Re-Tuning

I'm not sure what the reason is for the other forum's suggestion wrt not reflashing, but FWIW I've been doing it a at least once a month since 6/05 without any ill effects.

I've never heard that

Yeh me neither, ive reflashed my car 3 times this week alone !

Why the re flash? Is the computer changing the flash parameters?

Ive been chaing the parameters via laptop then uploaded them to the tuner then car !

Hahaha, I've heard of this too before. I have to laugh at the people who swear it happens. The fact of the matter is the PCM can be reflashed infinitely. If it can't, it won't ever happen in the next 10 life times.

Doesn't anyone make a flip chip with a switch to switch between 2 tunes? That would be ideal for people who want to switch between a "sport" tune for playing around, and a "high MPG" tune for the commute without totally re-flashing. I've never loaded a tune into my 2005 GT yet though, so I don't know if it would be possible with the new ECM.

bradleyem said:

Doesn't anyone make a flip chip with a switch to switch between 2 tunes? That would be ideal for people who want to switch between a "sport" tune for playing around, and a "high MPG" tune for the commute without totally re-flashing. I've never loaded a tune into my 2005 GT yet though, so I don't know if it would be possible with the new ECM.

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No they do not. Simply because, like you said, it's not possible the way the PCM is set-up. I understand that what you're saying and that it'd be nice to be able to do it on the fly like the diesels but it's not too bad. It only takes about 2 minutes for my Xcal2 to reflash the PCM.

There's no need for a "high mpg" tune. A a performance tune will render the same mpg if one drives conservatively and keeps their foot out of the loud pedal.
My manual 05 S197 GT has a CAI, BamaChips' 93 Race tune, and 3.55 gears, and it got 27 mpg during a recent 600 mile trip. And that included going 80 mph during some stretches, plus getting caught in stop-and-go traffic for 15 minutes on one of the interstate highways. And it gets 21 mpg around town if I don't play around.

Well, I'll be setting up some Dyno time in the next week or so to get a baseline before I start doing any mods. The shop that I'm going to specializes in Mustangs and uses the XCal 3 tuner. Hopefully I can also get some insight into my horrible gas milage too. Its a bone stock '05 GT, and I'm getting a BEST of 15.8MPG. Thats with mixed city/highway driving (about 50/50), and shifting at 2000 to 2500 RPM. From what I've read I should be getting 18-19MPG City and around 23 or better highway, especially driving that conservatively. When I get into it it avereages around 13MPG Any suggestions on things to look at/try?

Well, this is a bit off topic, but a follow up to my last post about my horrible gas milage.....

I was trying to think of what might be the cause, and although I thought that it would be a long shot, I picked up some electronics parts cleaner and cleaned the MAF sensor and the throttle body. I thought that this might help some, but I also thought that if it were really dirty, then the car should be running rough, or throwing a code. Well, I guess I severely underestimated just how sensitive the MAF sensors are on these motors

The throttle body wasn't too bad..it just had some slight carbon build up around the butterflies. The MAF was pretty dirty, which I figured would be the case, since 2 days after I got the car I happened to look at the air filter, and I couldn't believe that the car would even run, much less as strong as it was.

So, I was getting a BEST MPG of around 15....occasionally just tipping 16 on long highway trips. Right after the cleaning, I noticed that the throttle was much more responsive...good sign

So, I reset the MPG indicator (I know that its not 100% accurate, but I was looking to see if there was any immediate improvement that I could directly attribute to cleaning the MAF). The first thing that I noticed on the 2 mile drive to get to the freeway was that the milage indicator was changing much more quickly than it ever had....usually it would hover at a reading for awhile before refreshing.....now it was very steadily increasing. On the way to the freeway it climbed to around 18MPG...better than it had EVER gotten before.

I got on the freeway and drove around 30 miles with the cruise set at 70. MPG steadily climbed and averaged out at 24

I then got off the highway and took a busy main road across town in pretty heavy traffic, and my milage still stayed at around 18.

So, moral of the story....KEEP YOUR MAF SENSOR CLEAN!!!! I gained almost 9 MPG from using a $10 can of electronic parts cleaner, and I'm sure that I'll be much happier with my car now.

Most rewritable chips can be reflashed 10,000 times before you will have problems. Then again I don't know which chip Ford uses

lol i have heard of it too but it really isn't required to reinstall the "same" parameters tune over and over not gonna hurt anything but more or less a waste of time.. as for worrying about the pcm thats rediculous unless your very dense and "pull out the little flash thangy while its doing the tuning thing a ma bob"

There is some small chance of something going wrong during the flashing, an error with the turner or the chip itself or some user error (like unplugging the programmer while programing). But it's a small chance and it shouldn't be worried about.
Dan

kevanp said:

what?

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sorry my wierd sense of humor i was saying pretty much don't unplug your tuner during the middle of the flash and you won't hurt anything its pretty much idiot proof.. pretty much..