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1980 - 1986 Bullnose F100, F150 & Larger F-Series Trucks Discuss the Early Eighties Bullnose Ford Truck

1986 F150 Tuner?

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Old Sep 22, 2016 | 10:16 PM
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1986 F150 Tuner?

Hello Ford Community.
I am looking at buying a 86 F150 because I saw 3 for sale in my local paper and ever since I keep getting signs like meeting someone w/ the last name ford. But before I buy one I was wondering what I could put in it because I am a tuner person(I own a Miata ricer). What could I do put in a turbo, lifts, als(I am still unclear how als works on diesel if it even does). So anyone know if I should get one and what I can do to it.
 
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Old Sep 22, 2016 | 10:30 PM
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Welcome to FTE.

An '86 will have possibly the first year of EFI. I will go out on a limb and say there are no tuner programs available for that engine. It may even be a carb'd engine, sporting all of 139 HP. EFI would be 185 HP for that vehicle.

By ALS you mean an anti-lag system? Waste of time on a vehicle like this IMO. Ditto a turbo.

Should you get the F150? If you want a truck sure. The way to easy power is a 351W swap with selected components to improve performance. Not including a turbo. If you want it to tinker with like a Miata, I would recommend you pass.
 
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Old Sep 22, 2016 | 10:50 PM
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I'm also going to recommend you pass; depending on the engine, it could have a computer-controlled carburetor & ignition system, or EEC-IV computer-controlled EFI (first year this was offered as standard equipment), or a DuraSpark II electronic ignition (which superseded points).

If it's a California vehicle, it'll be worse - could have an EEC-III computer-controlled engine.

None of the above can be tuned like you're thinking, you need an OBD-II system for that (1996+ in the trucks & Broncos).
 
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 12:52 PM
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Like the others said you may be out of luck. If you are looking at a older diesel, it's all mechanical injection, nothing much to tune. You can add a turbo and turn a screw to increase the fuel delivery.

With a gas efi, you could make it a project if you wanted to. You could get a megasquirt kit and get rid of the Ford computer. Then you would have something to work with and hook up to a laptop. You could use all the Ford fuel injection components, and use the megasquirt computer system.
 
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 11:48 PM
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I come from the ford 2.3t world which have a very simaler design efi system if it is infact efi go to stingerperformance.com and look up theyre "pimp" engine management its a megasquirt/ microsquert based software designed to work with the first gen ford efi. each unit is built to spec and hw has all the pinouts for all first gen ford efi so yes you have available to you a very modern tuning software
 
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 11:50 PM
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that link is crap ill post a good one in a minute
 
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 11:51 PM
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 11:53 PM
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its gone up in price and been updated since I had mine read through all of that page its loaded with info
 
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Old Sep 23, 2016 | 11:54 PM
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its plug and play fyi
 
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Old Sep 24, 2016 | 06:06 PM
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OK, there's a tuner available. OP isn't going to get any major increases in power with just the tuner on that motor.

Conanski has the low down on the SBF and what hits and what ^&((s, and my guess is cam and heads as well as either a carb or MAF conversion would be required to make any meaningful power improvement.
 
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Old Sep 24, 2016 | 06:39 PM
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not saying it would by itself although I'm sure theres a lot in there. the real benefit to the pimp is being able to seriously mod your truck and keep it efficient like really efficient,
to me that's a bonus
 
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Old Sep 24, 2016 | 06:45 PM
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I remember the 85/86 svo ran the pe computer which was great but it only had an 8 bit processer so if you installed an e prom to tune the factory map you could only slightly "bend" the fuel and timing curves.. the 88 thunderbird turbo coupe had a 16 bit processor which you could re write the maps giving you even more power capability and the pimp is I believe a 32 bit so I actually think theres probably a lot to be had not just hp and tq but mpg and what not can be gained as well the 85 86 trucks had an 8 bit processor so that's a huge jump in tech
 
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