Anyon?e here put a tuner on their Ford Ecoboost 3.5

speeder · speeder's Garage

I was going to just PM Matt/OWP but then I rememered that the bench is pretty deep here. Lots of lurkers/infrequent posters w great experience as well.

Title sort of says it all, considering putting a tuner on friend's 2013 F-150 3.5 Ecoboost. I ran into a guy on the street once w the almost identical truck and he was raving about a tuner he installed, of course now I can't remember who made it. Claimed improved torque and mpg.

Anyone?

speeder · speeder's Garage

Somehow the question mark got moved. Sorry about that.

red-beard · red-beard's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by speeder

Somehow the question mark got moved. Sorry about that.

You can edit thread the title. Advanced edit on original post, edit title block

I can't help on the tiny engines. Is That the turbo?

Edit: Ecoboost? Duh! Anyway, waste gate modifications for more boost?

MMiller · 05-13-2019, 05:59 PM

Subscribed- Recently bought a 2014 3.5TT. The torque is fantastic...more would be better right

I reached out to Matt and he was helpful as always but I have not made the move yet. Working on suspension mods first.

bowenx · 05-13-2019, 06:45 PM

Looks like Cobb only has the tuner for the recent Raptors.
I had used their accessport on my wrx years ago...loved it.

https://www.cobbtuning.com/landingpage/ford/

speeder · speeder's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by red-beard

You can edit thread the title. Advanced edit on original post, edit title block

I can't help on the tiny engines. Is That the turbo?

Edit: Ecoboost? Duh! Anyway, waste gate modifications for more boost?

Thanks, James!

Someone makes a tuner that piggybacks the ECU, if not mistaken, and optimizes fuel mapping and boost for torque and mpg. The factory tune is always a compromise for obvious reasons.

OldSpool87 · 05-14-2019, 01:56 AM

Cobb makes a nice product. I used it on my 535 wagon. The car has a twin turbo engine that responds well to ECU flash (not piggy back). Nice thing is you can flash it back to factory with a push of a button. However, depending what you do, you may need to re-gap plugs and hunt down misfires from plugs and/or coil packs. The $/hp of a flash compared to getting the same HP increase in a P-car is amazing (crazy cheap). Just make sure the current set up is up to snuff and well sorted before adding a flash tune.

ckelly78z · 05-14-2019, 02:09 AM

https://www.stage3motorsports.com/5015-ECOBOOST-2011-2013-F150-EcoBoost-SCT-Performance-Livewire-Tuner-w-5-Star-Custom-Tune.html

SCT makes a "Livewire" tuner that will allow you to change meny different perameters, along with having an active gauge display, and a canned tune, or custom isf you want.

onewhippedpuppy · 05-14-2019, 02:44 AM

I have an SCT X4 tuner with custom tunes from 5 Star Tuning. 5 Star is pretty well known in the F150 community, their tunes are custom and they back them up with dyno charts. They will custom tweak them for your preference and modifications as well. I actually had the same configuration on my prior 2012 5.0 F150 for the improved shift timing, it greatly improved the drivability of the truck even though it did nothing for power.

Tuning an Ecoboost is absolutely night and day from stock. You'll see dramatic gains even on 87 octane, along with better shifting and slightly better MPG (my experience). I totally recommend it, even on a bone stock truck. Mine is a 2013 with all of the tow options including the 3.90 limited slip rear end, transmission/oil coolers, bigger radiator, stiffer rear springs, and tow mirrors. I've also added high flow downpipes, intercooler, cold side intake pipes, throttle body, dual high flow intake, catch can, and regapped plugs that are one range colder. I regularly tow about 35' and about 9,000 lb of boat and trailer and am never power limited, it will pull 75-80 all day long. My limitation is now cooling, if it's over 100 outside and I'm on hilly terrain I have to watch the temperature and sometimes slow down a bit. I had 5 Star lower the electric fan activation temps for me, so I'm eager to see if that helped when I tow this summer.

speeder · speeder's Garage

Thanks, that was what I was looking for.

Adrian Thompson · 05-14-2019, 09:54 AM

I have a friend who put one on his Taurus SHO. I don't recall which one now, but it wasn't SCT or Cobb. It certainly improved the pick up feel and the absolute performance in power and torque terms, but he always had some kind of tip in and part throttle stumble he was forever chasing. He went around with the guy he got it from doing some data logging etc. But in the end he pulled it and has since sold the car. This is not to say that you will/would have issues, but caveat emptor.

onewhippedpuppy · 05-14-2019, 10:16 AM

I’ve never had any drivability issues with the 5 Star tunes, but worth noting that the tuners are generic but the tunes should not be. Some companies do offer canned tunes, those are the ones to avoid. The good ones offer dyno developed tunes that are tailored to your modifications.

cabmandone · cabmandone's Garage

5star is supposed to be it when it comes to tunes for Ford trucks. I was just looking into some tunes for my 6.2L
Oops! I see Matt was all over it.... so... what he said.

