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Old 07-05-2019, 04:17 PM   #1
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THOR #10907
FACTS about Ford V10 Engine Characteristics and 5 Star Tuning...

I'm questioning my sanity here but there's SO MUCH misinformation on this site about technical issues that I felt compelled to straighten out some of it. Here goes...



On the characteristics of the Ford v10 engine...

1- It does NOT "like to rev". It is actually the most diesel-like of most any modern gas engine. There are actually many reasons (again, facts actually) why it SHOULDN'T be run much over 4k.

2- It WILL NOT make more power or get better gas mileage with premium fuel on stock engine calibrations. (The qualifier for this one is premium fuel IS a good idea when at low altitudes, in hot weather or towing heavy loads. It will still not improve mileage or power, it will simply keep the engine from knocking.)

3- It is extremely hard to hear this engine knocking, if you do, it's either something else or it's knocking BADLY.


On what 5 Star tuning does and doesn't do on the late model Ford V10...

1- It WILL NOT get you any better gas mileage. The 87 octane tune (most common) does nothing to help engine efficiency and actually by poorly managing the Power Enrichment, it will use MORE fuel at WOT. (Wide Open Throttle.)

2- It WILL NOT give you any more power whatsoever outside of WOT. The tune simply makes the throttle open at a lower pedal percentage to give the illusion of increased power.

3- It WILL NOT have any effect whatsoever on the amount of heat the engine produces. In theory you can hypothesize all kinds of things, in real life it WILL NOT make any difference.

I can't think of any others at the moment. I'm not interested in filling this thread with personal attacks or posts simply to increase a members post count. (That's my way of kindly asking a few key members to please leave this thread alone.) Lets try to keep this on subject and informative. I can back up every word I've said here with data, not just my "feelings" or links to somewhere else on the internet that I read more false information.

If you have honest questions and an open mind, feel free to ask them and I'll do my best to answer them with factual data.

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Old 07-05-2019, 04:47 PM   #2
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Thanks! Somebody that understands. I just keep my mouth shut and go about my way. I do have a question; I custom installed an oversized K&N air filter with a filter on the end also. I wanted the V10 to be able to breath well without removing the stock setup. I cut an oval opening in the front little air intake tube & a matching one in the air filter housing, then joined them with a large 3" (I think) silicone tube. Do you think there is ANY benefits from this? MPG, better pulling, HP? Thanks!
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Old 07-05-2019, 05:19 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 99dart View Post
Thanks! Somebody that understands. I just keep my mouth shut and go about my way. I do have a question; I custom installed an oversized K&N air filter with a filter on the end also. I wanted the V10 to be able to breath well without removing the stock setup. I cut an oval opening in the front little air intake tube & a matching one in the air filter housing, then joined them with a large 3" (I think) silicone tube. Do you think there is ANY benefits from this? MPG, better pulling, HP? Thanks!

I did modify my air cleaner also and I did actually show a torque and cylinder airmass difference before and after. (I log no less than 39 engine and trans PID's with HPTuners everytime I drive my Vegas. I currently have about 16k miles worth of logged engine and trans data.) I'd have to pull up those logs to see exactly how much airmass difference there was, it obviously wasn't huge, but it did make a difference.

My setup actually isn't that efficient as far as pulling "cold air" (relative term), but my experience has shown me that excessive intake ducting to achieve what people think is a "CAI" often results in too much airflow restriction. Since I know exactly what my intake and ambient air temps are at all times by logging, I know exactly what effect my air filter change made on intake temps. Without going into all the details, the compromise between the stock setup and my setup pulling the air from a slightly different spot is insignificant. The difference in increased airmass from reducing restriction overcomes any intake temp differences.

I did remove the venturi/restriction tube directly in front of the throttle body and exchanged it with a straight through aluminum tube wrapped with insulation for noise and heat. I kept the stock section where the MAF is mounted because Ford actually did a really nice job with the little reversion chamber they made. MAF calibration is also VERY close to stock, I didn't want to have to rebuild the MAF calibrations by changing the MAF placement. My LTFT's are solid 0's over every single engine condition, so the MAF is reading like it's supposed to, which is huge.

