I gave my new Ed FICM a week of evaluation.

A little background. I have every reason to believe the FICM in my truck is the OEM, as delivered unit, and always delivered a rock steady 48.5-49 volts.

Until I did my coolant flush earlier this Fall. After that point the constant starting and stopping must have put a good strain on the FICM as the voltage then would fluctuate between 47.5-49.

Seems ok, but then it would occasionally flutter to 46.5 volts and other times to 46. When I mean flutter, it would hold 49 volts and slowly drop to 46 and then rise back to 49 and hold.

Then the 45 volts would appear. And one day sitting at a stoplight the voltage creeped down from 49 volts to 44.5...

FICM had to go. I am not usually a diehard, it's the end of the world type, but knew it had to go.

Be prepared with talking to Ed. He likes to talk. Not that it's a bad thing, he knows his stuff. He knew the merits of the Atlas tunes and the factory strategies.

With my FICM still behaving roughly ok, I opted for the FICM exchange which costs an additonal $50 for the convienence. Also 2 year warranty.

And I also opted to keep my oft-hated Post-Cycle "Buzz" flash. I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me.

The new FICM holds 47-48 volts. So far have seen anything higher than 48 and nothing lower than 47.

Despite being loaded with the same strategy and changing nothing else the engine really does seem to start easier. Regular driving seems unchanged.

So far so good. Big props to Ed.

Josh

 

I wouldn't know about Ed liking to talk as he would never return my phone calls, I did how ever communicate with him through emails a couple of times. If it wasn't for the feedback on these forums I would not have given him a shot. That being said my FICM has been working good and I am happy with it and I would recommend him to others. I did have the atlas 40 tune installed and I definitely see a difference in how quickly it produces boost and the off the line performance has improved dramatically, although I haven't seen the improvement in MPG that others have seen it doesn't matter as I don't believe you can have your cake and eat it too. My MPG is about the same as before only now I have the performance gains to boot.

 

I was intrigued with the Atlas 40 tune only because it would have given better cold starts. The Post-Cycle Buzz strategy is a cranky ape for cold starts, but I live with it.

As for MPG I had a feeling it wouldn't have done much for me as I already see 18+ mpg (Summer) and over 20 mpg straight highway driving.

And turbo spooling isn't a concern since I am tuned with an SCT.

So $150 for some improvement in cold starting didn't seem worth it to me.

Ed seemed fairly quick in response to emails and I did call once and got a female on the phone, possibly his wife, but he returned the phone call within 20 minutes or so.


Josh

 

My MPG is around 13.5 to 14 with a mix of freeway and in town driving, this summer I was able to burn a whole tank of fuel at freeway speed and ended up with 19 MPG. I have not had an opportunity to burn a whole tank on the freeway since installing the FICM from Ed, but my normal mileage hasn't changed.