New lidio 93 oct tune...

[Ktorres1]

After much reading and a long enough wait, I finally got the much talked about tune. Installation was simple and I couldn't wait to fly. Well I took of from a dead start with my friend in the car and for the first time with somebody other than me in the car, the car broke the tires loose! Acceleration other than that was as usual as I looked for the 6200 rpm shifts and it never came as it shifted and has consistently shifted at 6000 rpm. Disappointing as I felt the car had a lil more to give. The shifts are firmer but not neck snapping or tire ripping, disappointing. The trans is much better sadly it had to take $418 to do it but still very much so better. The car feels lighter at least as well as slightly more responsive but not at the performance level I had in mind. I'm happy with the progress but feel there is room for aggressive performance improvement and as a result will be giving a call to lidio on Monday to see what can be done about adjusting the tune according to data logging and geting the consistent 6200 rpm shift I long awaited and paid for. Note lidio is an amazing tuning specialist and I am more than positve my expectations can be met as his service is of top of the line...

[hotford]

Thats what ya get from a mail order tune is just that mail order,If ya wanted it right you should have taken the car down to him and all this would have been addressed then, instead of bashing him, Most mail order tune SUCK!! Lidio is usually bang on with his ****.

Im sure he'll fix ya up as he's a stand up guy.

[justbob]

Didn't he leave the shift pressures and shift RPM's open for you to adjust?

[Ktorres1]

Nothing bad to be said about lidio, I think he is more than the man for the job and I'm confident that it will be tweaked to my liking. He did leave things open for me but I'm not sure if WOT rpm shifts are something I can adjust?

[Zack]

Give me your email address.

[musclemerc]

I know what you went through to finally get a tune, we've been PM'ing for awhile discussing the pro's and con's but it has been long discussed in the past and contrary to alot of peoples belief's the mail order tune's were getting really don't give a huge HP gain. They do however wake the car up with new shift patterns. Which in turn makes the MM feel faster. All Mfg's make HP claims to move their products but hardly any live up to thier expectations. I know i'm gonna get flammed for saying this so go ahead.

[BUCKWHEAT]

My personal view is your 6200 request is an invitation to disaster given the factory soft pistons and rods, and the automatic transmission. These engines can spin 7k easily. Did it with my stick-shift Cobra all the time.

My tune target WOT shift point is 5800. Blew up my first MM motor at 6400.

[Zack]

I know what you went through to finally get a tune, we've been PM'ing for awhile discussing the pro's and con's but it has been long discussed in the past and contrary to alot of peoples belief's the mail order tune's were getting really don't give a huge HP gain. They do however wake the car up with new shift patterns. Which in turn makes the MM feel faster. All Mfg's make HP claims to move their products but hardly any live up to thier expectations. I know i'm gonna get flammed for saying this so go ahead.

There is only so much timing you can send out in a mail order tune and be confident it will work anywhere in the lower 48 states without detonation. Combine that with the fact tuners need to make programming devices as quick as possible and move them out the door to get back to work in the shop. Tuners just dont have the time to make little tweaks for each specific owner, so they do their R&D in the beginning and just send out what works well.....There is nothing wrong with this.


Onto your comment musclemerc about mail order tunes not waking the MM up to their potential. I fully disagree to an extent, and here is why:

Ive learned a lot about dyno tuning 'custom dyno tuning' and all related stuff over the years, and if you have a NA MM, most 'custom tunes' are BULL***** if you want my opinion. The SCT base tune is so dead nuts close to perfect you cant go wrong with it. You add headers, it will most likely still be quite close to perfect, along with every other mod you add.

I have now seen 2 'custom dyno tune' files for a NA MM and they are near identical to what SCT provides as a starting point. A lot of tuners will get you on the dyno, load a factory STOCK tune and do a pull. (This is even if you drove in with an aftermarket tune installed) You get low numbers and say wow my MM felt fast for those numbers...then they load what is nearly identical to what you drove in with and do another pull and BAM! You just gained 40rwhp and 50rwtq! The tuner is now a god, you are 600 dollars poorer and you drive off trying to convince yourself that the 600 you just spent made your MM quicker, when in reality it really didnt.

The cliff noted are this: If you have a NA MM, its the bolt-ons that make the power, not the 'custom tune'

Hope this made some sense.

[Zack]

My personal view is your 6200 request is an invitation to disaster given the factory soft pistons and rods, and the automatic transmission. These engines can spin 7k easily. Did it with my stick-shift Cobra all the time.

My tune target WOT shift point is 5800. Blew up my first MM motor at 6400.

Oh boy do I disagree with your opinion.

