So I've run a hydra in my OBS for years with only one hiccup, otherwise trouble free.

1st issue: Just installed the hydra in my '01 E350 7.3 and ran it for a few miles, being extra cautious since it's new I pulled over and switched from 65hp daily to 80hp daily and it died.. Switched back to 65 and restarted it, drove off without an issue. Why?

2nd issue: the idle is noticeably higher while in drive, reverse than it is in park or neutral in all tunes except stock.. That is backwards of normal... why??

Anyone else share these issues?

 

Did you put new tunes in for your Superduty, or use the old tunes?

If you have the tunes for the SD, most chip issues are due to poor connection to the PCM, usually needing better cleaning/tinning of the contacts on the PCM. If you have more than one tune vendor on the same chip, you can get conflicts with different base calibration strategies.

 

The tunes and chip are all new and the tunes are for SD and all use the same strategy. I cleaned the s#%+ out of the terminals ... But perhaps there could be a problem there?

 

I'm going to call power hungry tomorrow and see what they have to say. The idle issue is troubling to me because I can't see a reason why you would want that.. On the plus side the van makes crazy power just need to iron out these issues.

 

Do you have copper showing on the contacts on the PCM where the Hydra plugs in?

 

After a thorough cleaning, I tinned mine.

 

Was tinning them hard?

 

Not if you have any experience with soldering, a good soldering pencil from about 35-45 watts, very small gauge resin-core solder, and a small-gauge solder wick - Radio Shack can be your friend with this list. After a good cleaning of the contacts, touch a little solder to the clean tip of the soldering pencil to give it better heat transfer. Apply heat to a contact and let it warm up for just a few seconds - then touch the solder to the contact (not to the pencil). The solder should flow across the contact very thinly.

If it has surface tension (like a water "bubble"), the solder is not binding to the contact. When this happens, you may need to do more cleaning on that spot.

After you have a long small mound of solder on all the contacts, place the end of the solder wick on the contact and press it down with the soldering pencil tip, and watch the solder wick soak up the solder like a sponge. Swipe the contact with the heated wick as necessary to sop up all the solder you can - you want the contact as flat as you can make it. This would then be a "tinned" contact, not a soldered contact.

By going through this process - a contact not thoroughly cleaned will prairie-dog - it will be obvious what you missed.

 

What is your PCM code and which tunes did you download from PHP's library?

 

Tiny bit on the lead edge of the terminals, about the same as my '97.

 

That's a lot of info, thanks for that idea.

 

My code is VLB1 and I'm running VQAA7S2 for " recommended calibrations"

 

So after talking with PHP it seems that this may just be one of those things. Connections seem fine, they said the idle being higher in gear than park is a possibility on some trucks. And the dying between the 65 and 80 setting could just be the computer getting confused.. I will put a few more miles on it and see what happens, kind of weird. The idle thing is the most bothersome, I can stop to change tunes if needed.

 

Hmmmm, something doesn't sound right. If the programs are all the same calibration then it shouldn't die when switching programs. Gonna have to get Cody or someone with some tuning knowledge to post.

But for starters I would recheck the calibration and reburn the tunes.

 

I'm glad you said that.. I've just been debating re-burning the tunes. I did double check that they were all the same strategy and they are. What is weird.. at least to me who knows nothing about electronic thinking strategy is that the hex code it gave me was VQAA6S2 but the recommended calibrations were VQAA7S2 ... Is that weird or not? It's been a long time since I burned the Hydra in my '97 so I don't recall.