I found these couple pics of the air filter itself, I did the venturi tube at a different time and didn't go looking for those pictures.

Thanks for your post btw! This is the direction I'd like to stay in here.
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Old 07-05-2019, 06:12 PM   #4
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I found a couple logs showing data relating to whether the V10 "Likes to rev" so I thought I'd preemptively try to answer those questions...

The first one shows engine noise. The red trace is from my knock sensor system, it's basically reading noise in the ~6.4kHz range, listening for engine knock. Notice the "floor" of the readings, they start to rise at around 4000 rpm, and rise exponentially around 4700rpm. If I let that shift go any higher, that engine noise would also keep rising exponentially.

Mechanical engine noise is obviously an indication of engine stress. (I'm not talking about exhaust or intake noise.) Engine stress goes up in just about every single internal combustion engine exponentially. It can be at all different levels obviously, but the thing to remember is an increase of just a couple hundred rpm can mean engine stresses can actually DOUBLE. The mechanical engine noise in a late model Ford V10 goes up significantly at 4k rpm and continues to rise.


The second picture shows the power curve. (this log is from a totally stock engine.) Notice the green "MAF lb/min" trace in the bottom section of the chart. At 4500rpm it actually starts to go DOWN. That means even though the engine is spinning faster, it's actually starting to take in LESS air. It's literally suffocating. (There are a dozen reasons for that. I'll put a couple pics below to show just one of them.) You can see the torque curve, it of course starts to drop off. What you don't see is HP, but you can tell what it's doing by looking at the air mass and also the Absolute Load. It's the white trace in the 4th section of the chart. It starts to drop off at 4k rpm. By not quite 4600rpm it's dropped 10%! So airflow and absolute load are dropping at again, an exponential rate, so what's the airflow and load (directly relates to power output) going to be at say 5k rpm? The answer is "Not enough to be there". lol.

I haven't even gotten into the factors of it being a V10, crank stroke, cam profiles and cam timing, engine calibrations, ignition timing, etc, etc. Don't try to put too much emphasis on it being an overhead cam engine, that's not a big factor and actually was (my opinion here) done for marketing reasons more than actual functionality. GM has proved over and over that pushrod V8's are a more effective design. Ford finally listened on the new engine. Overhead cams are awesome in 4 bangers. They're pretty good in V6's. So-so in V8's and actually a stupid idea in a V10. You want to see a (relatively) big engine that likes to rev? Try just about every GM LS/LT engine made, and they have pushrods! I'll run my 800+ hp overdriven supercharger (more drag, not rev "happy") 6.2L V8 to 6k all day long and it will like it! My Ford V10 would take a healthy dose of nitrous to even get close to turning 6k. The bottom line is this, the Ford V10 is an engine that not only isn't "happy" revving over 4500rpm, it really shouldn't be run much over 4000rpm. That's pretty "diesel like" for a gas engine.

So can we at least kill the "Ford V10's love to rev" comments on here? It's simply not factual.
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Old 07-05-2019, 06:29 PM   #5
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I posted that my wife said the floorboard was not nearly as hot after the 5 Star Tune was installed.

I haven’t done anything else that would have changed how hot the floorboard felt on her bare feet.

Did the 5-Star impact the temperature? I don’t know for sure because I didn’t do any quantitative measurements but..... I do know that engines revving higher on a regular basis will generate more heat. The 5-Star tune did reduce the amount my V10 was revving high.
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Old 07-05-2019, 06:49 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Judge View Post
I posted that my wife said the floorboard was not nearly as hot after the 5 Star Tune was installed.

I haven’t done anything else that would have changed how hot the floorboard felt on her bare feet.

Did the 5-Star impact the temperature? I don’t know for sure because I didn’t do any quantitative measurements but..... I do know that engines revving higher on a regular basis will generate more heat. The 5-Star tune did reduce the amount my V10 was revving high.
Yeah I didn't post my reply in that other thread hoping to not make a big deal out of it. I probably should have left that one out of here too. Sorry.

