danlong
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- October 16, 2003
- Messages
- 354
- Reaction score
- 1
- City, State
- Gainesville, FL
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2001 Sport Trac 2wd - V8
I ran across a free program called FORScan on the F150 forum a few weeks ago that has allowed people to make all sorts of changes to the various modules in Ford vehicles and can be done relatively cheap. As I said, the software is free, but you need a OBD-II adapter to interface with the vehicle. The most tried and true unit is the OBDLink MX Bluetooth unit that can be had for $80 on Amazon at the link below.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006NZTZLQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There is a cheaper version for about $20 which will supposedly sort of work, and with some hacking can be made to be fully functional, but I didn't want to mess around with it so I bought the one above. You will also need a laptop with Bluetooth functionality to interface with the above adapter.
I won't go into much detail on the program, as there is already a ton of information on the F150 site in this thread if you're interested:
http://www.f150forum.com/f118/forscan-software-enable-disable-features-your-truck-348987/
There are some cool data logging and monitoring features that could come in handy for troubleshooting, but the biggest help I've found on my Sport Trac so far has been to adjust the speedometer. Since my truck has a 5.0 swapped in from a 2000 Explorer, I also had to swap the Explorer's ABS module in to get the speedometer working, but the Explorer's can't be adjusted via a programmer such as the XCal2 like the newer trucks. I had a Ford tech adjust it for me, but he was limited to some predefined tire sizes, none of which were correct for my truck. I'm running a 265/70-17 which corresponds to about 660 RPM, but the furthest we could go was 679 RPM, which ultimately put my speedometer off about 1.5 MPH slow at 60.
When I connected to the truck with FORScan today, I was able to read As-Built information from the ABS module and modify the hexadecimal value from 02A7 (679) to 0294 (660). That put me dead on according to my GPS. I'm about to take a long trip and will check the odometer against my GPS over several hundred miles to see if it needs further fine tuning. For around town it's as good as it's going to get. Hopefully this information can help others and maybe open up some new possibilities, as this software can be used on pretty much all Ford/Lincoln/Mercury vehicles from what I understand. Enjoy!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006NZTZLQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There is a cheaper version for about $20 which will supposedly sort of work, and with some hacking can be made to be fully functional, but I didn't want to mess around with it so I bought the one above. You will also need a laptop with Bluetooth functionality to interface with the above adapter.
I won't go into much detail on the program, as there is already a ton of information on the F150 site in this thread if you're interested:
http://www.f150forum.com/f118/forscan-software-enable-disable-features-your-truck-348987/
There are some cool data logging and monitoring features that could come in handy for troubleshooting, but the biggest help I've found on my Sport Trac so far has been to adjust the speedometer. Since my truck has a 5.0 swapped in from a 2000 Explorer, I also had to swap the Explorer's ABS module in to get the speedometer working, but the Explorer's can't be adjusted via a programmer such as the XCal2 like the newer trucks. I had a Ford tech adjust it for me, but he was limited to some predefined tire sizes, none of which were correct for my truck. I'm running a 265/70-17 which corresponds to about 660 RPM, but the furthest we could go was 679 RPM, which ultimately put my speedometer off about 1.5 MPH slow at 60.
When I connected to the truck with FORScan today, I was able to read As-Built information from the ABS module and modify the hexadecimal value from 02A7 (679) to 0294 (660). That put me dead on according to my GPS. I'm about to take a long trip and will check the odometer against my GPS over several hundred miles to see if it needs further fine tuning. For around town it's as good as it's going to get. Hopefully this information can help others and maybe open up some new possibilities, as this software can be used on pretty much all Ford/Lincoln/Mercury vehicles from what I understand. Enjoy!
