Tuned the Turbo 5.0 Explorer!!

I finally got the Ex tuned this weekend; James drove out Saturday and we got to it. Turns out I am about to max out my Lightning MAF, so when I retune in the spring for 12psi I will have to move up to a SCT BA3000 meter. The truck ran great, only ran into a few issues- I blew a coupler off about 1/4 mile from the house, and then I blew oil all over the engine bay because of a faulty PCV valve. I stopped by the parts store and got a new PCV valve and a one way check valve and it fixed that problem. We ended up having to drive to I-55 to do the 2nd gear pulls because it turns out my truck will do 80mph in 2nd. We also had some issues with my brand new Xcal 2 datalogging, so James did a warranty claim on it and I upgraded to the Xcal3. It basically does the same thing but has more memory, better menu system, and the analog inputs are wired through a much more common Firewire cable(the Xcal 2 uses a 9pin mini din cable).

I was freaking out Wednesday because I realized I forgot to order my new wastegate spring. So I decided I would try to trim my 12psi spring down a little; but before I did I put it on a pump to see where it opened. It was opening on air alone at about 9 psi(spring was colored wrong), but opened at ~5spi on the truck. Since this spring was a large Tial spring, I was able to add a 4psi spring I had in there with it. This finally got me 9psi measured at the madifold.

Since we street tuned it, I dont have any numbers- I can tell you that it tries to lose traction when boost comes on in 1st gear, and the truck is AWD! My AFR was a perfect 11.5-6 across the board thanks to James. He also made this a safe tune timing wise.

I finished the day by going to the car wash to clean up my oil covered engine bay. I dumped so much oil because I was putting pressure into my PCV valve, I have a vented oil cap, and my turbo oil return happens to be on the oil filler neck. So most of the oil being returned from the turbo was being blown right out of the vented cap.

Here are some pictures, and there is a teaser video at the bottom....

 

[kabukie]

thats awesome.

 

[mounty71]

That video is awesome, i absolutely love how it sounds before you take off, it almost sounds like a jet. Your signature says straight exhaust, so you don't have any mufflers?

 

[justin146]

That video is awesome, i absolutely love how it sounds before you take off, it almost sounds like a jet. Your signature says straight exhaust, so you don't have any mufflers?

It still has all 4 cats, but no muffler. Now that I have my rear O2 sensors turned off, I will be losing the cats too.

 

[mounty71]

I thought the 5.0 needs backpressure to run the best, but with your setup i could be wrong, i don't know exactly how a turbo affects everything. And doesn't not having a muffler burn up the cats faster?

 

[steventadams]

i dont see why not having a muffler would affect the cats. the muffler would be behind the cats so anything that goes through the muffler would have already gone through the cats. And because exhaust is continuously coming out of the engine no exhaust would be able to circle back and hit the cat again after it already hit the muffler...

could be wrong though...

 

[rocket 5979]

I thought the 5.0 needs backpressure to run the best, but with your setup i could be wrong, i don't know exactly how a turbo affects everything. And doesn't not having a muffler burn up the cats faster?

Forced induction changes everything.

Justin, it is good to see you are getting that thing tuned.

 

[jah81592]

Although blow thru, believe it or not the MAF ad counts were extremely stable and the a/f ratio laid down like a champ. Ultimately once the datalogging bugs were worked out 3 pulls and the a/f were done. Actually the 3rd pull was to verify that everything was ok. We did some driveability and trans tuning afterwards. Justin has a real safe tune. He should have alot of fun for a while without the worries of blowing something up. -j
BTW- What we learned is if your ExCal2 or 3 is cold and the unit won't flash or datalog correctly then this is probably the reason. We found our problems with the x3 went away after warming up. It was around 44* when the units where put into service and they didn't like it at all.-j

 

[410Fortune]

drool all over your remote mount turbo

come on lotto!

 

[Jakee]

Justin - Sounds good. If you want to get rid of the Lightning MAF, I may need it.

 

[justin146]

Justin - Sounds good. If you want to get rid of the Lightning MAF, I may need it.

I have a spare 90mm if you want it- I got it thinking it may have more range than the 80mm I have, but it turns out the transfer functions are the same between the two.

 

[Jakee]

I have a spare 90mm if you want it- I got it thinking it may have more range than the 80mm I have, but it turns out the transfer functions are the same between the two.

Let me ask my advisor.

 

[jah81592]

Let me ask my advisor.

The lightning meter should be good in draw thru for your future desires. Although I upgraded on my truck I still had a little range left within the meter. Unless you intend to make more power than I currently do the meter should be fine.

 

[Jakee]

The lightning meter should be good in draw thru for your future desires. Although I upgraded on my truck I still had a little range left within the meter. Unless you intend to make more power than I currently do the meter should be fine.

I believe I'd be happy to have what you have or close to it. I don't expect to add a turbo and bingo; be where you're at. I have a long ways to go.

 

[rocket 5979]

Although blow thru, believe it or not the MAF ad counts were extremely stable and the a/f ratio laid down like a champ. Ultimately once the datalogging bugs were worked out 3 pulls and the a/f were done. Actually the 3rd pull was to verify that everything was ok. We did some driveability and trans tuning afterwards. Justin has a real safe tune. He should have alot of fun for a while without the worries of blowing something up. -j
BTW- What we learned is if your ExCal2 or 3 is cold and the unit won't flash or datalog correctly then this is probably the reason. We found our problems with the x3 went away after warming up. It was around 44* when the units where put into service and they didn't like it at all.-j

I ran into that same problem last winter when making a base tune for my Exploder. I had problems when I took the Xcal2 in from the vehicle sitting out in the garage. Later on after I tried it a few times it would load just fine. I finally realized that it was the cold weather that hurt the Xcal2 till it warmed up.

 

[jah81592]

I ran into that same problem last winter when making a base tune for my Exploder. I had problems when I took the Xcal2 in from the vehicle sitting out in the garage. Later on after I tried it a few times it would load just fine. I finally realized that it was the cold weather that hurt the Xcal2 till it warmed up.

Definately things that make you go hmmm. I would've never imagined it. I have always parked my truck in a climate controlled environment overnight. Therefore never had any flashing problems.

 

[Turdle]

Now I have to wipe all the drool from the keyboard--

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[justin146]

Well, it turns out I am only hitting about 7psi (spikes to 9 but settles at about 7), so I will be adding a manual boost controller in the near future. Here is a 0-60 video....

 

[Jakee]

I love that turbo sound.

 

[reserved50]

about 5.5 sec? are your shifts firmed up (line pressure)mechanically or electronically and are you running any more pressure on the holding bands/clutches? Im guessing you are at about 450hp flywheel? Do you think running 12psi or so would make the strength of the block questionable especially with all the weight of the truck, do you know what your truck weighs about?.. I think I ran out of questions