I honestly think it's one of those things that makes you realize objectively seeing cause and effect is extremely difficult. I'm not saying your wife is crazy, she felt what she felt. But I truly believe she would have felt the same thing regardless of the tune being changed or not. You realize how easy it is for stuff like that to happen when you DON'T make a change, and then you or somebody else notices something is different. My buddy just had a perfect example of what I'm trying to say... He went boating with us and DIDN'T get a chance to water ski, even though he really wanted to because he hadn't in years. Two days after the boating weekend, he can hardly walk because his knee hurt so bad. Totally out of the blue, just a relapse of an existing condition. He was so happy he DIDN'T ski because if he did, he would have totally believed his knee was hurting because of skiing and would have never done it again! Crazy when you think about stuff like that.

Maybe there was some other factor, we have no idea. I'm simply saying it would be unlikely the addition of the 5 Star tune would have any effect on the engine temps felt through the floor of an RV. You can argue the engine rpm part back and forth even, higher rpm often results in LOWER engine temps. Lower rpm often puts more load on the engine with less coolant flow, creating more engine heat.

After my saying all that though, there IS one factor that could possibly explain it though, were you doing a whole bunch of WOT driving? 5 Star richens the ____ out of the Power Enrichment strategy. They richen it so much that I'd worry about cylinder wash from excessive fuel. That can lower engine temps, but again, we're talking combustion chamber temps and maybe a little EGT levels, not coolant temps or overall engine temps. Is it possible her foot is close enough to the exhaust manifold, AND you were driving at WOT for long periods of time, AND the added fuel that the 5 Star tune puts into the cylinders lowered the manifold temps enough to feel a difference. I have to say, if that is the difference, no wonder your gas mileage dropped! You're cooling your exhaust with raw fuel. Let's go with it was just a coincidence. lol.
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Old 07-05-2019, 06:56 PM   #7
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Fun fact for you guys while I think of it...


All engines need some sort of Power Enrichment when under load. Ford delays this power enrichment for 60 seconds in the stock calibrations. Meaning you have to have your foot to the floor for 60 seconds straight until the engine gets the additional fuel it needs to run properly. Let off for a second and the 60 second timer resets. They do this for emission reasons.

That's bad enough, but there's another factor that even most engine tuners don't know... The Ford V10 WILL NOT go into Power Enrichment when the cruise control is being used. Ever. Yikes! The engine calibrations use Pedal Position for PE, instead of actual Throttle Position like GM does. So if the cruise is on, for many things like PE, the ECM thinks you're at closed throttle because the pedal is at 0%. Pretty stupid on Ford's part.

So the lesson is, do not use cruise control when you're in any kind of heavy load/climbing situations.
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Old 07-05-2019, 07:01 PM   #8
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You inspired me to go take pics of mine. As you can see, it likes to collect bugs! 😆 I guess I'll have to get creative with some screen. I put two small holes on the back side to help draw to air around the filter. I miss-spoke about the filter. It is an S&B reusable.
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Old 07-05-2019, 07:13 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 99dart View Post
You inspired me to go take pics of mine. As you can see, it likes to collect bugs! �� I guess I'll have to get creative with some screen. I put two small holes on the back side to help draw to air around the filter. I miss-spoke about the filter. It is an S&B reusable.
Those pics definitely help me to help you make yours a little better.

Leaving that little snorkel part on isn't doing you much good. And if you look at the tight clearances around the filter to the plastic air cleaner housing, it's no wonder you're getting dirt and bugs in one little spot. Look at mine closely and copy it. I cut the plastic housing and used the bottom edge of it to secure the aftermarket filter in place. I think I also used the bottom edge of a stock filter too, I'll look to see if I have any pictures of it. Anyway, you have to make sure you secure the aftermarket filter to the stock air cleaner "base" somehow. Then leave the snorkel and the black plastic "can" part that goes around the filter completely off. THEN you will get some better airflow and the intake temps won't be that much different. (Unless we're talking about a Class C regular Ford van cab and chassis, then the hood is different obviously.)