I shifted my Vortech at 6800 from 1-2 and 6600 from 2-3 and its why I got such good E.T.s

6200 is a perfect shift point for a stock MM, it puts the engine in the dead nuts sweet spot after the shift.

[Ktorres1]

I have to say I've been playing alot more with the tune and it's really coming into play in alot of scenario improvments. First of I drive the streets and take turns etc like I'm on a track! I break and fix parts like perfect harmony at the NASCAR pits! All this because I love the marauder and enjoy taking it to it's limits while improving the minor details! So after lots of hard driving at testing, it's all the minor details and polish that lidio's tune posseses that make the marauder such a joy to push to it's limits! The tune has come into full play into the car and it managed to give me a nice adrenaline on the highway pulling strong to 125 mph! Traffic stops me from turning the needle upside down but it's the fact that the car pulls stronger in every gear that really makes it feel more complete. I would also like to say I ran zack's tune and i can easlily see how that is well liked as I felt many of the same pleasure lidio's tune gives but with slight preference differences. Ok so the car is shifting at about I would say 6100 rpm, it has not given me a tire chirp but the gears shift firm and fast while always keeping the revs goin up. It was the overall improvement that got me after much limit pushing testing today that got me not the WOT straight line stuff that others were awwed by in which I still feel that a dyno or data logging one on one with lidio would be best. I bumped global spark up a degree as it was set at 0 ? Bumped shift pressures all up to 15 and added 2 mph on the 1-2 WOT shift. Can someone further explain some of these options to me and what are considered safety standerds? Will talk with lidio Monday untill then would take any words of wisdom..

[JimP]

Let us know what Lidio says but out of the box his tune lowers the shift point slightly from 1-2 6000 rpm and keeps it at 6200 rpm from 2-3. His tune is open to user adjustments where you can add a few mph to where the shifts are. With his stock 93 tune my MM shifts very hard with 75,000 miles on the power train.

Global spark
shift points
line pressures are just some of the things which are adjustable. Tweak it a bit but it's not a bad base line. If you need a firmer shift from 1-2 go with the J-Mod. You also need to consider the overall health of your power train. If the motor or trans are tired you won't get full benefit from tuning.

[Ktorres1]

I didn't get a chance to talk to him today but I'll give him a call first chance I get. I don't know to much about global spark and if it woul be safe adding 2 or 3 degrees since he has it set at o. I did add to 2 mph to my 1-2 shift maybe that's how I got my 6100 rpm shift! I'm goin to give home a call and do some more tweaking but I'm really enjoying the tune overall now! I'm not to sure about the line pressures and if I should adjust them to strong because Im nt sure what impact that might have on the tranny?

[JimP]

I went up +25% from 1-2 and it didn't feel any different than the +15% increase with regards to line pressures. I should have mentioned that my car shifted pretty good prior to the tune but it did help especially from 2-3. Raising line pressure will not hurt the transmission, it will actually help the friction materials live longer.

When you refer to global spark being at 0, that's just with reference to Lidio's baseline, who knows how many degrees have been added by him with the baseline tune, it's definitely an increase over stock though. I'm sure FORD left a lot on the table in this area.

If you do make any changes do them a degree at a time and listen for detonation. This is one area I haven't played with as of yet.

Raising your shift mph is how you obtained the higher rpm shift point, 6200 rpm should be the sweet spot for a N/A Marauder. Write down the changes you make and if they worked or not so you can refer to them in the future. It was money well spent so don't lose any sleep. Glad your having fun with it.

Jim

[MrBluGruv]

Oh boy do I disagree with your opinion.

I shifted my Vortech at 6800 from 1-2 and 6600 from 2-3 and its why I got such good E.T.s

6200 is a perfect shift point for a stock MM, it puts the engine in the dead nuts sweet spot after the shift.

I can second this, kind of. When my trans went out it died between the 2-3 shift and it just revved freely, and in the time it took me to realize I was going nowhere and the engine was revving high from being WOT I looked down and was winding pretty close to 7k. I don't remember exactly, as my memory is a little fuzzy from the panic and thinking "HOLY %(*&^$#*&#$" as I then backed off the gas, but it was pretty close up there, and thankfully the motor is still running strong.

[Ktorres1]

Thanks Jim it truly is an investment and would reccomend a tune to others as there first mod. I have my shift pressures at +15 and will raise to +25 if ok'd by lidio? I've gotten my shift on the 1-2 up to 6176 rpm by adding 4 mph increase to my 1-2 WOT shift and man does it feel sweet! About the detonation how do I look out for this when adding global spark? Also while doin some data logging my tuner seems to freeze up on me after a few minutes? Thanks in advance