hey i am looking into "beefing up" the motor on my 2006 f250 a little bit and was looking for my first engine upgrade to be a programmer or a chip, im leaning more towards program because im told they can give you a little more power, and im very interested in the hypertech hyperpac i have a 5.4l v8 and was curious if anyone has tried it and what they think? im not to worried about gas mileage considering i have a lead foot, and i rarely tow so im more interested in acceleration, power, and 0-60 etc, although i know my truck isnt a race car i still want to give it all the help i can. also the hyperpac says it can moniter things like your engine horsepower and torque is its readings anywhere close to accurate or just all BS? i found a hyperpac for sale new for 473.00 to so its not like i plan on paying 1000 for it. and if not the hyperpac what would you reccomend to add the most giddyup to my truck? i also am very interested in measuring horsepower and torque. thank you for the time everyone

 

While I don't have experiance with the hyperpac in particular, I do have experiance with tuners in general. I tend to favor tuners that allow for custom tunes and it is built specifically for you and your truck and there is an improved efficiency(rather your talking mpg or hp/tq) to be gained from that. Plus, custom tunes allow for adding on other hp/tq modifications later that need to be compensated in the computer that you can't do with tuners like you are thinking about getting.



It depends on how you look at it as to rather or not it's going to be accurate. Monitors like that derive their information from the sensors and then use a formula to calculate hp/tq. Now this can or can't be more accurate then a dyno. These figures tend to be lower then those on the dyno because of the extra friction that they compensate for.

It can because it accounts for the extra friction that the vehicle experiances driving that you don't get on the dyno and thus, shows a more realistic hp that your getting while driving down the road.


Now because of this extra friction that is taking into account, your hp/tq readings may be different each time you monitor them and therefore, have to do an average of readings to try to come up with a more concise figure. Because you have to take an average, your not getting the most exact hp/tq reading as you can get.

 

wthank you that actually helped alot. but also do you think that the hyperpac is a good programmer for what im looking for or would you say to get something else? and if so what?

 

For gas engines, I haven't heard anything bad with regard to the hyperpac, now if you were talking about diesels that would be another story.

While I would steer you towards custom tuning and than getting a digital monitor(since you want those extra readings that come with OBD-II monitors versus what you can get with analog gauges), however, there is no way that you would be able to get it for that price unless you hunted thru ebay and the like to do it. Or there was a big price slashing somewhere.

Let me ask you this. Do you think you would want to get even more radical with your hp/tq modifications later on or would just a tuner be sufficient for you?

 

o no i deffinately am going to get more hp/tq modifications, which is one of the reasons i wanted to know the change in hp/tq im curious to see the gains i can get from things like a MAF sensor, throttle body spacer, cold air intake, exhaust, etc....

so the hyperpac doesnt allow for custom tunes? and what tuner would you reccomend?

 

Not that I've seen, no. If your going to be going even wilder with your hp/tq mods then your going to want to already have in place a platform to compensate for those mods with regard to the computer.

I didn't do that and it ended up costing me more in the long run because I still had to go with a custom tuner despite already getting another one.



I would talk to 5 Star Tuning, who is a sponsor here and get with him with regard to custom tuning. He usually is on this forum in particular and I'm surprised he hasn't chimed in yet, but he is a good person to talk to.

If you want to do tuning yourself, a couple of people like Sniper Special Forces software, if your so inclined to go that right. Myself, I like a little more comfort of having gotten my tunes from somebody who hopefully knows what's going on behind the scenes of those tunes.

If your wanting an OBD-II monitor to go with that, I would suggest the DashDAQ as the way to go. Get the Ford Enhancement License and you'll be able to get sensors that even the hyperpac can't get to(or any of the other OBD-II monitors). Plus you'll be able to pull DTCs that you won't be able to pull without the help of a professional scan tool. If you want to see a picture of one, I have one in the Beta Spartan Phalanhe uses teh DashDAQ as a platform for his tuner, but only for diesels) folder of my gallery.

 

thank you for all of the help i will . and after the programmer what engine modification would you think to be a good 2nd add on? again looking for more speed and acceleration than mpg...

 

My knowledge with mods for gas engines ends with tuners. Had it been related to diesel, I could have written a novella for you, but not with a gasser. Sorry.

 

but also say i had a 6.0 diesel, what would u say i get?

 

Well, if you were holding the same goals as the gasser(better acceleration and power) and still be streetable I would say after the tuner(which would include gauges, exhaust and the like for that mod as well no intake until you are pushing beyond 500hp and make sure the tuner that you have does custom tunes in order to be able to combensate for bigger turbo and injectors) would be injectors and turbo. However, you would have to do supporting modifications as well.

In the case of the 6.0 in particular, supporting modifications would be a/m fuel pump(FASS or Airdog), ITP's Fuel Regulated Return kit to eliminate the dead-heading common on these trucks, and the ever important ARP headstuds. You might want to consider upgrading to a 5" exhaust(if you already hadn't done so in your initial modding of the truck) as that will help with the higher EGTs due to more fuel from modified injectors(I pegged out the pyro gauge the first 5 minutes of having my mods(1600) with a 4" exhaust very very easily).

Now as far as injector and turbo combination. 190cc injectors(or sometimes listed as 190 mm^3) with a 66mm turbo would be about as high as I would go and still maintain street manners. If you have to piece meal the injectors and turbo, I would do injectors first as it is always possible to pull more fuel out of the injectors then it is to try to tax stock injectors to push more fuel to spin a bigger turbo.

Also, try to do as much as you can when you go into having the headstuds done as most shops will only charge you the labor for the stud installation and you'll only be out the cost of the additional parts.

Start saving aside for a tranny rebuild(suncoast) as well as this will start to wear down the tranny quicker or go ahead and do the rebuild if funds are available now.