edit- I couldn't find any other pictures of my air filter, but if you look closely at the ones above you can see what I did. You can see the plastic "can" has the bottom cut off of it, and you can also see the stock air filter has the lip cut off around the bottom of it. That's how I secured the aftermarket filter, it clamps directly on the plate that's inside the stock housing. The orange lip from the stock filter holds the plate in place, and the piece of the plastic "can" goes on over the orange seal and it clamps everything in place just like stock. In the last picture you can just barely see the giant hose clamp that holds the aftermarket filter on the plate. To take the filter off to clean it I simply undo the big stock Ford clamp and take the filter, it's clamp and the stock plate off as one assembly. Make sense? lol.
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Old 07-05-2019, 07:59 PM   #10
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Thanks for the info GMTECH. It might take me a while to digest it all

I like to keep my air intake stock (for now). I dont want any extra noise coming from the engine area.

You mention "I did remove the venturi/restriction tube directly in front of the throttle body and exchanged it with a straight through aluminum tube wrapped with insulation for noise and heat".

Is this something we can do with the OEM filter and filter cover and leave everything else stock looking? Or would we need to replace the OEM filter with a K&N type filter in order to make this work? Would we see any HP gain with OEM filter in place if we remove some of the restrictions? Or dont waste out time unless we go all the way like you did with yours?

Did you "insulate" the tube connecting the air filter to the TB or did you insulate the TB itself or BOTH?

Did this help with intake noise at all?

Thanks.
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Old 07-05-2019, 08:16 PM   #11
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Mine is a class C. Yup, makes sense.
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Old 07-05-2019, 08:53 PM   #12
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99dart, Sorry to read about your dog. I just now notice that on your signature. Very sad.
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Old 07-05-2019, 09:05 PM   #13
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Cool! Now we're getting somewhere! Thanks for the posts guys.


L&W, very good questions. The short answer is unless you're bored and want to tinker, I wouldn't bother.

BTW, I often tell people reading my posts to go back and read them again. So take your time "digesting" it all! I type a bunch of stuff and a lot of the time the devil is in the details. Miss one sentence or even one word and you might lose the meaning of the whole post.

So yes, there is a piece of the intake tubing that goes from the air cleaner/MAF housing to the throttle body that I removed/replaced. I covered that piece in insulation, not the throttle body itself. It's an aluminum tube, un-insulated it can create noise and transfer heat. That stock piece has a "Hemholtz" resonator in it to help quiet intake noise. It basically necks down to a venturi of sorts. It is a restriction. Is it a significant one all by itself? Not really, or at least not that you'd notice a difference in perceivable engine power. And removing it alone won't make the intake noise much louder either.

Speaking of intake noise, here's some more interesting points on that subject... Reducing exhaust restrictions also lowers intake noise significantly. That's one of the clues techs have that a cat converter is plugged, the intake will be louder. On my particular Vegas, the intake noise got a tad louder when I replaced the tube I mentioned above. It got louder still when I did the aftermarket air filter. (I have so much insulation between me and the engine it really didn't matter though.)When I did headers the intake sound got a lot quieter. When I then replaced the stock muffler, it got even quieter. So if your intake makes too much noise, open up the exhaust to quiet it! Seriously.

The way this stuff works is it's incremental and somewhat cumulative. Meaning every little bit counts when it's ALL PUT TOGETHER. One of these little changes won't make you do dually burnouts, but I can tell you exactly what effect doing a bunch of little (and a few big) mods can have on this particular engine. I'm up about 100 ft/lbs of torque and probably 50 hp over stock on my '17 E450 V10. My 0-60 times went from around 25 seconds stock to 14.3 seconds now. Those are gigantic numbers for an N/A engine. There is a lot to be gained with proper mods and proper tuning on these engines since they're basically detuned to death for emissions and their intended use, which is mostly delivery vans. That's actually part of why they don't like to rev out, Ford made these engines so they can't hurt themselves. You literally could hold the gas pedal to the floor and even if the rev limiter didn't work, I doubt you could blow one up. It's all in their choices of cams, cam timing, exhaust, intakes, engine calibrations, etc. They say these engines are good to ~300k miles because they designed it and calibrated it that way.

