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Cylinder 4 Down. Home Engine Rebuild Thread

mejohn50

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Who would you recommend?
The real answer is to learn how the PCM works and then tune it yourself. If you do that you will know 100% what safeguards are in place and you can even add your own protections with creative calibration.

One simple example of an added safeguard is I made it so my car (auto transmission) can never hit the rev limiter outside of park or neutral. My car will ALWAYS upshift no matter what. In any drive mode with the paddles engaged or not engaged. Drive, sport, drag, etc it will always upshift before any of the rev limiters.
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My car will ALWAYS upshift no matter what. In any drive mode with the paddles engaged or not engaged
I dont know much about tuning the trans, how do you do this? A6

Thanks
 
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tdstuart

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The real answer is to learn how the PCM works and then tune it yourself. If you do that you will know 100% what safeguards are in place and you can even add your own protections with creative calibration.

One simple example of an added safeguard is I made it so my car (auto transmission) can never hit the rev limiter outside of park or neutral. My car will ALWAYS upshift no matter what. In any drive mode with the paddles engaged or not engaged. Drive, sport, drag, etc it will always upshift before any of the rev limiters.
I would but I see so many people have little issues that go onto hptuners forums that they can’t figure out. My tuner couldn’t figure out why my car wants to auto upshift when using paddles going from 3rd to 4th (skips 4th and goes to fifth, then after you get off throttle it will shift back down to first). And he has a lot of tuning experience.

I also just don’t know where to learn
 

mejohn50

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I would but I see so many people have little issues that go onto hptuners forums that they can’t figure out. My tuner couldn’t figure out why my car wants to auto upshift when using paddles going from 3rd to 4th (skips 4th and goes to fifth, then after you get off throttle it will shift back down to first). And he has a lot of tuning experience.

I also just don’t know where to learn
People want to take shortcuts and just magically understand how to tune these things, that’s why many of them have issues. This is probably one of the most complex platforms to learn on and I can see why people pay to get a tune. The information sharing on this platform is very limited and how it all works is really unintuitive at first.

The best way to learn is to download the HP Tuners VCM suite, which you can get without an account or interface, and get a stock file for a car like yours. Then start looking it over and searching on the internet for parameters that don’t make sense to you. The HPT forums have some good baseline info on how the mapped points work. There is a lot of trial and experimentation too.

Understanding the mapped points and the core logic of HDFX really starts to allow things to make sense. There are also many files floating around that you can look at and try to make sense of changes. Looking at other stock Ford files is a really good way to understand more about HDFX, mapped points, and their calibration logic behind everything. There are also files from Roush, Whipple, and others available if you look for them. Whenever I come across a post on the HPT forums where someone is having issue I download the offending file and then follow the conversation to see what’s happening.

Finding someone who is willing to mentor you and be someone who you can bounce ideas back and forth with is also really helpful. I found someone who is extremely knowledgeable and willing to take me under his wing on this platform. Ever since then my knowledge on the platform, and about engines, has increased exponentially.

I’ve bought books from The Tuning School and Don LaSota and unless you just want a book of baseline settings I wouldn’t waste my time.
 

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tdstuart

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People want to take shortcuts and just magically understand how to tune these things, that’s why many of them have issues. This is probably one of the most complex platforms to learn on and I can see why people pay to get a tune. The information sharing on this platform is very limited and how it all works is really unintuitive at first.

The best way to learn is to download the HP Tuners VCM suite, which you can get without an account or interface, and get a stock file for a car like yours. Then start looking it over and searching on the internet for parameters that don’t make sense to you. The HPT forums have some good baseline info on how the mapped points work. There is a lot of trial and experimentation too.

Understanding the mapped points and the core logic of HDFX really starts to allow things to make sense. There are also many files floating around that you can look at and try to make sense of changes. Looking at other stock Ford files is a really good way to understand more about HDFX, mapped points, and their calibration logic behind everything. There are also files from Roush, Whipple, and others available if you look for them. Whenever I come across a post on the HPT forums where someone is having issue I download the offending file and then follow the conversation to see what’s happening.

Finding someone who is willing to mentor you and be someone who you can bounce ideas back and forth with is also really helpful. I found someone who is extremely knowledgeable and willing to take me under his wing on this platform. Ever since then my knowledge on the platform, and about engines, has increased exponentially.

I’ve bought books from The Tuning School and Don LaSota and unless you just want a book of baseline settings I wouldn’t waste my time.
Ya I was thinking of buying some courses from this company called hpacademy but it’s expensive and I don’t know how helpful it will be for hptuners and the coyote engine.

Don’t really know where to go to learn the basics + specifics for the mustang platform and hptuners.
 

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I really think.. a seasoned tuner should be considered vs using your car as a guinea pig. I get it if you was always changing it up or doing multiple cars. but if a tuner really has it down to a science, id trust them over my own experimentation on the bike.

idk. I can't see it worth while to learn to tune your own car unless its absolutely fun to you. I mean, theres a lot of man hours in perfecting these tunes, lets use ford tune, I know it isn't the best, but use it as a base line. I gotta wonder how many engines they blew to make sure it was safe 'enough' for mass produced slap on tune with a intake or whatever.

certainly not something id want to risk with engines costing as much as they do.

but its awesome people who can do it on their own.
 
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tdstuart

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I really think.. a seasoned tuner should be considered vs using your car as a guinea pig. I get it if you was always changing it up or doing multiple cars. but if a tuner really has it down to a science, id trust them over my own experimentation on the bike.

idk. I can't see it worth while to learn to tune your own car unless its absolutely fun to you. I mean, theres a lot of man hours in perfecting these tunes, lets use ford tune, I know it isn't the best, but use it as a base line. I gotta wonder how many engines they blew to make sure it was safe 'enough' for mass produced slap on tune with a intake or whatever.

certainly not something id want to risk with engines costing as much as they do.

but its awesome people who can do it on their own.
Ya I totally see your side and that’s what I am heavily leaning towards.

Also fords tune doesn’t squeeze every last drop of power, but it just works. Never had any weird issues with the stock tune, and that’s what is really important for reliability and daily driving
 

mejohn50

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I really think.. a seasoned tuner should be considered vs using your car as a guinea pig. I get it if you was always changing it up or doing multiple cars. but if a tuner really has it down to a science, id trust them over my own experimentation on the bike.

idk. I can't see it worth while to learn to tune your own car unless its absolutely fun to you. I mean, theres a lot of man hours in perfecting these tunes, lets use ford tune, I know it isn't the best, but use it as a base line. I gotta wonder how many engines they blew to make sure it was safe 'enough' for mass produced slap on tune with a intake or whatever.

certainly not something id want to risk with engines costing as much as they do.

but its awesome people who can do it on their own.
To each their own, but at some point you might as well just buy a car that you don’t modify. Then you don’t have to worry about anything.
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