We have started to tune our 2011 Mustang GT 5.0 and I wanted to share just one little thing that I dont think you have heard yet about these cars.

Raising the rev limiter up a little bit to a tad over 7000 wakes this car up big time.

I roadtested the car today after putting a base custom tune on it and being able to shift the car at 7k puts you at a much better power range in the next gear and the car feels so much stronger.

I know this kind of result is to be expected anytime you raise the rev limiter up over what the factory has set it at but on this car the difference is very noticeable. There were a few other changes in the tune that I'm sure had an effect on the amount of power the car is making but I just wanted to share how much more fun it is going to be shifting this car at WOT after you get a tune.

JJ

 

Tuning with SCT ???

 

thanks JJ, would you mind sharing what KIND of tuner you using?

we've read things like.. "raising the limiter, doesnt raise the limiter"

 

Great to hear looking forward to the results.

 

I think I'd be too afraid to raise the red line on a brand new engine design. Wouldn't want it to kaboom over a couple hundred RPM lol.

 

No dyno?

 

thanks for the information!

 

I don't think he did it to rev over 7k. But the stock programming starts reeling the engine in a few hundred before redline and steals from the power band. By increasing the redline to say 7200-7300, its not so you go there, its so you get a full pull to 7k.

And if an engine can't run to redline, I want to find out right away and blow it up so I get a correct engine under warranty. Besides, I'm sure Ford doesn't put redline at the very last bit of tolerance.

 

JJ does most of his tunning on the street. He'll dyno it at some point for numbers but doesn't like to play the dyno numbers game. He's had a lot of Lightnings that put down less "power" on the dyno as his competitors yet spanked those same trucks at the track. It's about an overall package just not the highest numbers. If someone wants those there are a lot of tuners who will give you any number you want.

 

I definitely understand that. I was just curious door something that may help us understand better the change, though I know that shops like to bump their numbers around until it's something they like.

 

Would you explain a bit more about "tuning on the street"? I am curious what that entails...thanks!

 

It's a more time consuming and tedious way to do it in my opinion.

You make a change then take it out to the street or track and run it with datalogging and compare the results to the previous tuning.

This is the way my tuner has done my '04 Mustang and it still isn't right yet after we spent a whole weekend making changes and running it trying to pin it down.

 

Thanks for the explanation!

 

Yes SCT

Rev limit changes are easy and work quite well.

Tuning on the street IMHO is more accurate then any dyno tune you can get. There is no way you can simulate 100mph wind coming across a vehicle with the hood down on a dyno. Load inducing dyno's are better then any dynojet for trying to re create load conditions but its still not as accurate as actually driving the vehicle in the same fashion as my customers are going to.

Driveability tuning is our specialty and thats one of the reasons why we road test tune each combination that comes here. WOT power numbers are for the most part easy to achieve, you command and adjust for XXX airfuel and XXX timing and if you get it then you get numbers, its everything below WOT that takes time to tune and tune well. Wideband monitoring is done as well as datalogging during our road test tuning sessions and gives an overall better tune IMHO.

Also alot of what we do here is fix vehicles that have bad driveability but made good power on the dyno already somewhere else. The customer will call and say "It made good power but runs like crap" so we retune the vehicle via roadtest tuning and the vehicle never hits the dyno because the customer already has power numbers and just wants it to run right.

Our fastest in house Lightning runs 9.8's and this combination has never seen the dyno. Its new combination was road test tuned and then tuned at the track and can click off 9.8's at will. It will eventually be put on the dyno for numbers but thats all they are, numbers. The numbers I care about are ET/MPH and the number of times it can repeat them without hurting anything.

We just do things a bit different here thats all.

Thanks,

JJ

 

Sounds like you have the street tuning down pretty well.

Way back when, Sal from PSP came down to Houston to dyno-tune the trucks from HALO club and used a local dynojet to record the numbers. My tune was slightly lower peak power than some of the other club members trucks but the average power was better than some and my truck was able to outrun some other members trucks who made more peak power. And straight off the dyno, my truck was so good on the street that I don't think it could have been improved upon. Of course, at the time, I don't think that there was anyone that could tune a Lightning better than Sal.

I wish you were close to me, I sure would like to turn you loose on my '04 Mustang. I am like the customers you describe who are having drivability problems that needs straightening out. And you probably wouldn't flinch when you heard about my Eaton supercharged V6 Mustang that needs a tune...

 

I completely agree with JJ. A dyno can simulate load, but there's nothing more realistic than actual load on the street. When we tune we'll throw the car on the dyno to get a base map set to be safe, then go to the street after that. The best thing i've ever heard about a dyno was this....its a $100,000 wrench.

JJ, sounds like you're doing some great work over there. Should post a video!

 

Agreed. everybody wants to see BIG numbers on a dyno, but yet their cars drives like crap. I rather have a great driving/tune car, that can click off what I want, when I want, then saying oOo I made 400+ on a dyno but its a pain to drive my car anywhere..