Whipple.. stock or custom tune?

[Jessekf]

So I pulled the trigger on a Stage 1 Whipple this Black Friday, and now I'm waiting for it to ship.

I live in the boonies, where the car scene says we have pretty poor gas. Apparently the best gas we have is 91 Octane, and that's questionable at times. Do I run the Whipple factory tune, get a local shop to tune it, or can these be tuned remotely by someone like Lund?

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[Inthehighdesert]

I to purchased one but at the end of Nov. My situation is I am only wanting to deal with readily available 91-93. I initially passed on the Whipple tune and was going to use either Lund or Palm Beach. I reached out to a couple reputable outfits, one being popular on youtube with tons of 350 video’s. I was told if I was just after pump gas(no E85), the Whipple tune was very good and there really wasn’t a benefit to moving up. I added the Whipple tune back to the package today.

 

[BiancoV]

If you have a shop you trust I say custom tune...

 

[Jackson1320]

If you have a local shop that will tune it. WOT, part throttle, drivability, everything do that. But if it’s just WOT tuning I would stick with whipple or Lund, palm beach. Lund/PD will make more power but with your limitations not much more. Not enough to justify the cost. Get more mods first then get a custom tune.
If e85 is off the table consider water/meth

 

[crcpdx]

Off topic, but I have crappy gas here also. When I'm on pump gas, I add a couple of oz of boostane for peace of mind.

 

[J17GT]

I recently ordered a stage 2 kit and plan to stick with the whipple tune for a while. Whipple tunes these kits for 91 octane, so you should be fine. I‘m not chasing every last bit of horsepower and didn‘t feel like spending close to $1k for an aftermarket tune at this time.

 

[GeigerZ]

I ordered the Stage 1 and installed it a month or so ago. The Whipple tune is as advertised and cannot tell the difference between stock and their tune. Power? I gets up and goes, but having had many supercharged cars before, I knew there was a lot left on the table.

Contacted PBD and received the nGauge and went through all the motions of back and forth to get to the WOT stage of tuning. A few tunes later and it was time for the 4th gear 2500-7500 RPM log. (Initially, I did try 3rd gear, but with the request to have T/C off and there was very little hope of not spinning after one or two attempts, it was not safe) I had done several pulls with the Whipple tune and had a baseline. It wasn't even close!! The PBD tune peeled my face back on the two hits made for logging.

To be fair, after sending the log to PBD, I loaded the stock tune and then the Whipple again. Same day, same road and same procedure. It's a safe - very safe tune and gets going, but nothing like the PBD tune! No face peeling. No getting loose. No E-ticket ride (if you are old enough - you will know what that means).

Back to the new PBD revision (cleaned up a few things) and then in the ECM it went. Took it back out to the same spot and giggled the whole time. FYI - I could stab the accelerator pedal with the Whipple tune in 3rd or 4th without worry of spinning. Not so much with the PBD tune.

93 (10% Ethanol) octane and it was still adding timing (no knock). IAT max is 59*

My goal was 650rwhp and was probably over 50rwhp shy with the Whipple tune. Used PBD to make up the difference and taking a look a the timing - there's more to be had, but I'm content at the moment.

YMMV, but it's night/day between the two.

 

[DavidHuff]

I had a Whipple Stage2 Kit on my 2017 Mustang Gt and used the Whipple Tune and went 10.70ET 130MPH on pump gas.

 

[TX-Ripper]

Whipple tune is extremely good.

 

[Jordan @ Lethal]

There's nothing wrong with the Whipple tune by any means but it's extremely conservative. You'll gain three figures of wheel horsepower with it which can be as much as some small cars. But the whole power band is cranked up to 11 with something like Lund or PBD. So not only will you gain a good bit more power on the top end going this route but you will gain lots of meat in the early/mid power band as well. Your equipment is capable of quite a bit more.

 

[moffetts]

I recommend the Whipple tune plus octane booster.

 

[Jessekf]

I recommend the Whipple tune plus octane booster.

Is it possible to over-octane fuel?

 

[Jackson1320]

Is it possible to over-octane fuel?

Yes and no. if you have octane booster that doesn’t slow the burn rate you’re fine but most octane boosters slow burn rate. So if you slow the burn rate down you will loose power

 

[moffetts]

With straight 91, you will be pulling 2-4 degrees of timing at WOT. Even the numbest butt dyno will notice that.

 

[Jackson1320]

Is it possible to over-octane fuel?

Remember octane does not equal power a whole bunch of octane booster will not give more power. so there’s no reason to have more octane than you need. Just enough so that you don’t have to worry about detonation And the car doesn’t pull timing.

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