I will second that. I was fortunate enough to meet him at the Petit LeMans. He's a good guy and will take care of his customers.

 

Just a colorful set of words, I never doubted the good people working on this project. I was not convinced that Ford was giving us the whole story based what was first shown and what we ended up with. Given the vids and codes I had some reason to feel that way. In the end it is all good.

There was no issue to diagnose, they knew what the problem was, I think because of issues with the S? not certain of that. In any case they had a fix for this and Mark said he wanted to entering it into a production car. However I think it was more of a rush to do my car so I would shut up on this whole issue

I thought you in sunny South Florida (Broward) didn't realize you are up in the frozen northern part Besides being the only person passing on info to us I would think you had a corner office in the big executive building and knew the where-a-bouts of all the Ford employees

You should try to come to the track on Dec. 2. I am sure many people would like to meet you. It is a Friday so you may need to call in sick, unless you want us to start a write in campaign to Ford to make it a paid work/customer relations day. I am sure you would get plenty of support round' here for that

 

Believe me, I need a lot of convincing to pay 50K for a car I'm going to ride hard and put away wet on the track.

 

If you hang around some of the venues where Ford Racing and Team Mustang engineers attend, you would definitely see this kind of feedback and willingness to talk about this vehicle and what it means. While there might be the type of interactions you describe above for other Ford vehicles (which would be relevant since there are different market segments), I have no doubts those folks hear what is wanted for the Mustang.

Trackey was made a reality because some engineers thought it was a cool idea and pushed it through all of the process needed to bring it to market. And we know that feedback is observed here and on other enthusiast forums by Ford people.

 

Scott,

Thanks for taking the time to speak with the FRPP engineers about TK and the Boss 302 program. I think we all knew that they were a 100% committed cadre of all things Boss, and you confirmed it. TK is definitely a new technology, just having a key provide a different tune is a great way to go, and I'm glad that Ford decided to use us as their guinea pigs. Maybe it is something that you will only use on occasion, and that is what Ford intended (track rats excluded). TK reminds me more of the gentleman racer of the 1950s and 1960s: drive to the track, race, drive home. Again thanks for the write up that confirmed that we are getting all that TK was designed for.

p.s. TK sounds better with either the exhaust discs removed, or non-stock discs (like your 1/2 or 3/4 discs) installed.

 

I think Mr Wilson may have one of the most enjoyable jobs in the free world.

Scott, did Mark flash your vehicle via a blue ProCal handheld tuner? I'm guessing he did...

 

Let's just say... I'm not too far from Daytona! I'd really like to come out there on December 2nd since the 1st is my B-day, LadyBoss302. We can celebrate together! I'm going to see what I can arrange here so I can come up. I really thank you all for your support, guys!

Deysha

 

I should have looked closer but did not. I have little experience with tuners so I am not sure.

I am sure he has heard he has the "greatest job in the world" a million times and was not going to repeat that. Then we walked out onto pit road in front of the Daytona tri-oval with cars blowing by, race teams working and the smell of racing fuel - it just came out. Like anything else after a while it becomes a job but yes, he is a happy camper

 

I asked because from day one I have wondered why Ford took a different route with the TracKey and utilized the new vehicle dealer infrastructure to deal with it all as opposed to simply letting the install be customer based, with the install available to be done by a dealer for a small fee.

I can only surmise that Ford wanted greater control via handing this one off to their franchised service people. I'd guess they figured that there are quite a few owners that would rather not handle the flash portion and would rather just pay someone else a small fee to have it done. I assume that having it done "in-house" would also allow greater reign over warranty related documentation or service issues.

But if Mark indeed showed up with a ProCal tuner loaded up with the TracKey tune, that tells me it can/could have been done either way. As an enthusiast that prefers control over my own destiny, I'd have much preferred it to have been available that way. If Mark did it that way, the ProCal tuner sucked out your original tune and saved it to the handheld tuner. As long as no error codes were present, it was a simple matter of uploading the TracKey tune to your PCM (it would also have meant that Mark had to have had access to your PCM calibration numbers).

The ProCal would allow you to make quick and easy adjustments any time you change rear tire diameter or rear axle ratio. I'm unsure how FRPP would have the tune setup, but normally there is a prompt for either 91 or 93 octane fuel as well. Here are a couple of shots of when I reinstalled my factory calibration back into the PCM, just so that I could the install the FRPP tune that came with my Whipple kit...





I found it interesting to compare all the steps that any TracKey buyer has to go through, as well as the dealer, in order to install the upgrade. Much simpler to do it via the ProCal (typical set of instructions here). Nice to be able to make any changes yourself vs having to find a competent dealer and having to pay them to do what really is a simple procedure.

That's the way it goes, I guess. Just another data point.

 

It is hard to say, this was done as a big favor to me (but I am sure he would have done this for anyone) so I have a hard time going into details. I could have been told just go to the dealer to have it looked at. Hope you understand what I am saying.

 

Looks like a ProCal tuner in this photo. Scott do you remember Mark using a laptop?

 

Tob I agree I would have preferred to get a ProCal so I can make adjustments myself to tire size, gears, etc down the road. I'm thinking the reason they didn't offer TK that way is due to the dual path PCM in the Boss. With our GT500s, a reflash involves removal of the stock tune to the handheld in exchange for the performance tune. Since the Boss is using the new dual path PCM technology, I don't think it's that clean and easy. First off, the stock tune is still resident on our Boss PCMs so we can run it with the black key. To flash only the TK tune, the programmer has to select that path, then also go through the additional step of programming the key to that tune. After watching the tech go through the process of installing TK, it involved more steps than the traditional reflash.

 

As far as I remember, no

 

Fantastic eye!

Well put. Yet it sounds/looks like Mark was able to do it trackside with a ProCal tuner anyway...

Very interesting.

 

Oh I'm sure it can be done with the ProCal or even an SCT or other handheld. I was just surmising they thought they'd run into installation issues if it was entirely left up to owners to install. Given the number of software/hardware issues several of us early adopters had even with the dealers doing the install, it would likely have been a mess. Maybe down the road they'll offer it with a handheld programmer.

 

Hopefully SCT figures out how to properly preserve and flash BOSS tunes by the time my warranty expires