I test drove a regular GT 5.0 about 6 months ago and was left unimpressed with the power. I thought maybe I was "driving it wrong" or something because I've been in a friend's 5.0 and it screamed.

Fast forward to this weekend, I was picking up my own Boss 302. I was pretty committed obviously as I had just sold my car private sale and was at the dealer to pick up the Boss. Of course, I was going to give it a run before I put pen to paper.

On the test drive, the same thing was happening. I put my foot down and nothing happened. I wasn't going to romp on it, but I expected something other than very minimal acceleration. Despite the initial test drive being a let down, I went forward with it determined that I probably wasn't in a high rev range or something.

I bought the car and was headed down the road a few more miles to meet a friend for lunch. Suddenly, the car woke up. Easily 3x the power. I pushed the pedal and I went back into the seat. Then it clicked, these cars probably have a restriction program on them for the first (I'm guessing) 20 miles that will protect the engine while the seals have time to seat. Both cars when I test drove them had under this mileage.

I've searched around and looked through the manual but can't find any mention of it. Can anyone confirm or deny this for sure? It's a good thing, I just wish there was more mention of it to make would-be buyers aware.

 

Yes, it's 20 or 50 miles or something, I seem to remember it being in the manual somewhere.

 

Read this somewhere before as well.

 

Only heard of that on the Shelby's.....

Driven several new ones with no power lacking.

 

I've heard of it mostly on the shelby motors (boost restriction iirc), but also could depend on mileage of motor. These motors seem to really take to break in moreso than previous modulars. Oil consumption, mileage and power output seem to more dramatically change in the first few hours of operation as compared to some other cars.

I received mine with 108 miles on the clock when it came off the trailer, so I didn't notice as much, but if the car had 5-6 miles to start, I imagine that as everything wore in, you found more compression and less friction once you drove it.

 

It`s called transportation mode and saves you from the transport people burning the crap outta your car before it even reaches the dealership. Dealers are supose to remove it when they PDI however my Boss and F150 ecoboost were left on when I test drove.

 

it was on mine, the car did not go thorough PDI at my request.

 

Oh HAI, Chris!

Thanks for confirming my suspicions everybody!

 

The Shelby manual has this on page 4. The Boss has the same thing, but I can't find it in the manual. In my memory it was around 25 miles or so? I remember when it changed, it was as if the car was limited to 3 or 4k and it was only firing on four cylinders...

http://www.motorcraftservice.com/pub.../12mussg1e.pdf

 

https://themustangsource.com/f813/bo...6/#post6051043

PDI FORM from a topic I did in in 11 see #4 on PDI PDF.

KC

 

I don't know about the Boss (.....yet) but the GT500's had the S/C by-pass valve open (S/C deactivated) for 50 ignition starts or 5 consecutive miles driven, whichever came first.

My assumption is that the Boss has a "valet" program that limits a large number of parameters in the engine mapping.

The PDI implies that the battery disconnect resets this. That was not the case with the GT500's.

 

https://themustangsource.com/f727/2009-pdi-pdf-475797/

2009 GT-500 PDI I posted in 2008 see check J10 Click View to Rotate.

KC

 

I know what the PDI form says, but I was also present during the PDI of my car and was the driver for the test drive when it had 7.6 miles on the odometer. The S/C did not kick in to full boost until the odometer clicked to 13 miles.....and, believe me, I was trying before that..... The difference was night and day in the power levels and that was after the J10 Reset had been performed.

But none of that probably has any bearing on the Boss ECM?????

 

Its a nanny control.
The key needs to get cycled and the dealer must un program the nanny control