2015-17 Mustang GT Ford Performance Power Packs

[TexasRebel]

What I took away from @TexasRebel 's post is that you want restricted air (coming in through VelossaTech for example or in your case sealed passage) and then some amount of it escaping through the hood vent. Reason being is that if you just have air that's coming in and not being used by engine just sitting there it will get hot.

At least that's my understanding.

That's about it!

The trade off is pressure for temperature. Heck. Without any empirical data it could be a wash... my theory could be backwards... I could be spot on... if someone has the time and means it might be worth collecting data.

Keep in mind though, on a stationary dyno, the ram/restriction effect is only as strong as the fan blowing on the radiator.

Does anyone have a dyno in a wind tunnel?

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[TheLion70x77]

Yeah, I'm currently running the NASCAR solution (duct tape) to fill the air gap from the the VelossaTech to the GT350 air box. It's nice and smooth right now, but I need to fabricate something a bit more permanent.

Use aluminum roof flashing to make a "ramp", then aluminum foil tape to seal it off. You can get both at home depot. Both are water proof, in fact the foil tape has a tanacious adhesive that can even be applied under water. It's good up to 200+F, when that part of the car will never see. Then you can use a tapered reamer to ream out a hole in the radiator ducting, right between the velossatech and the GT350 CAI duct, and secure the flashing "ramp" before. If you look back several posts on this thread, probably 10~15, I posted a graphic illustrating the "flashing + foil tape" mod to seal that area off.

 

[TheLion70x77]

But your forgetting you will never have stagnant air there just sitting and heating up unless your idling in traffic, not moving. The engine is will always draw a vacuum while running. Your also reducing cooling capacity of the radiator by choking off a pressure relief point under the hood. The nostrils are there to improve radiator flow and reduce under-hood pressure (thus also drag).

Remember the engine is a giant air pump. Even at idle it's a vacuum. It's negative pressure. Air, like water and electricity, follows the path of least resistance. At any normal driving speed, even 35~45 mph, your engine is consuming enough air that there's still a vacuum. At higher speeds, you want to build positive pressure in the air box to reduce pumping losses as much as possible and use the high pressure zone in front of the car to your advantage.

The nostril is a bleed path, a leak because the GT350 intake box was originally designed for the GT350...whose hood uses a single large center vent to achieve high radiator flow rates. So in GT350 applications there is no unintended bleed path like there is when used on a stock GT hood. You want the ONLY flow path to be the engine and there's more than enough air being consumed that you won't have hot stagnant air. At very low speeds the nostril MAY act as an aspiration port for big power cars (FI) right off the line, but for NA, it's generally not beneficial. At higher speeds the nostril will become a vacuum source and draw air out of the box, thus taking away some of the benefits of the velossatech as it won't generate positive pressure or be able to achieve 0 vacuum.

Also the under hood pressurized air is HOT. It's post radiator and also has absorbed radiated heat from the outside of the block and headers. Some of that air gets forced into the intake (positive pressure) box around the gaps in where it seals around the hood. The Power Packs 2 and 3 screw up the GT's OE flow paths. It's a trade off Ford Performance made for cost purposes and to re-use OE parts. But it's an easy fix.

The better solution is to seal off the Air box like NvrFinished illustrated and run track spec hood vents to allow better breathing of the radiator. This will increase cooling capacity of the radiator, reduce under-hood pressure and hence radiator back wash, keep the higher pressure stagnation zone INSIDE the airbox where the air filter is and keep it from soaking up run-off-water in heavy rain / car washes.

 

[TheLion70x77]

I have started putting some of TheLion's advice into practice.

To begin, I began with:
> 15' GT with PP2 already installed
> AZ 91 octane terrible gas
> Have owned it for 4500 miles
> Ping city when getting on the power at 3,000rpm. Usually about a second of pings. Smooth power delivery while pinging though.

Actions I have taken:
Called up Ford Performance - Ended up with a flustered guy on the phone that was EMPHATIC that the pinging was harmless. He also told me that the calibration does not learn octane and is much more tolerant of ping than the factory tune. I asked for clarification. He told me that every time you accelerate it starts from a predetermined timing setting and retards as necessary, so you will hear ping every time you accelerate in every gear unless it is completely happy. I asked if there was a long term trim adjustment, he said there was not. He said the factory calibration retards timing on the first detected ping event, the Ford Performance calibration attempts to determine which cylinders are pinging and adjusts accordingly, thus there can be ping through multiple full firing cycles of all 8 cylinders. He added that with an aluminum block you are going to hear everything.

