Hi guys !

I bought an 02 f250 superduty 5.4 ! I love the truck, but found out the 5.4 is a little small for a 6700 lb truck . Anyway , I think I'm on to something ! I see to have any power at all u really need to be above 2500 rpm . I have found the only time it really dogs is when I'm in 4 th gear, overdrive off , and my speed and rpm drop to 1500. Why doesn't it shift down itself to 3rd? Anyway, with a tuner. , could I set it so it doesn't shift into fourth as soon as it does ? Which would leave me to climb the hill in 3rd !

Any opinions or ideas would be greatly appreciated !

Thanks

Mark

 

When you floor it, it should down shift until its at 4,000-5,000 RPM, in second gear at highway speed.
Is it not doing that?

You have a 4 speed auto. With O/D off, you are in third.

Welcome to FTE!

 

Yes , if I floor it, it will drop to 2nd and fly , but it's a hard shift and more power than I need . Also , with over drive off , I can count the shifts being , 1-2, 2-3, and 3-4 ! I thought it was a 3 speed auto, so why do I count 3 shifts ?

 

Ok, so your wanting more out of third before you have to kick down to second? There is a site sponsor, 5 star tuning that can help with that.

Its a total of 4 speeds.
The fourth gear is over drive.

 

lock up torque converter may feel like a shift

 

ok ! now im really confused !

on the way home from work tonight i stopped numerous times and started out from a dead stop and counted my shifts with overdrive off. I get 3 shifts ! 1-2,2-3,3-4 ! Is this correct? my overdrive is working because at 50 mph and 2000rpm if i turn od on my rpm goes down to 1500. I thought this was supposed to be a 3 speed with od? could somebody have put a 4 speed with od in ? when im going through the hills of pa to work around 35mph it will be around 1200 rpm (4 th gear im presuming) and i hit a hill it of course bogs. so i can floor it and it hard shifts to 2nd or let off gas and reapply and it seems to only drop to 3rd, which is what gear i want to be in. what gives here ? someone please explain this to me !

thanks

mark

 

You get four shifts. Once you shift into Drive, you are in first, shift 1, then it will shift into second, shift 2, then it will shift into third, shift 3, then it will shift into fourth (Overdrive), shift 4.

When you 'turn on Overdrive', it shifts into the 4th gear, which is overdrive. Do you need a class?

There is no 3 speed in a Super Duty. The transmission is an 4R100. It has 4 total forward gears. Why is this so difficult to understand?

The 5.4 is not intended for high speed or performance, so I really don't know what you are wanting. You want to adjust shift patterns, but you are not towing, so you want to make the truck 'fast'? It will never be 'fast'.

 

As others have stated, it is a 4 speed transmission. After you put it into drive, it will shift three times to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. You should also feel the torque converter lock up, which feels like another shift. No mystery, just misunderstanding.

 

cnc guy i have a 04 F-350 single tire 4x4 ext cab short bed 5.4. this is what Ive done so far... k&n cold air kit which I'm now selling, helix throttle body spacer waste of money mike at five star said trash it, Gibson stainless headers didn't feel it in the seat but it did improve the sound and mpg slightly, e-bay y-pipe mod its nice and made a difference but after seeing it i would have got a muffler shop to mandrel bend a nicer one for a little bit more money prob ally, high flow cat just for sound heard the Little ones plug up after heavy towing which i do but three years and still no problems. pro chamber cherry bomb muffler awesome sound and performance with 2 1/2 duals one thing make sure u get the pipes ALL MANDREL BENT from the beginning at first mine weren't then i had them changed to mandrel last month huge difference in sound and get up and go, had a super chip 1714 programmer JUNK! got mike from five star to custom tune me a sct ITS AWESOME! right now I'm running 87 performance tune its great and I'm having the 93 performance tweaked by him to get more out of the truck, last 4.30 gears BEST UPGRADE next to the SCT programmer. truck pulls ten times harder and mpg went up almost 2mpg. remember these trucks r not mustangs i learned that about two grand ago but if u get the gears and SCT and the y-pipe ull be very very happy the rest was just for ****s and giggles. And yes once its all done the truck will MOVE not muscle car fast but fast enough

 

one more thing the last shift is not a shift its the torque converter locked up in third gear. mine does it and mike said its there for a reason leave it alone u need it that way. its just weird when the truck feels likes its shifting again but its not

 

If his questions bother you take a hike. Seriously, nobody needs that smart *** attitude. Especially when I see so much misinformation in your past posts.

 

and dude jc8825 whats Ur deal!? i thought this site was for people to ask questions and opinions from other ford owners who've been through it and can help out. if he wants his truck to perform better and go a little faster we should all help him to make the right decision the first time, unlike me thats been through two programmers and two exhaust systems so far. I've been reading recent post and every one u respond too u try to bust someone balloon. really man why don't u just help the guy out instead of trying to get Ur post count up. cnc guy if u have any questions just PM me and ill explain what i did to my 5.4 that worked the best and what didn't work cuz Ive had it all so far.

 

thank you DKF

 

Yes thats correct. Remember you start out in 1st gear. Most of the time you will not notice the torque converter lock up in first and second gear unless that gear is held for a long time. (tq lockup timer) The rpm drop when the tq locks in 3rd and 4th will be around 400rpm give or take. The truck will hold OD in 4th down to around 40mph depending on throttle input.

The stock shift strategy is setup rather sluggish from the factory and can require a lot of throttle input to get the trans to knock down a gear. I have dealt with it in the past. The best recommendation I can give you is to contact Mike at 5 star and get an SCT Xcal3 with custom tunes for your truck. You will notice a big difference in the way the truck performs and the truck will not have near the lag. I'd also recommend getting an SPD ypipe section from 5 star or SPD. The stock y-pipe is very restrictive and hurts both HP and TQ output.

5 Star Tuning | Custom Dynomemeter Chassis Tuning Products and Services

 

Thanks for all the info guys! Think i understand now about the torque converter. It feels just like an extra shift, so that was confusing. And thanks for sticking up for me in getting crap from jc8825 for my limited motor knowledge. some people just need to put other people down to feel better about their own inadequacies !
And a little more info! I am not interested in speed, I am towing an approx 3500lb boat and trailer and am not happy with performance at all. My wifes avalanche 5.3 spanked my F250 pulling it to the lake. Same gearing 3.73, and close to same weight (f250=6700,Aval=6000). So i was just trying to get some better towing performance. It almost looks like from all the reading the cheapest way to go is to keep the Rpms up! Im just not used to hearing the high rpms! But Ill work on it!

Thanks again guys!