a 170 stat???? stock is 195 and Hypertech only recommends a 180...but this board and another 2 all say not to even go to 180 (which the Lightning has)....

 

I can listin to cd's and radio while i wait to program myne.....

 

Gears + Tuner =

 

Yep I need to look for sure I let a guy talk me into the tornado and thermastat all at the same place, believe me I was pretty pissed when I got halfway back from texas pulling a trailer wit my harley on it and all the sudden the check engine light comes on, Its a good thing I had my superchip with me, I pulled over and read the codes and new what the problem was, the weird thing is I drove 2,400mls in 90 degree weather before it trew a code, and the truck ran fine, was hard on gas but had power..Yes I drove another 1400 mls to get home and jerked that baby out...went back to stock thermastat with no probs..I wanted to demand my money back for being stupid and letting him talk me into it..lesson learned.!!!

 

what size tires you have and what gears now..3.55??
with all the hop ups you have a tuner will seal the note unless your running huge tires..

 

Ive got 285/70R17 goodyear MT/R. thats equal to about a 33 in tire. and yes, i do have the 3.55 gear in it. i was lookin to go to a 4.10 front and rear. but i was hoping to get the tuner first.

 

did you get a tb spacer here too? how about the magical gasline magnets? i heard that when you put a k & n sticker on your truck, you gain 5 more hp...

sorry, but why in the heck did you... invest? in a tornado? and the thermostat? 170? i think something's wrong here. invest in a programmer or get some diff. gears if you are looking to spend money. at least you'll get something that doesn't just add weight to your truck when you spend your money...

 

if you want more power....4.10's and either Edge Evo. or X-Cal tuner with a custom tune and that will give you the power your looking for.....and if that doesn't give you the power your looking for then you need somethign totally different or your just never satisfied like most of us..

 

amen to that... lol

 

I checked the thermastat and its a 160 degrees and yes I got all this stuff when I was young and dumb and believed the parts guy what a crock, Heres a proven gas and power copmbo...

Everywhere you turn these days, people’s conversations seem to be all about the same thing; rising gas costs and trying to increase their MPG (miles per gallon). As the oil tycoons continue lining there pockets from record profits, many people are being forced into purchasing smaller vehicles and/or drive less just to have money to put food on the table. Many of us in the industry have been discussing how to increase our MPG not only because we love our trucks and don’t want to drive anything else, but we feel we shouldn’t have to get a second job to afford them. So, we decided to put together an article highlighting some of the options available to increase the fuel economy of a truck. The upside to having too many of these products are increased horsepower and who wouldn’t want that?

When determining how to test our MPG gains, we figured the best way to illustrate that you don’t have to give up anything to increase the MPG of your truck was to use a mild performance truck such as a 2003 Ford F-150 SuperCrew Harley Davidson edition. This truck has the 5.4 liter supercharged engine similar to the Lightning and the interior space large enough to fit the family. The baseline highway, conducted in Southern California, miles per gallon is 14.8. Keep in mind the baseline MPG may be different in different parts of the country, but the percentage of increases should be about the same no matter where you live.

We started with one of the biggest maintenance items that is commonly overlooked; tire pressure. According to The U.S. Energy Department, “under-inflated tires can actually increase fuel consumption by up to 6 percent”. To put this into perspective; a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon (obviously not ours) with under-inflated tires would probably be getting 19.08 MPG with properly inflated tires. Driving 12,000 miles per year, you can save roughly 35 gallons of gas or about $100 per year just by having properly inflated tires. Our test truck recently had the tires rotated and they checked the pressure and adjusted it accordingly. So, we thought we would mention this before we started the testing.

An easy item to change in your truck is the type of oil that you use, so we started there. Premium synthetics like Royal Purple claim that they will actually allow the engine to run more efficiently, reduce emissions, reduce wear and tear all while increasing horsepower. We decided to test these claims by changing our truck over to Royal Purple Synthetic lubricants. We used Royal Purple® Motor Oil 5w30 in the engine, Max ATF® in the transmission, and 75w90 Max-Gear® in the differential. After everything was changed, we duplicated our MPG testing. The truck had been getting 14.8 MPG and after the change to Royal Purple, we are now getting 15.9 miles per gallon. That’s a 1.1 mpg increase and an overall 7.4% increase in mpg. Another advantage of switching to Royal Purple is oil change intervals are extended to 12,000 miles. This offsets the additional cost of using higher quality, more expensive synthetics in your truck.

