MPT Tune Officially out

[ctandc72]

Well I too have to disagree. I installed PP sway bars as well. The only reason I did was because they came with the PP suspension parts i bought (front control arms, toe links, shock/struts). I noticed a larger degree of difference with my handling springs then any of those items. Yes it felt more composed but to say the PP sway bars made that much difference is not something I would subscribe too. The PP says are literally 1 millimeter thicker in the rear and the fronts are exactly the same size as base v6. The difference is the bushings are pressed on which gives a more on center feel when driving. It can actually be argued this pressed on bushing becomes an issue the more power and suspension parts u add as u will end up with deflection and binding in the sway bars. So much so I switched to Steeda adjustables. I noticed an improvement after that for sure. But of course this is all subjective so what I notice and you notice are based on just that, us. But I do think a better bang for your buck would be the GT350R sway bar which last time I checked was still in the 100s with bushings.

I ordered the Ford PP front bar new. It was most definitely bigger than the factory V6 bar I pulled off. I know it was the factory bar - bought the car new. Handling is subjective. Always has been. It was when I raced dirt track and pavement in the 80's. It was the same when I tracked 3rd gen F-Body's years after that.

Most mass production cars suffer from understeer from the factory. For a pretty simple reason - it's a helluva lost easier to try and correct an understeer condition for an average driver than it is in an oversteer situation. I've driven cars that handled ridiculously good, but there was no warning before the grip of the tires came loose. I tend to prefer a bit of oversteer - simply because that's what I prefer, it's what I'm comfortable, especially considering my background in dirt track racing and growing up driving on dirt roads.

When it comes to springs / struts and lowering / not lowering, that's almost always subjective as well. While in theory lowering a car's center of gravity helps in the handling department it also changes a myriad of other things and this affects driving characteristics. The truth is that 99% of all drivers in a car such as a Mustang will reach the limit of their driving experience before reaching the limit of what the car is capable of.

I've seen guys lower cars and say "the ride isn't bad at all" - again that's subjective. The truth is cars are more prone to being under-damped from the factory than they are under sprung and some of the spring rates I've seen on common lowering springs back when I was working on 3rd gen F-Body's (considered VERY good handling cars with simple mods, even now) were ridiculous , especially paired with the strut / spring combo's people were commonly using.

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[USMCtoARMY]

I ordered the Ford PP front bar new. It was most definitely bigger than the factory V6 bar I pulled off. I know it was the factory bar - bought the car new. Handling is subjective. Always has been. It was when I raced dirt track and pavement in the 80's. It was the same when I tracked 3rd gen F-Body's years after that.

Most mass production cars suffer from understeer from the factory. For a pretty simple reason - it's a helluva lost easier to try and correct an understeer condition for an average driver than it is in an oversteer situation. I've driven cars that handled ridiculously good, but there was no warning before the grip of the tires came loose. I tend to prefer a bit of oversteer - simply because that's what I prefer, it's what I'm comfortable, especially considering my background in dirt track racing and growing up driving on dirt roads.

When it comes to springs / struts and lowering / not lowering, that's almost always subjective as well. While in theory lowering a car's center of gravity helps in the handling department it also changes a myriad of other things and this affects driving characteristics. The truth is that 99% of all drivers in a car such as a Mustang will reach the limit of their driving experience before reaching the limit of what the car is capable of.

I've seen guys lower cars and say "the ride isn't bad at all" - again that's subjective. The truth is cars are more prone to being under-damped from the factory than they are under sprung and some of the spring rates I've seen on common lowering springs back when I was working on 3rd gen F-Body's (considered VERY good handling cars with simple mods, even now) were ridiculous , especially paired with the strut / spring combo's people were commonly using.

I agree with just about everything you are saying. And we will definitely agree handling changes and how the inputs change for the driver are subjective. Springs for me in this platform were the one thing I noticed the largest difference with immediately in comparison to the PP parts. The PP sway bars did not flatten out the ride quality in body roll as much I had hoped. Steedas did. Again not saying the PP sways made no difference, they did, but it just wasnt substantial to me.

I really am not trying to start anything so dont get me wrong with what I am saying since you had hands on experience and I respect your experience and advice throughout the forum, but the sway bar sizes in the front PP and base are not different sizes. The GT non-PP, V6 and EB non-PP all have the same front bar. The GT PP and EB PP have the same front bar also. They are all 32mm the difference is the bushings.