Here's a couple screen shots from my logs. The first one is totally stock, the second one is a few months ago. Those torque numbers are calculated in the ECM, they're based on factors like mass airflow, ign timing, fuel rates, absolute loads, etc. They tend to be very accurate because these ECM's are basically dependent on torque calculations for EVERYTHING. As long as the tables that effect those torque calculations aren't messed with, the calculations will follow mods very closely. My torque calculation tables are stock, they're the same in both of these logs. The results are not the same, I've increased power significantly from idle to the rev limiter. Those increases came from a lot of little mods like this air intake stuff, to bigger mods like headers and exhaust and of course my own tuning. They all add up.
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Old 07-05-2019, 09:09 PM   #14
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I think (IMO) when folks say the V10 "likes to Rev" they dont mean 6000 RPM's. I take it to mean around 4500 rpms (but that just me). After all its a motor home not a Corvette. But I can see saying "LIKES TO REV" that is confusing so someone not use to a big truck engine or new to the Motorhome world.

I reality some are saying (IMO) that 4500 to 4800 RPM's "once in a while" wont blow up your engine. But im not going to test my RV trying it.

I try to keep it below 4200 RPM max if I can. I dont like the hear the engine race.... I think of the MPG and engine wear/damage that can occur. Might be in my head... but its my head....LOL.

Sometimes It will down shift when you dont expect it to so I let off the throttle right away do keep it around 3800 to 4200 max.

Just like when folks say their RV is "FAST or quick"... Its faster or Quicker than any other RV they drove (or Uhaul etc). Or Faster/Quicker than they "expected". Not that RV's are "Fast".
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Old 07-05-2019, 10:22 PM   #15
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Not to add fuel for the fire, but... The Ford modular motors are a product of the late 1980's. The idea was to use interchangeable parts on the production line to produce displacements of 262 cuin to 413 cuin. This engine series include the requirements for heavy truck and light-weigh cars; as well as, a standard combustion chamber design which was designed around a throttle body intake. In those days the Mustang had the old Windsor 302 HO rated at 220 hp @ 4,200 rpm. Now days the Shelby 350 ($50,000 list) with a 315 cuin Voodoo engine is rated at 537 @ 7,500 rpm and a red line of 8,250 rpm (normally aspirated). The car has the best sounding exhaust on a car since the McLaren M-8D. Since it runs a 12:1 CR, I would say Ford can also build high HP engine at a reasonable price also.

Ford's engineering budget allowed Ford to design an test a new combustion changer design in 2006 for the basic modular motor, but the production budget did not allow the plant conversion as that money was going to hybrid and electric drive trains for existing vehicles. Ford decided at that time to concentrate their engineering on the new diesel and gas engine for there truck line and drop all but two of their cars in the near future.

By the way my truck and convertible are Chevys.
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Old 07-06-2019, 04:12 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by gmtech16450yz View Post
Fun fact for you guys while I think of it...


All engines need some sort of Power Enrichment when under load. Ford delays this power enrichment for 60 seconds in the stock calibrations. Meaning you have to have your foot to the floor for 60 seconds straight until the engine gets the additional fuel it needs to run properly. Let off for a second and the 60 second timer resets. They do this for emission reasons.

That's bad enough, but there's another factor that even most engine tuners don't know... The Ford V10 WILL NOT go into Power Enrichment when the cruise control is being used. Ever. Yikes! The engine calibrations use Pedal Position for PE, instead of actual Throttle Position like GM does. So if the cruise is on, for many things like PE, the ECM thinks you're at closed throttle because the pedal is at 0%. Pretty stupid on Ford's part.

So the lesson is, do not use cruise control when you're in any kind of heavy load/climbing situations.
Does the 5 Star Tube do anything to change how PE works with cruise, or should I not use cruise when in less-than-flat travel? Thanks for your insights and time taken to educate us.
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Old 07-06-2019, 04:56 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by CraigM View Post
Does the 5 Star Tube do anything to change how PE works with cruise, or should I not use cruise when in less-than-flat travel? Thanks for your insights and time taken to educate us.

