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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
I understand the power chips just defaulted to a choke level or so. I am sure someone with more knowledge will post soon.
My best fuel savings occurred by learning to use a light foot on takeoffs and sticking to 55 mph. I am getting 15 mpg in my local mountain driving and 22+ on freeway driving. My best mileage was 300 miles with 11 gallons, 27 mpg.
I'll recently bought an installed a Hypertech Max Energy Power Programmer and I will try to keep you updated on the gas mileage. I mainly bought it to help increase gas mileage and so I could re calibrate my speedo.
I actually tune Ford PCMs using SCT software, but I can tell you there's not much to gain in gas mileage from the tuning and/or performance chips on the market. These trucks already run very lean. In fact at WOT (wide open throttle), on the dyno we've seen them at 16:1 Air/Fuel ratio or higher. That actually robs them of power as well. The gas mileage loss is because it's a portly pig at 5000 lbs. Wanna save on gas? Shave 1000 lbs off the truck to start. There's a couple small tricks to help gas mileage at cold start when they run the richest, but overall, tuning is more for performance minded goals.
The hypertech should be used with a high flow exhaust and k&n air filter . I found a lot of improvement in performance with using it with the other mods but it will ping like crazy even with reg gas tune without the exhaust upgrade. I have found also that it seems better using mid grade fuel even with the exhaust upgrade. I get around 20 to 23 on the highway at about 75 mph with 4 passengers. It gets the higher value when I can find fuel without ethanol.
