Partial throttle "lull" with custom tune.

[Heardcuh]

I've been having a problem that is hard to replicate at times for me to show my tuner what's going on and I wanted to check real quick to see if anyone's experienced this thing. Sometimes, in any gear when I give it half throttle, might be at around 10psi. I start to hear the engine get louder but it won't pull any harder. Then it feels like the power will catch up to where I'd expected it to be seconds ago and will come in chunks causing a "bumpy" increase in acceleration. I switched back to the Cobb OTS stage 1 and stock tunes to check to see if it'd replicate but no avail. To allieviate this I usually either baby the throttle and slowly increase throttle or push through the laggy feeling and go near wot or to wot and it doesn't happen. It's weird, I don't know what could be causing it but it makes the driving explerience undesirable which sucks because everything else about my custom tune is great and it's so hard to describe or show what's going on without letting someone drive it. When it happens, I'll be at 10psi for instance and then press the gas to continue accelerating at a faster rate, the sound of the engine being loaded increases, and then the power delivery lags behind and the boost seems to come on in chunks.

Has anyone experienced anything like this and is there anything I can do or check or go over with my tuner to allieviate this problem?

Sponsored

 

[ypena02]

Capture the issue in a log and send it to your tuner.

 

[ForYourOwnGood]

To me it seems like there is an issue with the pedal itself, because my car does this and it is completely stock. There seems to be three distinct areas of throttle, one right past tip-in that gives 10-20%, then at about half pedal there is literally nothing, and then when you hit the floorboard you finally get full throttle. I've been considering having the dealer look at it because it seems really abnormal.

Also, the fake engine sounds from the stereo get very loud during the spot on the throttle that does nothing so it gets really disorienting. Your ears tell you things are happening but it isn't real.

 

[PRG3k]

Could be a number of different things. I have experienced this on many occasions on two different Ecoboosts. It sounds/feels like a clutch being ridden and let out under acceleration. I think the root of it lies somewhere in the Ford software. Whether it is some form of torque reduction, timing retardation due to heat soak, or what I personally believe: boost targets vs actual load vs throttle position etc...

It is definitely something in the nature of the ECU.

 

[Heardcuh]

Damn, I was hoping someone was going to be able to say something like "Oh THAT? Yeah that's just this, easy fix". But I'll keep making logs for my tuner, I feel bad bugging him and it'd be easy to capture it if I sent him a 45 second log but I feel like that'd be a pain in the ass so I keep trying to capture it in a 10 second log and guess when it's gonna happen bit of course it doesn't replicate the problem that's constantly happening when I'm trying to demonstrate it -___-

 

[PRG3k]

You can log for a while. I forget what the memory cut off is. But once the issue occurs, stop the log as soon as possible afterward so if he has to sift through a very long log, he will know to look near the end for the trouble issue.

 

[Heardcuh]

Thanks PRG that's a brilliant idea.

 

[Fast64ranchero]

Wastegate actuator. Pre load it. Just a guess

 

[Regs]

Yeah, happens with my automatic too. Especially coming out of sports mode back to regular drive mode. Could be heat soak, bad gas, or like PRG3k mentioned throttle position.

 

[Tune+]

What gear are you in when it happens? 5th or 6th?

 

[PamAndJim]

I just went through the custom tune process with Adam and with the earlier revisions (and even the base MAP tune I had before) experienced the same exact thing you described. I won't speculate on the cause, because I'm certainly not an expert. But, I will say that after describing the issue and sending logs to Adam it was 100% fixed and the car is back to driving like stock... but with more power. So, get with your tuner. If it's Adam, he'll get it ironed out. If it's not Adam, switch

 

[Heardcuh]

2nd 3rd or 4th. I'm thinking it may be due to heat because I don't notice it on a cold night, just during the days after the charge temps aren't coming below 100

 

[Apwrx]

Part throttle wasn't real smooth on my cystom tune either. It's seemed like it would surge with power delivery at part throttle.

 

[Scott Wilson]

I've been having a problem that is hard to replicate at times for me to show my tuner what's going on and I wanted to check real quick to see if anyone's experienced this thing. Sometimes, in any gear when I give it half throttle, might be at around 10psi. I start to hear the engine get louder but it won't pull any harder. Then it feels like the power will catch up to where I'd expected it to be seconds ago and will come in chunks causing a "bumpy" increase in acceleration. I switched back to the Cobb OTS stage 1 and stock tunes to check to see if it'd replicate but no avail. To allieviate this I usually either baby the throttle and slowly increase throttle or push through the laggy feeling and go near wot or to wot and it doesn't happen. It's weird, I don't know what could be causing it but it makes the driving explerience undesirable which sucks because everything else about my custom tune is great and it's so hard to describe or show what's going on without letting someone drive it. When it happens, I'll be at 10psi for instance and then press the gas to continue accelerating at a faster rate, the sound of the engine being loaded increases, and then the power delivery lags behind and the boost seems to come on in chunks.

Has anyone experienced anything like this and is there anything I can do or check or go over with my tuner to allieviate this problem?

Most of those issues sound like they could be seen in a log. You should log it and email it to Tune+

Sponsored