mptant913

Contacted a guy from BAMA he forwarded the link to this thread to their forum guy.. he should answer your questions soon

AMDanBailer

Quote:

Originally Posted by mptant913

"Tuning can do wonderful things.

From the factory the PCM is programmed with an extremely safe tune to allow the vehicle to run on 87 octane (+ or - a few grades) from any source in the country. It is designed to work at any altitude, in any weather extreme.

To do that, Ford had to leave alot of performance on the table to ensure the safeguards are achieved.

/snip

A properly tuned car will last just as long as a Factory tuned car. You just need a good tuner who nows his stuff. He'll get you the best performance possible and still have that buffer zone.

Hey, guys!

Routine maintenance and a proper tune will actually extend the life of your engine. As Tylus is quoted as stating above, the factory sets cars up to run anywhere in the world, with almost any quality of gasoline. That means there’s a lot of room to improve the factory tune, while still maintaining safety and reliability. We design our Custom tunes with performance and engine longevity in mind. In fact, one of our employees just eclipsed the 100K mile mark on our tune. Not too bad for a car that gets beat to the ends of its life every weekend at the track.

The Custom tunes we send out are 99.99% of what you’d receive on the dyno, but at the same time conservative enough in their fuel and ignition values that your new-found performance is sure to last a very long time. As SCT’s largest distributor, there are more Mustangs running our tunes than anyone else and that doesn’t happen if you pop motors left and right.

The simple answer is that no, a good-tune is not bad for your engine and is actually as safe and reliable as stock. The best way to ensure that your tuned Mustang lasts a long time is to invest in a good-quality tune and take the time to perform the routine maintenance.

texastboneking

Lmoa sure... that's why there are so many tuned cars outliving stock tuned cars

And adding a blower to my car will also extend its longevity.

mptant913

Show some references if your going to be sarcastic.

texastboneking

I don't need to. And its common sense. I have two years of custom tuning experience and that's enough to know that an engine with leaner fuel mixtures, advanced timing, different fuel trims, different knock sensor adjustment strategies and a higher rev limiter will not last as long as a conservative factory tune. I'm not against tuning. My cobra is tuned. But I am against the false belief that an engine will last longer with a hot rod tune on it.

Flagstang

why does it even matter??? blow it up.. it fun and you get to replace things with aftermarket fun parts...

in short.. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!

muscledom

Exactly.

texastboneking

I agree I'm just calling out false info

Flagstang

this really is silly even to talk about.. its starting to sound like my fiesta forum in here..

texastboneking

they have a forum for them things?!?

Pete07GT

You mean those things last long enough for an actual forum thread..?

Flagstang

it drives me crazy when people do not use common sense.. its that whole
"a flame that burns twice as bright" deal. If ford could keep the motor running longer and safer with a better tune they would. These cars are detuned for a reason. Apply common sense and not a point you are trying to prove here.

I a not saying tunes are bad. I am saying bad tunes are bad and that good tunes are the nice safe ones that come in the car. But safe doesnt = fun and everyone here bought a mustang not a honda accord.

Flagstang

hey be nice!! those little things kick butt on a autocross battle field

http://www.fiestafaction.com/forums/

steedamatt

Actually the factory does detune these cars. In a few years they will start to turn the wick up on it as they need to. Why put all your cards on the table at once?

As for longevity with a tune. A bad tune will destroy a motor. The worse the tune the quicker the destruction. Steeda tunes are some of the safest in the industry. We do not offer race tunes that run your car on the ragged edge. Our tunes do make some of the best power in the business, but we do not run the car near the edge to do it. We have been tuning Ford Mustangs for over 20 years. We also have a direct relationship with Ford. As a result our tunes are safer and more durable than our competition, while still out performing them. We are a full service shop not a mail order tune company. We tune from experience with not only dyno time but with real world seat time.

As for holding up under abuse. I do not think you could abuse a car the way we have some of our fleet. We do this to see how they will hold up in the real world. This does not just go for tunes, it is true for all Steeda parts. Real world testing for real world performance.

texastboneking

Welcome to the forum Matt

Flagstang

AMChrisRose

There's your problem. "Leaner" fuel mixtures shouldn't exist. Actually, on a 2011+ Mustang, for example. These cars actually make more power at a safer, more conservative lambda. We don't touch factory knock settings, so that part is out of the equation. You said "different fuel trims". I don't understand this. Fuel trims are either accurate and correct (within 1-5% of 1.000) or they're incorrect, and need to be adjusted. They're either good or bad, either way they operate the same way as factory, so that doesn't change longevity. The only way it could is if they were EXTREMELY far off, to the point where they couldn't self-adjust. None of the reasons you stated will change longevity on a PROPERLY-written custom tune.

Keep in mind, the other reason why custom tunes work... EPA/Emissions/Insurance Companies all scrutinize what is available to the public. This is why the car is detuned to begin with. If tunes hurt longevity, than why does Ford Racing offer them? Why do we and Ford Racing offer supplemental warranties?

A properly calibrated aftermarket tune will last as long as a stock tune, point blank. The only argument to that is that people who have an aftermarket tune are more likely to abuse the power that's available, which isn't fair to say. That means that the aftermarket tune is constantly being driven harder... and driving habits have a 100x more powerful impact on engine and transmission longevity than an aftermarket custom tune that's done the right way. It's not just a Bama claim, either. Look above, just as Steeda said. They claim that their tunes don't affect longevity either, and there are hundreds of other tuning companies with the same experience. I can tell you right now that nobody has ever been able to prove that longevity had been affected due to a properly set up custom tune.

We have a fleet of company Mustangs, over 12 of them, that we constantly beat the hell out of on the street, at our in-house state-of-the-art dyno facility, and at local tracks. We know the late-model Mustang and it's calibration better than anyone else, and that's what allows us to accomplish what we can with horsepower and torque gains, while still being able to sleep at night. We know our customers are safe, because the tunes that we develop are proven, tested and have been on customer cars for hundreds of thousands of miles. We've invested millions of dollars into research, development, OE-quality tools and diagnostic equiptment, training, etc. to make sure our tunes are safe, consistent and randomly QC'ed.

That's how I know they don't have a noticeable affect on longevity - real world results on thousands of Mustangs. We develop everything we send out to our customer and extensively test and refine our tunes everyday. We're not a cookie-cutter mail-order tune, and never will be. Maybe that's where tunes are getting a bad rep, but it's not what we're about at Bama.

texastboneking

If you are not touching the fuel tables or the knock retard tables. How are you getting the gains in your tune? A/f ratio is a place to make good power.

AMChrisRose

EPA, Emissions, Insurance Companies - those are the reasons. As well as what TJ said above, they don't put everything on the table right out of the gate. They always kick up the horsepower rating a notch or two a few years into a generation by "tweaking" the computer in certain spots.

AMChrisRose

Knock retard does not have to be touched to make more power. As a matter of fact, it's a good practice to keep the ability for the PCM to retard timing, for safety. Air/fuel ratio is changed, but still kept conservative. We don't run 13 air/fuel ratio on anything we send out, for example. That's not too lean for some, but for us - it is. I'm not going to get into the hardcore details, but we optimize variable cam timing, WOT air/fuel ratio, timing advance depending on your octane and elevation/area of the country, etc. None of these are changed enough to where a customer would have a negative impact on longevity, let alone running them "to the edge".

So I guess I should re-iterate... "leaner" than stock. Yes. "Lean", no. The proper wording would be "not as rich as a stock tune", because the stock tune is past the point of conservative. It is detuned, for the reasons TJ and I mentioned above.