It's September...where are our TracKeys!!!!!

 

You have your TracKey you just don't have the tune. After driving a TracKey equipped car at Track Attack yesterday I think everyone needs to lower their expectations a bit.

 

So I'm reading into this that it isn't "all that"... is that correct?

 

FWIW I was told by a Ford rep at MMP that we should be looking for it in October. They do believe they've cleared all the hurdles with CARB, but they have up to 90 days to sign off completely. I'm not exactly sure when that clock started. I guess we're now to the point for me where I'm saying spring since I will put my car away by late Oct/early Nov.

 

Gary, since you've had a good amount of track experience in your Boss, can you comment on what differences you felt with a TracKey-enabled Boss at MMP?

Thanks!

 

I've driven it on track twice now. Once last Thursday down at MPH in a Laguna Seca and then this past Monday. All I can go by is my butt dyno since I don't have any lap time comparisons. At MPH I was driving someone else's car and I ran maybe 6/10ths, plus the wheels/tires/brakes were different so lap time comparisons would have been meaningless. At MMP they weren't timing us and we only drove with TracKey so that's moot as well.

I will say that I definitely feel more aggressive engine braking with TracKey. I also felt a little more aggressive throttle response. You can easily tell at lower speeds maneuvering through the pits etc. It's just a more "unrefined" aggressive tune. Of course that matches with the elimination of some of the drivability Ford talked about. That said, we still need some dyno charts and actual lap time comparisons in the same car, same driver, to know what the real performance gains will be with TracKey.

 

Rick's probably right about this depending on what people's expectations are for TracKey. If you're expecting it to feel like going from an NA to a FI engine, no way. If you're expecting it to be a little more raw, a little more aggressive, and hopefully improve your ability to get around a road course, I think you'll feel it's well worth the $300. The cammed idle is also pretty cool. It literally shakes the car at idle

 

No but it's not going to be some magical tune that will transform our cars into something different. These are my impressions and should not be taken as definitive...who knows what the final tune we receive will be like. Also I have not driven my car on a track yet and I'm a beginner at tracking a full size car.

The lopey idle is very cool and is much more prominent when the car is warm. The increased throttle response didn't do as much as I expected but the increase engine breaking was very noticeable. Not sure about the increased torque down low as the elevation at MMP is well over 4,000 feet and my car at sea level felt stronger especially around 5,000 RPM. The only way to tell for sure would be to do a lap with the black key and then a lap with the red key and the TracKey tune and of course back to back dyno runs. I don't think using the TracKey tune for the street is going to be much fun if you are driving in traffic. Driving the car through the pits at low rpm was not very smooth. Plus gas mileage I'm sure is going to be worse. There could be other things going on with the tune that might help the car run cooler or other gems we don't know about.

We did not get to play John Force with launch control.

The fact that Ford is even offering the TracKey tune is amazing in itself. It's a step forward with tune technology with even better things to come. There has been a lot of marketing hype and the Boss community seems overly anxious for the tune (and rightfully so). But remember it's a $300 tune and not a bolt on supercharger. That said I'll be buying it as soon as it becomes available.

 

That was pretty cool. I sure hope it's close to that after CARB.

 

I am wanting the launch control....

 

NATKT....




(Not Another TracKey Thread)

 

I'm betting it's not.