stanglife
Well-Known Member
Ahh but the software is changing physical attributes now ;) It's becoming hard to tell what is software or hardware. Check out freevalve technology - is it the software or the hardware that provides basically limitless camshaft profiles on the fly?Agreed. Since 2011, pretty much all Ford ECU's have a loop in the calibration that probes the limits of safe spark advance. It's for fuel economy. It continuously moves the spark up until the knock sensor starts to hear strange noises and then backs it down just a hair. That's why you actually get more power with higher octane fuel in most Fords. I expect that Ford has decades of data on how much knock is tolerable and what isn't. Cylinder 8 seems to be the canary in that particular coal mine.
An aftermarket tuner can adjust the safety threshold upwards and get even more power, with the risk that knock will do damage. It's all a balancing act.
The other variable is cam timing. As @honeybadger has just posted, locking the cams reduces power, so Ford may have found a bit more power with different cam timing in later model years. But, as I said earlier, that's not because the engine is more powerful, it's because of software changes.
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