After checking the tires and changing the oil (both of which should be regular occurrences) we started looking at more permanent changes. Adding a cold air intake can be an easy bolt on addition. Due to OEM regulations, many factory intakes are restrictive. When changing to a cold air intake, the engine is not only able to breathe more freely, but the air that is ingested into the engine, is cooler. The cooler air is one of the biggest reasons for an increase in horsepower and fuel economy. Now our intake is pretty good considering the engine is a supercharged performance engine from the factory, but to illustrate the increase a quality aftermarket intake can offer, we switched to an AIRAID Cold Air Intake and repeated our testing. The truck now is getting an 16.1 mpg. That’s a .2 mpg increase bringing our overall total increase of mpg up to 8.5%. On a conventional truck, not a supercharged engine, we would expect the increase to be higher.

A common change many truck guys make is reprogramming or chipping their rides. Manufacturers claim between 45 to 200 horsepower increases (depending on the engine and programmer) and a big mileage increase as well. We decided to take Superchips up on the offer to test their Max MicroTuner Ford programmer. By simply plugging in their programmer into the factory plug and following the on-screen directions we reprogrammed our truck. The whole process took about 10 minutes and was very simple. We then hit the road and drove around for a few hours. We couldn’t just conduct our testing because of the excitement from the power increase. When we finally got it out of our system, we took the truck back on the highway and received 17.5 miles to the gallon. This is an increase of 1.4 MPG for an overall increase of 17.3% with the Royal Purple® Motor OilRoyal Purple, AIRAID Cold Air Intake and the Superchips Max MicroTuner Ford programmer.

Finally, we changed the exhaust out. Now you generally hear exhaust manufacturers claim increased horsepower, and not mention anything about mileage increases. Thinking about it, anything that helps the engine breathe and exhale should also increase the efficiency of the engine, thus increasing the MPG. So we contacted the folks at Magnaflow and talked to them about our theory. They said the hard part of testing fuel economy is people’s driving styles. While the increase is there, it is hard for people to stay out of the throttle and not enjoy the beautiful new tune their truck plays.

We changed our exhaust from the catalytic converter back. (Note: This installation was a little challenging since we had to cut our old system out.) The MAGNAFLOW CAT BACK PERFORMANCE EXHAUST SYSTEM was a bolt on system that anyone with time and patience can install unlike many weld-on systems. We felt an immediately increase in power and raced over to the gas station before the onramp. Filled up and hit the highway for the final test. After running 300+ miles we ended up with a final MPG rating of 18.4. That’s a 24.3% increase overall with all of the items we tested.

With just these simple additions we were able to save an average of 3.6 miles per gallon and that means more money in our pocket. We can also keep hitting the streets with our truck without having to worry as much about whether we can afford to or not. So the next time you hear someone complaining about their vehicles’ MPG and needing to trade it in, pipe up and let them know they don’t have to surrender to the smaller vehicles, there are alternatives, you just have to look..

 

Someone asked about electric fans. I have a pair of 16 inch fans from Troyer Performance. They give a power increase but I'd guess its about 5 to 7 rwhp. I did gain about 1.5 mpg. I like them for other reasons too. My truck warms up faster in cold temps which makes the heater work faster. My ac seems to work better because I have the fan in front of the compressor set to run when it on. Plus the fans do away with the factory fan shroud which makes accesing the front of the motor easy

 

Im intrested in the E-FANS, Its good to here from someone that has them, is there any kind of shroud at all with them, Ive read nothing but good abouth them..

 

What size are your tires?
What is your current gear ratio?

 

im running 285/70R17 Goodyear MT/R. and the stock ratio in the rear-end is a 3.55.

 

I would say a good tuner like the superchip or edge with all the hopups you should be good, unless you wanted to fork out and get gears, I;ll be pulling a 17' 88 mdl fourwins heavy boat soon myself, and useing the tow tune and kicking off the OD I;ll be fine, Its going to be a while before I get gears, and then Im going to the 4.10;s more than likely..
Im impressed with the way the 5.4L is toteing me down the road with the new 315/70R/17 8 ply (hummer) goodyear AT extremes Tires..I stomp it with just the shift points and the 87 tune it moves out no problem...check out my new post..for pic..