The "no PE while using cruise control" situation is in the basic firmware of the Ford ECM. You can't change it, but you can make the fueling perfect by other means. (Unfortunately, the guys at 5 Star don't know how to do it.) So no, the 5 Star tune doesn't effect the fact that there's no PE while using cruise control. And yes, the answer is you shouldn't use cruise control unless it's nice flat ground cruising.

The 5 Star tune removes the 60 second PE delay, they change it to 2 seconds. They also lower the PE/pedal position trigger slightly (from 90% to 80%), which is supposed to make PE come on sooner but actually doesn't do much. Lastly, they richen the PE Lambda even further than Ford does, which is already ridiculously rich because they delay it so much. (OEM calibrations are known for dumping a ton of fuel in PE because by the time they enable it, the cats are about to melt and the extra fuel cools them down.)

When tuned properly, what you want is a gradual and smooth transition from stoich (14.10:1 air/fuel ratio or 1.0 Lambda) to richer mixtures as load increases. In addition to that, you can also gain mileage by going leaner than stoich, like 1.03 to 1.05 Lambda, during low load cruise and idle conditions. Those things can be done in the Ford ECM using HPTuners, it's not done that way in the stock calibrations or in the 5 Star tunes.
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Old 07-06-2019, 11:59 AM   #18
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Ok, but I wonder if you can ask 5 star how you want your tune "Tweaked"? I read where some members will call up (or email) 5 star to get an updated tune (for free?) to help with shifting etc. Im sure they can tweak some of the perimeters you mentions to make it even better?

If we did call them and they are willing to tweak it .... what would you suggest over all to improve it??

Like the PE... .tell them 50%?

Low speed stoic and lambda # you mentioned?

What else do you think will help?

I will also look into HP tuners as an option. Or is that more for the do it your self tune? And will require hours of research to get the right (and safe) tune?
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Old 07-06-2019, 01:27 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by gmtech16450yz View Post
Fun fact for you guys while I think of it...


All engines need some sort of Power Enrichment when under load. Ford delays this power enrichment for 60 seconds in the stock calibrations. Meaning you have to have your foot to the floor for 60 seconds straight until the engine gets the additional fuel it needs to run properly. Let off for a second and the 60 second timer resets. They do this for emission reasons.

That's bad enough, but there's another factor that even most engine tuners don't know... The Ford V10 WILL NOT go into Power Enrichment when the cruise control is being used. Ever. Yikes! The engine calibrations use Pedal Position for PE, instead of actual Throttle Position like GM does. So if the cruise is on, for many things like PE, the ECM thinks you're at closed throttle because the pedal is at 0%. Pretty stupid on Ford's part.

So the lesson is, do not use cruise control when you're in any kind of heavy load/climbing situations.
Thanks! That is the first time I've heard about the fuel enrichment delay and certainly explains why there is such a dramatic difference in performance after installing the tune!
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Old 07-06-2019, 04:47 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by Long & Winding road View Post
Ok, but I wonder if you can ask 5 star how you want your tune "Tweaked"? I read where some members will call up (or email) 5 star to get an updated tune (for free?) to help with shifting etc. Im sure they can tweak some of the perimeters you mentions to make it even better?

If we did call them and they are willing to tweak it .... what would you suggest over all to improve it??

Like the PE... .tell them 50%?

Low speed stoic and lambda # you mentioned?

What else do you think will help?

I will also look into HP tuners as an option. Or is that more for the do it your self tune? And will require hours of research to get the right (and safe) tune?
Again, excellent questions! Thanks! Are you ready for more to "digest"? lol.


HPTuners is simply a tool. 5 Star's "tool" is SCT. They are both basically interfaces (hardware) and software that lets you read, edit and then re-program ECM/TCM calibrations. They also have logging/charting/graphing capabilities. There are many others, EFILive, Motec, Diablo, etc. Obviously the "tool" is only as good as the person's hand that holds them. They can be anything from amazing to like putting a loaded gun in a baby's hand.