This wasn't quite the answer I was looking for but it put me at ease somewhat.

Did a lot of reading: This pinging situation has been present in Ford Performance tunes since 2011. The S197 Coyote guys have gone over it ad nauseum. Nobody has lost an engine from it and there are even people that have asked that in threads. Can and anybody name somebody that has lost an engine on this tune? The answer is always no.

The pinging is more precisely known as Spark Knock. It is due to the mixture being so close to combustion under compression that when combustion is intentionally initiated by the spark plug, the rise in cylinder pressure causes other parts of the mixture to spontaneously combust. From what I was able to find, if you feel it in the seat of your pants, you're hurting your engine. If you don't feel it, you have an annoying noise. My engine has never been rough under acceleration.

Installed a JLT Passenger Side Oil Separator 3.0 [A month ago]
This made a marginal improvement but not much. I have some criticisms about this design, I think if this engine is so sensitive to oil vapor ingestion there needs to be a more comprehensive solution involving a condenser stage and a cyclonic separator stage. I think the JLT design is a lot closer to cold medication than a cure for cancer.

Tried different gas stations
I stick to Chevron or Shell. Have had lots of ping on both.

Changed my oil to 5W-30 Royal Purple [Today]
This actually made a significant difference. When I changed my oil I was at 40% life. I noticed there was a Valvoline filter on the car, I am guessing the PO took it to an oil change place and they used shit oil with worse volatility than motorcraft. I went with a 5W30 based on TheLion's advice that Ford recommends it in Australia. Phoenix gets really hot so I figure the temperature range is similar enough to give it a go, at least for the summer.

I almost went with PUP because it seems like a good deal and I like puppies. But 2 percentage points higher NOACK than Royal Purple and with 91 octane the best gas I can get, I need all the help I can get so I shelled out for the purple.

Driving, I notice no ping events, or 1 or 2. Huge positive change. Ambient temps were 89 degrees, pretty much no humidity. Engine response feels sharper. This was the big change I was looking for.

Next Steps?
I want to observe what the ping environment is like as the temperatures rise. I only have a little joyride tonight as a datapoint. If this continues to be a problem, I am going to rig up a more elaborate oil separation apparatus. I am going to use a Velossa Big Mouth grille duct on the passenger side, attached to a duct to cool a repurposed AC evaporator core. That will be the condenser stage. Then I will source an air tool cyclonic separator to clear suspended droplets. I'm also going to duct a Velossa Big Mouth to the intake on the other side.

Another weirder idea I had was to build a fuel heater using a coolant to fuel heat exchanger. And I am guessing right now everything thinks I am completely crazy. Normally you want the coldest(thus)densest air/fuel mixture you can manage. The more mass you can get into a cylinder per combustion event, the more powerful that event will be. So the downside of a fuel heater is that it doesn't help you there. So why would one want to heat their fuel. Typically the hotter a substance is, the faster it dissolves into another substance. We know gasoline is a volatile, if you spill it, it evaporates into the air. The hotter the gasoline is that you spill, the faster it will evaporate. Hold that idea in your head for a moment. Now if we could wave a magic wand, we would want our fuel evenly distributed in our air and we would want that fuel to have maximum contact with the air. We wouldn't want droplets of fuel in the air, we would want molecules of fuel suspended in the air. If that is where we are going for, do you now see how making our fuel more volatile can help meet that end? We only have a couple inches to turn a spray of fuel into a homogeneous mixture of fuel and air. Most of the time it isn't evenly mixed, and the fuel isn't completely atomized.
I'm not sure a fuel heater will yield more power. All I have been able to read is that Honda used it in the 80s to stabilize combustion in order to make massive power in their formula 1 engines (they also regulated the temperature of their engine intake air) and that home brew guys have reported increased fuel economy. My thought is that if I am having timing pulled because of unstable combustion, perhaps stabilizing it will result in that timing not being pulled. I probably wont do this, but it is a thought.

