I think with the couple of "booms" we had, people are smart to keep their warranty.Lol a CARB legal tune with a warranty intrigues a lot of us it seems, how about that![]()
Yes, SOME tuners have a season tune, they require you to switch for certain temperature ranges. I know that FP, Livernois and Tune+ are all year around, so they are safe to operate in 4-season states. I cannot comment on others as I don't know, but I would imagine Cobb is supposed to be year around, however because they alter boost, their upper tier OTS tunes seem to be especially risky if your not using their bolt on parts, which is what they would have tuned with on their test mules. There are tons of Focus ST's with blown engines running Cobb Stage 3 93 tunes, most of them I've seen are NOT using Cobb's own bolt on parts which you are required to use with those tunes, they used a variety and mixture of other manufacturers down pipes, BOV's etc. in various combinations.They mentioned with the 93' cobb thread the reason he went boom was from a bolt coming loose in his camshaft entering the piston chamber. That's not cooling, that just down right torque tolerance. Pistons rings warping, cracking, or rods bending are a sign of overheating, not bolts coming off or loose. If it was bad from the factory, we might never know, but one things for sure the tune did not help and they will not cover the fix.
And I agree with the downpipe's and even things like actuators. One you start messing around with turbo pressure, you will need some serious trust in your tuner and the tuner better know everything about your car.
I was no aware of a winter only or summer only tune. If I paid for a one-time tune, it better be for all seasons!
I would agree with you on this one, it's most likely a factory defect, which is what I stated above, however Ford may argue differently. Logically the user could make a case however, by talking to a tuner and getting a detailed idea of how the ECU controls phase angle, if its possible for the ECU to cause added stress on the phasers by altering the change point. As I stated above the cams phasors aren't actually strong enough to change phase angle at any time, there is only a window in each engine cycle which the combined valve spring resistance is low enough to allow the phasors to operate. Attempting operation outside of that window could cause some pretty big issues.I'm certain that bolt coming loose had nothing to do with his mods or the Cobb tune. Not having a radiator upgrade or thermostat upgrade definitely has nothing to do with it and those I believe are very specific to what LMS recommends.
As far as the difference between the BBK and Cobb downpipe in the Cobb tune, I'm sure that is negligible too. We had a member go through the process of welding in bungs and testing the pressure drop across different parts of the exhaust and found the catback makes almost no difference at all and the downpipe was relatively small. The only difference I could see there is whether it was a catted DP vs non.
Having said that though, I COMPLETELY agree with the spirit of your message! I think most of the blown engines we've seen can be attributed to user error. Too many people not communicating with their tuners properly and yours were very good points. There was another that had a tune and then combined the tune with the JMS add-ons. When you hear of people doing that crap, it shows they clearly don't understand what they are doing first of all but second, they didn't share that with their tuner.
The bolt coming loose, that I believe is part of the statistical odds of what happens with thousands of engines built, just bad luck. IMO, when it is diagnosed as such, Ford should cover that under warranty. No way a tune or mods made that come loose.
Agreed completely, that is why my first upgrade was to an ATM intercooler. As far as the thermostat, that is another tricky subject. That should be incorporated in the tune or not done at all. It's not like in the old days where that was one of the first things we did on the V8s and needed no supporting mods.I would agree with you on this one, it's most likely a factory defect, which is what I stated above, however Ford may argue differently. Logically the user could make a case however, by talking to a tuner and getting a detailed idea of how the ECU controls phase angle, if its possible for the ECU to cause added stress on the phasers by altering the change point. As I stated above the cams phasors aren't actually strong enough to change phase angle at any time, there is only a window in each engine cycle which the combined valve spring resistance is low enough to allow the phasors to operate. Attempting operation outside of that window could cause some pretty big issues.
If it's not, it would be a difficult argument for Ford to blame the modifications. No this was not a heat related issue, but there have been blown engines which had little added cooling but were running some pretty hot tunes, heat was likely a big factor.
If you don't properly manage heat, you get detonation and accelerated wear. Heat management is highly critical in TDI engines, especially when pushing higher power. Just look at how much the crappy FMIC affects engine performance. Cooler thermostats are very common among performance engine upgrades. Problem is many peopled don't want to take the time to make the change as it's messy.
The stock PCM software has a preignition protection mode, and you would hope that the durability testing was all done at low speed/high load, same with the FP tune. That means running the engine in a lab continuously for many hours in LSPI prone conditions.One more thought, then I'll shut up, promise. I also spoke to Livernoise about Low RPM loading. I know a while back there was a thread about LSPI etc. People seem to freak out over low RPM loading.
While I see no practical reason to got WOT at 1500 to 2000 RPM unless your stress testing, Livernois said they start most of their 5th gear WOT dyno pulls from just 2100 RPM and have tested down to 1500 RPM!
I would imagine the OE and FP software is actually safe to load down that low as well. I've never had an NA engine have any issues from WOT at low RPM, they may not make good power, but a properly designed and running engine should not be unsafe in any throttle input condition the user could potentially command.
Luckily us armchair race car drivers won't have to guess much longer... [MENTION=25057]SteedaGT[/MENTION] is taking his car to the track after install...But yes, the FP tune should put the EB well into the mid 13's if not deep into the 13's while still being CARB legal and maintaining at least a supplemental warranty. for 36k miles assuming your not approaching that or over it already.
That is a very good point. The factory tune was really lacking in 2 major areas.Luckily us armchair race car drivers won't have to guess much longer... [MENTION=25057]SteedaGT[/MENTION] is taking his car to the track after install...
To be honest though, does anyone who gets this tune really care that much if they are in the 13s?
I'm guessing the targeted audience wants a "little more power" and for the transmission to be smoother. Ford delivered both...
Not sure anyone is really looking at this tune to be a speed demon. Maybe the reason why we have not seen many purchasers care about 0-60....