A Very Specific Tuning Question

[MIDLYFE]

Question for the smartest Mustang junkies out there: Let's say a 5.0 owner has a 19 with 18,000 miles on it. Plans on keeping the car (maybe passing it on at some point). Puts about 5000 miles on it yearly. Lets say said person gets a CAI and tune. He doesn't track the car. Will tuning the car shorten the engines longevity?

Another question I have is: who here has the Mustang with the most miles on it?

I love highly maintained cars with high mileage. All those memories.

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[TrackMustang]

I say this as a guy with motorcycle experience and not car experience, but tunes are only capable of lowering engine life if they’re done incorrectly to my knowledge/understanding. For example, if the engine runs too lean. Too fat wont damage anything, but good tunes can be on the lean side compared to stock.

 

[EFI]

Will tuning the car shorten the engines longevity?

No, not anything you would ever notice.

Maybe the little bit of extra power will reduce the lifespan from say 200,000 miles to 199,900 miles. You are not increasing the cylinder pressure and/or engine loads enough to make a difference especially if you're keeping it within the OEM rev limiter.

Now if you greatly increased cylinder pressure and/or loads by forced induction or crazy revs, yeah you would notice a discernable decrease in lifespan.

 

[GreenS550]

If tuned properly, it won't effect the lifespan of the engine. Increasing pressures with FI likely will. But, I have had supercharged engines last a long, long time with no issues until I sold them.

 

[engineermike]

There’s not a lot that Ford left on the table on the stock tune. The only place I can find to add torque is regarding how spark timing is managed. The timing always starts below where they expect knock on 87 octane, then knock advance starts adding until it finds the knock limit. You can add about 4 deg to all the borderline knock timing tables and it will start out much closer to the knock limit on 91-93, then knock advance from there. You wind up with the same total advance but you get it much sooner so you get the torque sooner.

Cam timing and a/f ratio are all optimized from the factory.

Everything else is driver preference.

 

[mtr5.0]

There’s not a lot that Ford left on the table on the stock tune. The only place I can find to add torque is regarding how spark timing is managed. The timing always starts below where they expect knock on 87 octane, then knock advance starts adding until it finds the knock limit. You can add about 4 deg to all the borderline knock timing tables and it will start out much closer to the knock limit on 91-93, then knock advance from there. You wind up with the same total advance but you get it much sooner so you get the torque sooner.

Cam timing and a/f ratio are all optimized from the factory.

Everything else is driver preference.

How about the 10R80 transmission tuning ?
Did the ford engineers leave much on the table there ?
Shift timing , shift pressures, ect….
I know tuners will increase the shift RPM.

 

[engineermike]

How about the 10R80 transmission tuning ?
Did the ford engineers leave much on the table there ?
Shift timing , shift pressures, ect….
I know tuners will increase the shift RPM.

A very interesting question. Reconfiguring the transmission calibration was attempted by an aftermarket tuner and the results were just terrible. Pretty much everything I've seen since then has kept the stock shift firmness, and rightfully so because it's a very complicated algorithm. The torque transfer from one gear to the next is 100% controlled. Do this part wrong and the engine either free-revs between gears or is engaged in two gears at once.

I'll break this into a few aspects:

Shift schedules - These aren't terribly difficult to manipulate. However, I've found myself modifying them over and over and never quite happy. One thing I can say is that Ford made huge improvements in the maps since 2018. After toiling away for months on my 2018 strategy, I eventually just copied the 2021 GT tables into mine and it was instantly near-perfect. WOT shift points can be easily modified at the discretion of the user or tuner.

Shift firmness - This is the part I was referring to earlier. It's not as simple as raising line pressure because the pressure applied to the clutches is carefully measured and controlled to obtain the target torque transfer rate. However, Ford was nice enough to program the PCM with 3 shift "characters", you might consider to be normal, sport, and drag. The drag mode shift character is very aggressive and has no engine torque cut during the shift. You can apply that shift character to other drive modes easily enough, including "Live in Drive" (paddle shifting in drive mode).

Torque management - You can change the torque applied during shifts in every shift mode, every gear, and every torque input level. However, if you increase torque at WOT then you risk damaging parts, and if you reduce it then you lose some amount of performance. And again, in Shift character 2 it doesn't cut torque at all.

Torque converter - You can change which gears and rpm that the torque converter locks and unlocks.

On my car, I modified it by:
- Shift character 2 during Live-in-drive shifts
- Copied in 2021 GT shift maps
- Disabled downshifts in Live-in-drive
- Created "drag mode" by enabling upshifts on WOT Sport-Selectshift mode
- Apply torque cut during shift character 2 (to extend life, since supercharged)
- Various other tweaks to torque management to improve shift feel at part throttle
- WOT shift points adjusted

 

[WildHorse]

A very interesting question. Reconfiguring the transmission calibration was attempted by an aftermarket tuner and the results were just terrible.

LUNDS tuning of the 10R80 is mind boggling horrible. My buddy showed me with the factory tune vs LUND in his 10R80 car.

 

[LethalPerformance]

LUNDS tuning of the 10R80 is mind boggling horrible. My buddy showed me with the factory tune vs LUND in his 10R80 car.

Interesting. The tuning that Lund did on my 2018 GT with Whipple was perfect. I went 8.64@157 on their tune. Stock 10R80 with Mcleod clutch/steel kit and a Cirdle converter. The car drove great on the street too.

 

[LethalPerformance]

How about the 10R80 transmission tuning ?
Did the ford engineers leave much on the table there ?
Shift timing , shift pressures, ect….
I know tuners will increase the shift RPM.

Lund Racing tuned my 2018 GT with 10R80 and it was insane. The car made over 1100rwhp on the stock motor with just an oil pump gear and crank sprocket upgrade. The 10R80 held up great too. Went 8.64@157 with the stock 10R80, mcleod steel and friction kit and a Circle D converter. The 10R80s are very capable. I personally wouldn't be concerned with tuning the car as it seems you're only looking for a minor bolt on setup which has been proven to hold up very well longterm without any problems.

Feel free to give us a shout if there's anything we can help you with. We offer tuning from Lund, PBD, Sai Li and a few others. We have packages available as well.

Thanks!

 

[MKL_DS]

There are a few tenths to be had from optimized trans tuning on the Gen 3 for sure.
My car picked up maybe 15 rwhp from the dyno tuning but saw gains over 3 tenths and 3 mph at the track over stock. The power gains don't back that up, but the trans changes do...

 

[andrewtac]

Interesting. The tuning that Lund did on my 2018 GT with Whipple was perfect. I went 8.64@157 on their tune. Stock 10R80 with Mcleod clutch/steel kit and a Cirdle converter. The car drove great on the street too.

agree with this, I like the way mine is tuned/works and is tuned by Lund. I wasn't stock long, so don't really remember how it compares, but it suits me fine.

 

[WildHorse]

Interesting. The tuning that Lund did on my 2018 GT with Whipple was perfect. I went 8.64@157 on their tune. Stock 10R80 with Mcleod clutch/steel kit and a Cirdle converter. The car drove great on the street too.

Seems there FI trans tuning is better than there NA trans tune. At least in this case. Also your circle D is helping a lot.

 

[andrewtac]

Mine is FI, so maybe that is it. Driving manners in my case have nothing to do with the converter as it behaved well prior to me getting one.

 

[LethalPerformance]

Seems there FI trans tuning is better than there NA trans tune. At least in this case. Also your circle D is helping a lot.

The converter really has nothing to do with how the trans shifts. That's all tuning. All the converter does is allow you to flash the converter and launch at higher rpms than the stock converter.

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