's me

Cheers..

 

[SHOdded]

I was asking for a datalog just for my general knowledge if nothing else   This is how we all gain from each other's experiences, IMO.

 

[Vortech347]

On the way home from the track I remembered I could load the CFG file he made for me and log it on the X4.  I took a log for a quick 2-3 pull.  You can see how long the car stays in 3rd gear.  So the massive temps from idling for 5 minutes aren't showing up.  Nor the 145* surface temp.  This is nothing though compared to the track.

I just want to make it perfectly clear that I'm extremely happy with Brad.  Everyone is so quick to blame the tuner.  He's probably seen enough so many of my fricken logs he needs a spare hard drive for them.

 

[TopherSho]

On the way home from the track I remembered I could load the CFG file he made for me and log it on the X4.  I took a log for a quick 2-3 pull.  You can see how long the car stays in 3rd gear.  So the massive temps from idling for 5 minutes aren't showing up.  Nor the 145* surface temp.  This is nothing though compared to the track.

I just want to make it perfectly clear that I'm extremely happy with Brad.  Everyone is so quick to blame the tuner.  He's probably seen enough so many of my fricken logs he needs a spare hard drive for them.

Wow ... that temp curve is pretty rough. 

Ok downshift,  and about 1 second later we have knock,  that drops spark to sub 6' degrees for almost a full second and drops the throttle for 2 full seconds from 45% to 60% then normal,  after that it builds spark back up to mid 11's,  but by the time it recovers we have 127f on IAT2 at time frame 302 and we loosing spark over time. 

Last time I checked every 10f over 100f the ecu will pull however much Brad has set to decrement for knock and safety...  1 second later (frame 303) you are at 132 and gain about 5 degrees f every second.

What I find curious is the increasing IAT2 with 71f ambient.  It is generating a TON of heat trying to push the turbos.. what PSI are you running?  You may see better benefit on a non meth tune by dropping psi in favor of spark gains.  Brad and i tested this back and forth at least 10 times in various experiments with lower boost settings,  we found my car ran the best on 14psi without meth .. 

When I ran without meth at near sea level i would not see that style of temp increase.  At PIR with 105 temps outside and 135f track temps i would drop 160-120 on the IAT2 on launch and climb back up.. but not at the rate you are. 

I would see if anyone else has tuned for that DA and look at thier logs to see if this is normal.

 

[Vortech347]

On the way home from the track I remembered I could load the CFG file he made for me and log it on the X4.  I took a log for a quick 2-3 pull.  You can see how long the car stays in 3rd gear.  So the massive temps from idling for 5 minutes aren't showing up.  Nor the 145* surface temp.  This is nothing though compared to the track.

I just want to make it perfectly clear that I'm extremely happy with Brad.  Everyone is so quick to blame the tuner.  He's probably seen enough so many of my fricken logs he needs a spare hard drive for them.

Wow ... that temp curve is pretty rough. 

Ok downshift,  and about 1 second later we have knock,  that drops spark to sub 6' degrees for almost a full second and drops the throttle for 2 full seconds from 45% to 60% then normal,  after that it builds spark back up to mid 11's,  but by the time it recovers we have 127f on IAT2 at time frame 302 and we loosing spark over time. 

Last time I checked every 10f over 100f the ecu will pull however much Brad has set to decrement for knock and safety...  1 second later (frame 303) you are at 132 and gain about 5 degrees f every second.

What I find curious is the increasing IAT2 with 71f ambient.  It is generating a TON of heat trying to push the turbos.. what PSI are you running?  You may see better benefit on a non meth tune by dropping psi in favor of spark gains.  Brad and i tested this back and forth at least 10 times in various experiments with lower boost settings,  we found my car ran the best on 14psi without meth .. 

When I ran without meth at near sea level i would not see that style of temp increase.  At PIR with 105 temps outside and 135f track temps i would drop 160-120 on the IAT2 on launch and climb back up.. but not at the rate you are. 

I would see if anyone else has tuned for that DA and look at thier logs to see if this is normal.

I have wondered the same thing about spark vs boost.  My boost spike on the X4 using the standard load out shows 16-17 but sustained is usually 12.8-13 psi.  In the winter It'll hold 13.5.  I wonder what say, 11psi would do with more spark.  The guy in the explorer sport ran 4 different tunes and all yielded almost the same results.  He only lost a few tenths going back to 100% stock.  Brad tried higher boost but it wasn't worth turning my turbos into blow torches.  Plus my waste gate cycle was through the roof.  Those numbers are with 96 oct in the tank too!!!

The #1 thing my car does that I hate more than taking a hot woman home and finding she has a sausage is the power falls off after 5k... Then just struggles.... Grabs 4th and starts chugging again.  I tried short shifting it on one pass and had no change.

The thin air compounds problems with everything.  IC's are less effective, turbo's are less effective...ect...

On a side note though, I finally noticed the extra punch that fuel let the car have timing wise coming back from an appointment last night at 11 through a canyon with high 60's ambient.  The car hauled ass.  I'll bet it had 100hp more than at the track.

 

[TopherSho]

Brad is super intuitive and by far the best tuner I have worked with so i defer to his wisdom,  have you talked him recently on this topic?  I would stress getting a full datalog 1-100 and a 3rd gear sweep when it is behaving as worse as it was and have him provide input. 

how old is this tune?  was it built prior to the high temps?  or in a different location you are running?

My crazy 2c is to indeed try a lower boost tune for high altitude and high ambient temps,  you need to in my head combat the aggressive temp climbing under WoT.  If you gain nothing but loose nothing then that tune imo is easier on the hardware over time. 

 

[ZSHO]

I would of tried shutting OFF the radio & the air cooled seats option prior to lining up! The less Battery draw the better IMO! Z 

 

[Vortech347]

I would of tried shutting OFF the radio & the air cooled seats option prior to lining up! The less Battery draw the better IMO! Z

I did this. . I even pee’d before my last pass.

Brad and I have talked a ton.

 

[irondoor19]

I would of tried shutting OFF the radio & the air cooled seats option prior to lining up! The less Battery draw the better IMO! Z

I did this. . I even pee’d before my last pass.

Brad and I have talked a ton.

Let's talk about Cooling:  There are Some 12VDC Portable fans Out there (NEXT to Purchase)
The Fan Mods on this Forum, Oh Yea,  I have been Packing the Freezer Cold Bags with Me
Placing Em on the Intake, and Running ALL the Fans in the Pit lane, Remove Prior to Next Run
AND this Works For Me.

As far as the Cooled Seats Go,
I need em ON to Cool My Big Butt,
Stereo Up to 6/10 or 7/10s....
My Concentration is Much better