FOG · 05-15-2019, 01:19 AM

Speeder,

My Son is a Ford senior master tech in a dealership that specializes (he runs gas engines,manual transmissions and rear-ends while avoiding everything else to the best of his ability) vice end-end for their techs. This is one of the larger dealerships in Texas that works on the different categories (oil field, construction, ranch and the easiest mostly street and/or off road) so he different categories of use/abuse and maint.

While some of the tuners have the ability to re-flash to the original tune you cannot erase the fact that another tune was in as they track mileage where the tune was put in and how many times the engine has been started/attempted start since that tune was in.

He sees a lot problems with the cam phasers on the Fords with tuners, followed by what would be considered tuning (fuel, timing,etc.) problems.

The best clue on the Eco-Boosts is that not a single tech from the Ford house nor the Chevy/GM house down the road own or recommend them nor anything with direct injection (gasoline engines).

S/F, FOG

onewhippedpuppy · 05-15-2019, 02:23 AM

Weren’t cam phasers only an issue on the previous generation of modular V8 motors? I’ve not heard of cam phaser issues on the current engines.

As for direct injection, I’m not sure how you avoid it. At this point pretty much every engine has gone DI. For the Ecoboost I’ve not heard of any intake valve coking issues like some other DI vehicles suffer.

speeder · speeder's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by FOG

Speeder,

My Son is a Ford senior master tech in a dealership that specializes (he runs gas engines,manual transmissions and rear-ends while avoiding everything else to the best of his ability) vice end-end for their techs. This is one of the larger dealerships in Texas that works on the different categories (oil field, construction, ranch and the easiest mostly street and/or off road) so he different categories of use/abuse and maint.

While some of the tuners have the ability to re-flash to the original tune you cannot erase the fact that another tune was in as they track mileage where the tune was put in and how many times the engine has been started/attempted start since that tune was in.

He sees a lot problems with the cam phasers on the Fords with tuners, followed by what would be considered tuning (fuel, timing,etc.) problems.

The best clue on the Eco-Boosts is that not a single tech from the Ford house nor the Chevy/GM house down the road own or recommend them nor anything with direct injection (gasoline engines).

S/F, FOG

I appreciate this input but I wonder what the problem w DI is? It is becoming the norm and is more efficient, (power/fuel economy).

Ronbo · 05-15-2019, 11:40 AM

Not a 3.5, but I have a 1.6 Ecoboost in my Fiesta ST and have had a Stratified tune through a Cobb Accessport for about the last 5 years. The engine is much more responsive and MPG is at least as good as it always was. No issues at all.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

FOG · 05-15-2019, 12:46 PM

Onewhippedpuppy and Speeder,

He replaces cam phasers on the Eco-boosts regularly, evidently a number of tuners back door how the cam phasers are controlled. I have heard the discussion on how tuners being on Eco-Boost engines “tune” for increased performance but I am knowledgeable enough to discuss it beyond understanding while the conversation is being taken place. They do have correlation with tuners being on the Eco-Boosts and oil related cam phaser failures.

On the DI stuff both my son and his Chevy/GM counterpart see similar problems. One appears to be carbon building up in the intake then having pieces break off and going through the engine. Not good, especially on a turbo-charged engine. They pull the cabs off the Eco-Boosts to replace turbos and deeper maint. The other problem both talk about on the DI is the injectors themselves. Failures leading to leaking injectors result in all kinds of failures from poor tuning to washed out cylinders/rings to hydrostatic lock damage. The systems are not designed for alcohol and both suspect possible partial fuel contamination in a few cases with the fuel from the tank having greater than 20% but less than E85 alcohol content when the samples are sent out for analysis. Suspicion is either someone topped off with E85 or some E85 was put in regular fuel tanks.

There is a reason that after a survey of the techs Ford, Chevy/GM, Nissan, Toyota and Dodge they came a near universal agreement on gas trucks. All but one are Chevy/GM with LS based engines except one hot rod Dodge (new style 392 Hemi with a Whipple) based on what they see, use, and cost in terms of money and time to address. Everything has weaknesses and requires maint.

If I was to replace my truck (04 2500 crew cab w/8.1- Allison) it would be a LS based used truck with plans for mods/upgrades as appropriate.

S/F, FOG

onewhippedpuppy · 05-15-2019, 02:41 PM

Better get an old Chevy then, all of the new ones are direct injected.

https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/silverado/2018.tab1.html

FOG · 05-16-2019, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Better get an old Chevy then, all of the new ones are direct injected.

https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/silverado/2018.tab1.html

If fifteen years old isn't old enough then how old would you suggest? I figure that with 133k on the odometer, a complete 8.1 longblock w/ gaskets, water pump, etc. ready to install I'm covered for a while barring losing it in either an accident or theft.

S/F, Fog