As @Nagare pointed out we are off the thread topic for sure lol.

 

[Fuse]

Got my updated tune with gear display. I'm really curious to see if MPT improves their tunes over time.

 

[USMCtoARMY]

Got my updated tune with gear display. I'm really curious to see if MPT improves their tunes over time.

What is "updated tune with gear display" specifically gear display.

 

[Nagare]

What is "updated tune with gear display" specifically gear display.

Shows what gear you're in, even in D and without engaging the paddles at all.

 

[USMCtoARMY]

Shows what gear you're in, even in D and without engaging the paddles at all.

I see it's an auto thing. Gotcha, thanks man.

 

[Fuse]

Just ran the new tune. I really like having the gear display there. So far so good.

Question regarding the tuner device itself, I have the SCTX4. When I was installing the tune, in the options, I noticed that you can change the tire size rev diameter, did I read that correctly? So tire size changes can be adjusted from there so the speedo can read accurately?

 

[Nagare]

Yes you can, if you want you can go through the whole trouble of doing a GPS comparison to see how close it is and then adjust the revolutions up or down to get it exact on the speedo for you.

Either that, or you do it through Forscan (but that also requires going back to your stock tune before programming).

 

[Fuse]

Yes you can, if you want you can go through the whole trouble of doing a GPS comparison to see how close it is and then adjust the revolutions up or down to get it exact on the speedo for you.

Either that, or you do it through Forscan (but that also requires going back to your stock tune before programming).

That is awesome. I've been wanting to get a different tire size but I've been holding off since I didn't want the speedo to be inaccurate.

 

[Fuse]

I definitely like the updated tune. Before the update on Drive, it was very harsh when shifting from 3 -> 4 when I hesitated on the throttle a bit, around 25-29 mph. You'd feel the gear spin then abruptly shift very harshly to 4th. Now it is smooth.

 

[Baso]

What's up guys hope you're all doing well. I'm posting here because something has been bugging me with the automatic shifts on the highway on the tune. Whenever I open the throttle 50% or so, instead of shifting once to the proper gear (let's call it gear X) that puts the RPM in the 5-6k'ish, the car downshifts first into a gear higher than gear X and then downshifts again into the latter. To put into a better perspective, say I'm cruising at 50mph in 6th, I open up at 50%-75% throttle and instead of downshifting directly into 3rd (which I assume is the right gear that would put you in the optimal power band), the car goes into 4th and then into 3rd. Happens most of the time in Drive. Do anyone of you with the auto trans tuned by mpt also experience this?

 

[Nagare]

You can do a datalog for them that will show what you're talking about so they can properly address it. If you really want to go, you go WOT and it'll drop multiple gears together. I haven't really noticed any issues with mine doing what you're talking about the way I drive at least.

 

[roryedits]

What's up guys hope you're all doing well. I'm posting here because something has been bugging me with the automatic shifts on the highway on the tune. Whenever I open the throttle 50% or so, instead of shifting once to the proper gear (let's call it gear X) that puts the RPM in the 5-6k'ish, the car downshifts first into a gear higher than gear X and then downshifts again into the latter. To put into a better perspective, say I'm cruising at 50mph in 6th, I open up at 50%-75% throttle and instead of downshifting directly into 3rd (which I assume is the right gear that would put you in the optimal power band), the car goes into 4th and then into 3rd. Happens most of the time in Drive. Do anyone of you with the auto trans tuned by mpt also experience this?

Honestly ive had this issue with all three mustangs i've owned, from experience you most likely have your car in D instead of S so the vehicle down shifts to one above the proper WOT gear for economy reasons i guess, doesn't happen for me in sport mode, but i mean like already stated data log should fix that.

 

[Baso]

Honestly ive had this issue with all three mustangs i've owned, from experience you most likely have your car in D instead of S so the vehicle down shifts to one above the proper WOT gear for economy reasons i guess, doesn't happen for me in sport mode, but i mean like already stated data log should fix that.

I get what you're saying, but the thing is it is downshifting to the proper gear, only not directly because it's passing through a higher gear first. So it's downshifting two times before going. I'll have to test it more anws. Might just be normal partial-throttle behavior in Drive.

 

[Nagare]

For that, you should be able to ask them to change the behavior a bit. That's where the datalog comes in, they can see the specific sort of scenario you're talking about and hopefully make the appropriate changes to improve the feel for you.

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