I have a 2003 F150 SC with 4.6L. 40,000 miles. After much research on FTE I bought a Predator from Motorhaven and received it yesterday. I read the entire manual before starting. Followed the instructions to the letter.

The orginal tune backed up successfully. When I tried to install the "Diablo Tune" it made it to 78% and failed. I followed the on screen instructions and restarted. It began to restore my original program and failed at 85%. Now it could not read the ID or anything and told me to turn off ignition and unplug the tuner. Now I had NO progam installed and the truck would not even start.

I was not sure what to do at this point. No help in the manual and it was too late to call DiabloSport. Fortunately I plugged it back in and started over and got the original tune restored and the truck started. I then successfully installed the "Diablo Tune" and it worked this time. Only drove a little last night.

Definitely a more firm shift and according to the speedometer I thought I was going faster but was not sure. This afternoon I drove it with my Garmin GPS and discovered the speedometer is reading about 15-20% faster than the GPS...at 50mph on the speedometer the GPS showed about 44.5mph.

I read that Diablo ran many tests on the Dyno to ensure integrity of the programs. I have a hard time believing they would make a 15-20% error. My truck is stock, even the tires/wheels.

The Predator box had a small dent in it and the unit was in the box upside down. Is it possible I got a returned unit with a progam that somebody modified the tire/wheel size? Is there any way to tell? Anyone else had anything like this happen with Predator?

The s/n is 200018b
version 7r52c
CALID ODAL1ME
moray-1067616021

Any advice appreciated.

 

No, its not possible that somebody modified the wheel/tire size. If a tune from another vehicle was in the Predator it would refuse to work on yours due to the VIN lock of the Predator (it "mates" to a specific VIN number when tuned). What is likely happening is the base file Diablo used is for a different axle ratio. For instance, sometimes the only difference between (example) codes ABC2 and ABC3 is the axle ratios. They will interchange because the Predator uses 4 bank programming. I've seen this on rare occasions with interchanging 4 bank tunes on chips -- first time that I recall see this with a Predator. Or, another possibility is the base file Diablo used to produce the code was from a customer who had Ford recalibrate their speedo and didn't inform Diablo of this fact. I suggest calling Diablo to see if they are aware of a specific issue with your PCM code.

 

Well I have loaded, reset, reloaded, modified, loaded, reset, tried downloading the Diablo Tune to my laptop to no avail, so I could send to Diablosport for troubleshooting.

Seriously, even when I modify the wheel rev/mile OR the axle ratio my speedometer reads 50mps with the GPS at 44.5mph. When I reload the Original Tune the speedometer matches the GPS. Per Brian at Diablo at 5:25pm today I reset all the parameters in the Diablo Tune and reloaded it. No different. The Axle Ration is 3.08 and the Wheel Rev/Mile is default to 720. (The tire diameter is 29.5" which using their formula works out to 683 rev/mi. I have tried 690 and 680. No change in speedo.

What the heck is going on? I cant get any more help from Diablo until after work on Monday.

Thanks in advance for any ideas to try.

 

Send it back for reprogramming/ replacement/ refund?

 

You're probably right RockyJ. I already have 41,000 miles on a 2003 truck. Now the miles are ticking off 20% faster! If it was 20% less it wouldn't be as bad...