Just an FYI, airzona 91 is so crappy, that Engine Labs lost 70 HP at the crank on their 5th Gen LT1 6.2L they tested on an engine dyno. It was stock on stock tune, stock intake and headers. That's the engine in the 2014-present C7 vettes and 6th gen SS. There was so much knock, it pulled maximum timing it could.

Supposed to make between 455 to 465 hp at the crank on 93 octane. They were getting high 300's. They found that a high quality octane booster was enough to fix the issue for the most part. May be a possibility with you, but just be careful not to use any that are NOT catalyst friendly as some are not.

I've suggested using LSPI resistant oils for quite some time to help reduce oil vapor induced dilution of the fuel octane. Oil catch cans also help reduce ingestion, some are better than others, but once the car is moving, the air flow cools the aluminum cans and increases their efficiency, typically oil vaporization is minimal when at low speeds / cruising because of low RPM and loads. It's at high RPM and high loads where oil tends to vaporize, friction losses are relatively linear, higher the RPM and the higher the load, the hotter surfaces get.

DLC coatings can also reduce these negative effects of friction losses / heat buildup substantially, I would recommend giving them a try as well, but stick with the big 3. Track spec hood vents will help that even further. A radiant foil barrier around the catch can would reduce heat absorption during idle and may help efficiency of the can at low speeds, but for the most part, it's higher RPM's (4,000+) where vaporization mostly occurs.

Higher viscosity and higher quality (lower NOACK) base oils reduce vaporization rates and also allow better ring seal. So you get less blow by, better compression, more often the cylinder group is in hydrodynamic or elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes which is more ideal for long term wear etc. But thicker is not always better to an endless degree. 5W-20's are ok for street use, drag and auto x, but 5W-30 is a more ideal viscosity that balances drag losses with film strength, especially for hot ambient climates, sustained high RPM on the back roads (aka light duty road race type driving) and light track use. 0W-40 would be ideal for HPDE events where oil temps get up into the 280 to 300F range for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Either that or 5W-30 with an air to oil cooler.

You could also try NGK's Ruthenium plugs. Use OE gaping. The key to them is that the edges of the electrode don't round off like Iridium plugs tend to do over time and use due to higher durability of Ruthenium plating. It's a fine wire copper core plug. That means more consistent arch over of plug, which means less variation in actual ignition timing of the air / fuel mixture which results in more consistent cylinder pressure cycle by cycle. You won't get as many "excessively high" cylinder pressure events, so the ECU is less likely to have to pull timing and pinging may be less severe.

Another thing you can do is use good air ducting. Cooler air is less prone to knocking than hot air. It cools the chamber down, also allows higher power density (cooler hair has higher density, so your ECU can use more fuel and still achieve optimal burn, which equals more power). I think a VelossaTek ram air duct, with aluminum flashing / foil tape to seal off the gap, then the lexan cover mod would serve you well.

All of these things I recommend people do to maximize power output and achieve the most consistent power output day to day, condition to condition, also will help with situations where things are far less ideal (low fuel octane / quality + high ambients).

And for the record, the Power Packs do have an octane learn function. They can learn the fuel octane 91, 92 or 93 by determining knock and scaling timing up or down. There's about 10 hp average difference between 91 and 93. It's not huge, but it's there. It's the same learning mechanism as the OE calibration, but tuned for higher grade ranges only. You can use the "Octane Adjust" feature in the ProCal software to force the ECU to reference less aggressive tables if you have high sensitivity / very poor fuel quality and can't get it to run without heavy knocking.

When to use Octane Adjust and Profile Learning
The Octane Adjust switch should only be switched to “ON” when spark retardation is desired. Some engines have increased octane sensitivity and require spark table adjustment. By switching the Ocatne Adjust switch to “ON” you are telling the PCM to reference a different spark table. Normally, this is only necessary if your engine is knocking.
The Profile Learning switch should only be switched to “ON” when the engine is reporting a misfire DTC such as P0300-P0316. By enabling this switch, the engine will prompt the driver to rev the engine to a specific rpm until the PCM relearns the fire pattern characteristics of the trigger wheel.

 

[TheLion70x77]

See image for details.

BTW, whoever took that screenshot at Ford Performance for their user manual must have done it on a car with a drag setup...4.10's and only 710 revs per mile...short final drive with some TAAAALLLL tires...well and the fact that it says 2016 CobraJet.