The one difference is HPTuners doesn't sell the tunes themselves, they are a hardware and software company. They concentrate on making the most powerful tuning software for professional tuners. 5 Star is actually just a shop that USES tuning hardware and software (SCT) to build "tunes" to sell. They don't make hardware or software, they're really just mechanics that learned how to use tuning software. What 5 Star does is extremely basic and somewhat primitive. They make VERY little changes to each table/parameter and leave most everything else stock. I just looked at the comparison logs between a stock Ford tune and a 5 Star tune, they made changes in 22 engine tables and 42 transmission tables. I also compared one of the tunes in my particular Ford V10, I made changes in 59 engine tables and 71 transmission tables. The degrees of changes between each table can be anything from one single value out of hundreds of cells in a single table, or the entire table is modified from stock values.

In defense of 5 Star, they've created an easy way for the majority of owners to make their engines and transmissions work better. They obviously have to build a "tune" that they can sell to hundreds of people and not worry about it changing too much. They're also bound by some amount of emission laws. ALL engine modifications like this are illegal btw. 5 Star has gotten away with it because they change almost nothing that has any effect on emissions other than WOT, which isn't as regulated.

HaRVey, the "dramatic difference" that people feel when they put in a 5 Star tune is simply that, A FEELING. (I'm talking about the engine calibrations, not trans changes.) In any engine calibration there are many things that set the relationship between the pedal and the throttle on the actual engine. IT'S NOT A 1:1 RELATIONSHIP. You can have your foot to the floor but the actual throttle might only be open half way. Or you could have your foot pushing down the pedal only 1/4 of the way, but have the throttle wide open. That's what the 5 Star tuning does. They change the relationship between your foot and the engine. Ideally you want your pedal position to follow your demand for power. That's the basis of most all modern ECM calibrations, they're "Demand" or "Torque Request" based. You "demand" half of the engine's power by pushing the pedal half way. The ECM determines what to do with the actual throttle (and a dozen other variables) to give you exactly half of the total power the engine can produce.

Did everyone "digest" that? haha. Ok so here's the interesting and VERY important part... What if you change some of the tables in the engine calibration so that the power delivered at wide open throttle is now delivered as soon as your foot pushes the pedal half way down? (I'm gonna bold that because it's a big deal if anyone wants to truly understand any of this.) What happens is you give the illusion of power, you are NOT increasing the overall power whatsoever. So when the person driving puts the new tune in, the power they felt at 1/4 or 1/2 throttle is now WAY more, because they normally would have had to push the pedal further to get that exact same power.

That above is a big deal. Read it a few times if it doesn't make sense. If you guys want to know more about this, I can make the next "chapter" explaining how the pedal/throttle relationship is in the stock calibration, vs. the 5 Star, vs. what I do. Here's a teaser... in one of those your throttle will go WIDE OPEN as soon as your foot pushes the pedal down 35% of the way. So there is absolutely no difference between that 35% and if you pushed it all the way to the floor. Try it sometime on your own rigs, push the pedal half or 3/4 down and feel the power. Then push it all the way. Most won't feel a difference because a lot of times there is none. The throttle was already wide open.

Here's another huge point... Remember I said Power Enrichment is tied to PEDAL position and not THROTTLE position? Guess what? Your pedal is at 35%, but your throttle is wide open. Are you getting power enrichment? NOPE! Remember stock PE doesn't come on until 90%. 5 Star lowers that to 80%. It's meaningless when the throttle goes wide open at way below those numbers. See how complicated and important these little details are? And that's just one example of how you can really wreck the calibrations (and blow engines) if you don't know what you're doing.

Back to L&W's questions... Yes, it takes not "hours of research" but YEARS of experience, knowledge, training, trial and error and a ton of patience to be able to properly make changes to what the OEM has done. And for those that think the OEM's know best and nobody should be messing with trying to make it better? The OEM's DO know best. That doesn't mean they're free to DO what's best. They are bound by a million different factors when they're building an engine/trans calibration. It's a huge compromise. If people like me or the guys at 5 Star couldn't make what they've done better, the entire aftermarket industry wouldn't exist. In the particular case of these Ford V10's, they can be made HUGELY BETTER than what Ford did. And in the process of simply increasing power, if done correctly they can deliver better fuel mileage, far smoother driveability and actually increased dependability and durability than stock. Fact. Not internet lore. lol.
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