Im looking at buying a 1996 F-150 w/ 351w in it. ive read a lot of therds on how to add hp and tq. i agree with the long tube heads exhaust and keep the stock air box. but ive never seen anyone say invest in a chip or tunner. since they range from 199$-400$ i was wondering if anyone knows much on these.

Also i read alot "Advance the timing easy and free way to add HP" could someone explain how to do that, or link me to a therd that dose. im young (18) and i like to do things myself but the right way not have *** stuff all comments are welcome thanks guys.

 

From what I've seen, "chips" and "tuners" for this vintage of truck are worthless. Most of them just screw things up or simply advance the timing which you can do on your own. To get into some good tuners you need to do a MAF conversion, but that is a whole different world. It works very well but it's not cheap. Exhaust work is about the cheapest bang for your buck. If you live somewhere emissions tests are not a problem, cut the cat and smog crap off and you will see an immediate improvement.

 

His '96 should be OBD-II which also means it is MAF. If he wanted he could make a 600 horse V8 for it and it could be tuned through the OBD-II port to run just fine.

With that said, don't buy any chip for it. If you are serious about upgrades, build up the engine and take it to a well known and respected tuning shop so they can dyno tune it.

Headers are usually a good option, but you will have to have some custom work done for the OBD-II system. Headers will need O2 port's welded in place as I don't think anyone makes headers for the '96 OBD-II trucks with all the proper provisions.

Heads are another great upgrade, but can be a little pricey. Luckily with an OBD-II truck you will be able to have it tuned properly for the heads.

If you have the money, heads, cam and full exhaust with longtubes and a tune really wake the engine in these trucks up.

As for the timing thing, it is called the SIXLITRE tune-up. New plugs, wires, cap and ignition coil along with a timing bump to 12-13 degrees can wake these engines up. It usually has the most positive effect on 5.0's. I have read recently that the effects are not as prominent on the 5.8, in some cases mking it run worse. I did it to mine and it woke it up a bit, but it was likely due to having new parts after 185k miles. For more info on that, read this:

ignition upgrade and timing bump (no 56K) - FSB Forums

 

My bad. Read it as a F250. Got 250 on the brain, I guess!

Yes, that does give more options. I agree with everything you said and learned a few other things, too!

 

Unless the motor has a turbo or supercharger chips and tuners are a waste of money because added power comes from added airflow and without forced induction you simply can't command a motor to move more air... simple as that.
These trucks are well known for having restrictive exhaust systems and unlike newer vehicles the ignition system is set to a pre determined amount of advance, these are the two points that will produce noticable gains outside of internal engine mods.

 

One of the reasons I bought a OBDII truck... I figured if I have to have a computer in there, I might as well make it a good (easily tuned) one.

What Conanski said is true, you'll need to do some work on the engine before the computer can help you much, but once you DO get some stuff done (like headers, different heads, cam, whatever, you can flash it to fine tune everything.

These guys:

SCT Performance - More Power! Less Fuel!

are the best at this game in my opinion. I don't know their current offerings, but I had an XCalibrator 2 from them for my old Thunderbird. I didn't have any big engine mods done, so I didn't need a dyno tune. The way it worked back then was you got in touch with your SCT dealer and told him everything you did to the entire vehicle, and any other changes you wanted (disable catalyst monitor, disable EGR, whatever you like) and he made you a custom tune and send it by email. You loaded this program into your handheld programmer and used that to dump it into the PCM.

If you wanted to tweak the tune you were sent, you used a software program to make minor changes to things like timing, fuel rate, etc. It allowed you a little more freedom when adjusting things like transmission line pressure, shift schedule, converter lockup, etc. Then you dumped it into the truck again.

IF you are going to use a tuner to firm up your shifts, do that BEFORE you buy a shift kit! Trust me, I had to back off the shift pressure in my tune because I already had a maxed-out shift kit installed (remember this was a car, I ain't tuned my truck... yet).

If you do any major engine work, you're better off going to an SCT dealer that can do a dyno tune for you.

I figure after I do some engine work I'll get a tune so I can really let the power out. No sense buying a bunch of performance parts and letting the computer think it's still working with stock stuff. The MAF WILL compensate for additional airflow, but a tune lets you get ALL the power you paid for.

 

Thanks for all the comments and links guys If this deal goes through i beileve i will do the heads and maybe the "SIX LITER" Tune with a small advance on the timing the truck already has a new catback dual stanless exhaust so basically i will up grade the rest.truck has 207000KM (121000 miles-ish) (yes im canadian but this website has the best advice)

Thanks again guys!