I'm really liking all of the features they finally integrated into the newer revisions of ProCal. Full data logging with correct PID's...no guessing as well as retaining uber useful and practical features like changing revs per mile for tire sizes and final drive ratios.

It's nice to see an OE performance calibration include features that use to be exclusive to after market calibrations. Reliability and efficiency usually trump bigger-better-bolton-more in most cases.

 

[TheLion70x77]

Now if only Ford would do this clutch job without screwing up everything. This has been a royal PITA. Going on week #5 now. OE clutch took a dump at 30k. Never drag raced, but do lots of sustained high rpm road race style driving on back roads. I rev match, I don't ride the pedal. Last car at 175k on the OE clutch so I"m not a clutch killer. Had issues with the pedal sticking to the floor or only half way returning since I got it with only 5,600 miles on the clock, stock tune.

I've come realize the stock hydraulic line is likely the culprit of the early demise of most of these OE clutches which in some cars seem to take a royal beating for 50~75k plus without issues. Yet others fail catastrophically in short order. One guy on this forum went through 3 OE clutches in 60k miles...there's a reason Ford Performance sells a stainless upgraded clutch hydraulic line...yet not an upgraded clutch. The line passes right by the header and share fluid with the brake reservoir. The combination cause the line to stretch or expand under high heat conditions (sustained high RPM, or repeated pulls), thus your slave isn't fully disengaging the clutch.

So every time you shift, it's slipping instead of freely spinning and building up heat and wearing the pad material away much faster than it should. So I ended up originally having towed to the dealer thinking it was the slave / hydraulic line that failed. Nope. Organic friction pads cracked and de-laminated (literally fell apart). So I ordered a Mantic Twin Disk 9000 with their heavy duty ogranic pads....I just happened to get a bad one. The techs noted that the alignment tool kept getting stuck every time they would torque down the cover plate / diaphragm spring. In over 100 OE clutches they never encountered such a weird problem. I paid $1,600 for a high quality performance street car / light track duty clutch and it's defective...way to go Mantic. The tech finally managed to pull out the alignment tool after trying the provided plastic one and three different Ford OE steel ones once the cover plate was torque down. We should have stopped right there, but decided to put the trans back on and give it a whirl.

Scrrrrraaaaape. Every time the clutch is pushed in, one of the disks is just riding against either the flywheel or one of the plates. Sounds like a brake pad that's down to the wear clips that scrape against the rotor to let you know your pads need changed. So they pulled the trans back off again, replaced the slave just in case it wasn't full disengaging the clutch, doubled checked the installation of the 9000 (pretty easy and hard to mess up) and put everything back together, re-bled the hydraulics and scrrraaaape. No go. This wasn't going to work no matter what and I even checked it myself while I was there to verify.

1 week to diagnose the failure originally because they were so busy. 2 weeks waiting for Mantic to get the darn flywheels made as they were out of stock. 1 week for the dealership to finally install and try it 2x. Now another week for Ford to get the OE clutch to the shop and installed. I ended up ordering OE because I can't keep waiting perpetually to take the defective Mantic 9000 clutch out, send it to them and wait for them to return it and then wait for another (3rd) install attempt. So they are gonig to give me a full refund and a reimbursement for the installation costs. $2,300 in all. A pretty penny to 36 lb paper weight....

Picked it up finally yesterday and...the saga still continues. Rattling under the car now at 2700 to 3000 RPM and my shifter knob is stripped out (just spins). Grrrr!!! So I get the car home, put it up on jack stands and holy crap did they do a sloppy job. Both rear exhaust clamps for my Corsa (at the front of the double x-pipe where it mates to the reducer couplers) are completely loose (that's the source of my 2700-3000 rpm rattle).

They bowed out the water / debris shield that's between the bell housing and back of the engine block (the steel "gasket / water shield" that's about 1/8" thick) on the passenger side and completely forgot the block cover on the drivers side that covers a 3" hole where you can see the flywheel / flywheel teeth that would allow large debris right into the bell housing, not to mention lots of water and dust would enter there which would be sure to result in a quick demise of my new OE clutch....I'm pissed. This is rookie mistakes. Seriously, how do you manage to bow out 1/2" of a 1/8" steel debrise shield on the back of the block? It's like someone tried to use it as a pry point to pry the trans away from the back of the block during disassembly...but instead of replacing it, they just stuck it back on with a big old gap.

