Question for Eddie

[Banshee365]

Eddie, is the shop you got your car tuned at in Delray Beach? Diablosport is about ready to release a predator programmer for Gen 2 Lightning's and I'm on the list. They're thinking about letting them use my truck as a test truck to make sure their tunes are consistent and want to make sure they know what they're doing. They're the Diablosport HQ so I would think they do. The programmer will along give me 20-30 hp at the wheels, but that's the the beauty of it. I won't have to remove a chip and send it off to get it reburned. I think you have the same unit so I don't need to be preaching about it. Are you happy with the programmer overall, is it worth the money? Thanks loads in advance.

-Kelly :cheers:

[TheDan]

Kelly you could do a PCM reburn and pull more than 20-30 at the wheels. I know one of the few guys who can do it right...he's a retired SVT engineer...let me know if you wanna know more.

[Banshee365]

Hey Dan, havn't talked to you since like the fall semester of 2002. How's things? Reburning the PCM is another option but I still like the idea of being able to change something on the spot if I need to. Say when I'm pulling my trailer i could have a tune setup with a lower advance and a little more fuel then be able to switch back to a higher performance tune by pushing a few buttons. It seems most tuners want to get the highest numbers out of their tunes so they remove the torque reduction and do whatever else they can do to get the most hp. I want a somewhat moderate tune that it still safe on my tranny and be able to retune the truck as I add mods. This programmer sounds like it's effectivly doing the same that reburning/flashing the PCM. It's all about getting a good set of parameters, and that is different for every truck it seems. I'll probably end up down in delray beach on the dyno to get a good tune. Thanks for the suggestion though.

-Kelly

[HORSEpower]

The faster your tranny shifts, the longer it will last.

Kurt

[TheDan]

I refuse to use the big lightning tuners now...i only use Mark Trammel.

The PCM burn is nice because it resets your default tables and the truck will still compensate for added modifications just like the stock un-chipped PCM does. The chips have a hardcoded table of parameters, where the PCM burn allows for compensation...but good luck in whatever you do.

[Banshee365]

The faster your tranny shifts, the longer it will last.

Kurt

The problem with the Lightning tranny is this: The 4R100 was taken out of the super duty for the Lightning as it was strong enough to handle the stock 450 ft/lb of torque. The trans is rated at 1000 ft/lbs, but the converter has a 2x multiplication factor so the tranny's capacity is 90% used up in stock form, sucks huh? So instead of building a better tranny Ford kills the fuel to 4 cylinders during the 1-2 shift to help prolong the life of the trans. So adding more power and taking out the torque reduction is 2 things the tranny doesn't want. A Factory trans tech build's a tranny for $2,000 that will handle most any streetable power so there are alternatives to eliminate the weak link factor of the stock 4R100. Temp's also play a huge role in it's life but that's another subject. :)

-Kelly

[LethalBird]

The guys in Diablo are very good at what they do specially with the Ford people. They are actually mainly Ford guys and all their tuning is done on Ford trucks and Mustangs. Their facilty is state of the art equiped with top dyno machine on the Market. Also the predator is amazing coz it works as a scan master and programmer. In other words u can hook it up while u driving and look at all ur motor parameter and how its behaving. Thats the first thing they did to my car when I went down there. I went for a ride with the guy while the programmer hooked to my car.
Also whatever program will be used to tune ur truck on the dyno will be downloaded in the programmer so u can change or adjust things later if u need to. They can also e-mail u new programs later if they come up with something else and then u can download them to the programmer and install them in ur truck. Its difinately worth the time and money if u gonna spend any. All the 03 Cobra guys are upgrading to Diablo delta chip and use their programmers. I can show u how it looks like sometime if u want to. Actually, I have to go down there next week to install my injectors on their dyno. I hope that was good enough info but if u need more just call my cell 589-3784

Eddie