But on the bright side, clutch is now smooth, middle pedal travel engagement which is ideal or an OE setup, no air bubbles. So that part they did well. Also ended up throwing in the steeda braided stainless clutch line and wrapped the line with a nomex / foil radiant heat sleeve I got on McMaster for $12 to avoid any future hydraulic functional issues related to heat that I had with the stock line.

I found on American Muscle the same line for the 2011-2014's (S197's) that had over 100 reviews. Nearly all of them said the same thing, that it fixed their issues with the pedal getting stuck to the floor or not returning all the way and improved clutch feel quite a bit on the OE clutch. Given similar issues with the 2015-2017's, it was obvious as to the primary cause as this point. It's not the clutch itself, it's the hydraulic system that's sub-par for the application.

I suspect the stock line does two things, it can collapse in certain points (like a bend radius) for some people with enough heat, thus choking off return flow or it can bulge out (in which case you get spongy pedal and inadequate disengagement leading to excessive wear / heating). I suspect at this point the majority of OE clutch failures is related to the stupid plastic hydraulic line. Way to go Ford....it's been an issue since 2011.....not sure if the 2018+'s have the same issue or not, but maybe they moved the line, used a more robust plastic or stainless line etc.

 

[TheLion70x77]

Here is the dealership FUBAR in all it's glory...seriously, how did they manage to screw up this bad? I don't think I could manage that if I tried to!

 

[TexasRebel]

Somebody was prying where they shouldn't have. Likely forgot a bolt and started using a prybar instead.

I'll stand by moving air is better than stale. The engine at redline with PP2 only consumes air at around 650 cfm.

The car travelling at 40 mph displaces about 100 times that.

 

[NvrFinished]

Use aluminum roof flashing to make a "ramp", then aluminum foil tape to seal it off. You can get both at home depot. Both are water proof, in fact the foil tape has a tanacious adhesive that can even be applied under water. It's good up to 200+F, when that part of the car will never see. Then you can use a tapered reamer to ream out a hole in the radiator ducting, right between the velossatech and the GT350 CAI duct, and secure the flashing "ramp" before. If you look back several posts on this thread, probably 10~15, I posted a graphic illustrating the "flashing + foil tape" mod to seal that area off.

Thanks. That's a great fix. Somehow I missed that post.

 

[sonicc]

See image for details.

BTW, whoever took that screenshot at Ford Performance for their user manual must have done it on a car with a drag setup...4.10's and only 710 revs per mile...short final drive with some TAAAALLLL tires...well and the fact that it says 2016 CobraJet.

I'm really liking all of the features they finally integrated into the newer revisions of ProCal. Full data logging with correct PID's...no guessing as well as retaining uber useful and practical features like changing revs per mile for tire sizes and final drive ratios.

It's nice to see an OE performance calibration include features that use to be exclusive to after market calibrations. Reliability and efficiency usually trump bigger-better-bolton-more in most cases.

Is there any way to obtain this software? The shop that did my PP2 install had it on their laptop but that's gone now. I've looked under the ford performance account I initially set up to download the tune and it's not there. Still have the OBD-II dongle. Would be nice to have this too.

 

[poncho@home]

When I log into my profile, I still have a link to download the ProCal v3. I assume that is the updated version, but I will try and download it later today and confirm

 

[sonicc]

When I log into my profile, I still have a link to download the ProCal v3. I assume that is the updated version, but I will try and download it later today and confirm

When I click on the ProCal tab it asks for voucher ID. After I enter it, it says it's already been used.

 

[poncho@home]

Hmm. Did you validate the voucher ID initially under your account, or the dealer did it?

On a Mac now, so it is offering my the Mac version for download. When I get home later I can download the Windows version and send it to you. Not sure if it will work if it validates the voucher ID for running the app as well.

 

[TheLion70x77]

Version 4.2 is the most current ProCal software. It allows full data logging plus all the other goodies like clearing DTC's, rear axel ratio changes, revs per mile adjustment for different tire sizes etc.

 

[poncho@home]

So how do we get 4.2?

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