Anyone have any recommendations for a 5.0 Ranger tune with an SCT X3?

Fred at Rogue is supposed to be doing it, but we got started and he disappeared on me. over a month ago. Been trying to get it tuned properly since I got my truck done, and I have had no luck.

Need it done RIGHT, tired of the shitty idle, surging on deceleration, and underwhelming power production. Wish Fred would get back to me to get this done, but I am open to other options at this point.

Thanks!

 

Get in contact with More Power Tuning. They did all of the tuning for my 347 swap. Quick turnaround times and very easy to work with. If you buy a tuner from them, it will come with 3 custom tunes for free.

 

Awesome, Thanks!

 

More Power Tuning doesnt offer tuning for the old 5.0's. Unless I am looking at the wrong website. I emailed them and they said they dont tune these.

MorePowerTuning.com SCT F150 Ecoboost Tuner | Ecoboost Performance | Ecoboost thermostat | F150 Tuner

 

They did some custom tuning for me when I swapped in a 5.0 out of a 98 Explorer into my Ranger. I bought the tuner and paid an extra $50 for the custom work.

 

Probably arent interested if not selling the tuner as well.

His reply
"Hey Ernest,



Sorry, but we do not offer anything for that vehicle.



Duane "

 

Yeah, you're probably right that they aren't interested since you didn't buy anything from them. I don't know of anyone else besides Fred, but it looks like you aren't having much luck with him either.

 

I have the same programmer and I cant find anyone either. I definitely would like to tune my 5.0 as well even though its almost stock. the sct x4 comes with a tune that adds 10 horse and 11 pound feet of torque. I would be happy with that. I found a site called tuning by james. he was unsure if he could do mine depending on the serial number or something. what does youre programmer say ernie? mine says tune version 1.2.1 on the device info page.

 

I also contacted sct and they recommended a few places that do custom tuning. unleashed tuning and 5 star tuning but I didn't have much luck at either place.

 

No luck with Fred, he is ignoring me. Facebook confirms he sees my messages, no reply.

Im about ready to buy a new tuner from somewhere that will tune my truck with tuner purchase.

not sure, it should be whatever version is latest.

If the truck was stock, I wouldnt bother, but I have a cam and few other things, and it just doesnt run right.

 

I hear ya. Email James at tuning by james. He will reply almost instantly and let you know. The email is james@tuningbyjames.com and his name is james gordon. It's worth a try. I think it was 3 tunes for 150$. Maybe it was 2 for 150$.

 

I will shoot him an email as soon as I hear back from 5-star. They didnt shoot me down in Email, guy wanted to speak to me. I called and left a message and my # to call back. If I dont hear back in a day or two, Ill email James.

As for cost, its irrelevant. After the cost of the swap, and it under-performing all because of the injection tune, its worth quite a bit to get straightened out.

I get 20 ish MPG hwy at 75-80 MPH, but at WFO, it just isnt anywhere near what I expected. Cant even powerbrake a burnout on dry pavement. In the rain, its sketchy to drive though, the shift kit in the trans pretty much rules out any kind of hard acceleration. even shifting 3rd in the rain hard will throw you a sliding.

But, beyond the under-whelming power, there are odd driveability quirks that need some ironing. If nothing changed but its quirky behavior and crappy idle, i will be happy. But, I imagine as the issues are fixed, it will run better all-around.

And if I can find a good tuner, I wont be so hesitant about changing other components that will mess with the injection system.

 

K. Let me know how you make out please. Mine is pretty much stock. It runs awesome. I got possi and can do brake stands easy and I can do donuts on dry pavement like it's on ice. It's also hairy on wet roads. I know mine is a million times better with new spark plugs, Taylor plug wires and , msd coils. I bet yours will have awesome power once you get it straightened out. They say the stock explorer cam is crap. It's dam near flat.

 

Thats what I had heard as well. I went with a Comp Cams Xtreme Energy cam and roller-rocker setup.

What coils are you using? Finding anything performance-oriented for the Explorer is a joke, so I assume mustang stuff?

 

The mad coils I bought in summit. They say for a 4.6 liter but they are the same as our 5.0. Ya once you get yours running right it should be pretty sweet. I want a cam bad. And roller rockers. I have the explorer reared with brand new disc brakes and I can still smoke the tires right off with the brake on. Yours should be ungodly.

 

Msd coils. Not mad coils. Stupid auto correct

 

Msd 8241 I believe is the part number. I can check when I get home to make sure. Their was a lot of rust under my stock coils also.

 

I am still not super impressed with the acceleration. I had a 01 ranger with the 4.0 ohc befor this truck. I totaled it. But it had 3.73 gears and it didn't feel much slower. I have 4.10 gears in this one and the same set of 31 inch tires on that was on the other truck. I would like to ride in someone elses. I have a 2000 mountaineer 5.0 that I bought for the motor and it has a skip to it. It's slow as hell. Sounds like it's tearing *** but it's barely moving. And I only get 15 mpg no matter how I drive.

 

My coils are brand new stock replacement. The rust under yours could be why you noticed a large difference when replacing.

Honestly, I wouldnt bother with the roller rockers. They were kind of a pain to get set-up with having to convert the heads to studs instead of the stock rockers. , and they are noisy. Always a quite noticeable tick, and Ive had it apart a few times to check/tighten preload on the lifters. Still noisy.

To boot, they DONT fit under the stock rocker covers. I had to pound out several clearances on the steel rocker covers. Sure they sell other rocker covers, that wont fit under the intake (going by measurements, not an attempted fit).


As for cam, You'll need to upgrade the valve springs. I had to have my heads machined to accept smaller diameter valve seals so the upgraded springs would fit, so be prepared to pull the heads when you do a cam. Also, if you're a conservative guy, I would go for a one step "bigger" cam than you think you want. I did hours and hours of research before settling on this cam, and while I am not unhappy, I wish I had gone a little bigger, mainly because since I wound up having to have head machining done anyways, it wouldnt have mattered at that point. I tried to make a selection that wouldnt need a bunch of other stuff done to make it work. I failed spectacularly at that. I did, however, learn that a cam you can just slide in and dont have to do anything else will also cause very little gains.





I have the Expo rear end as well. 3.73 gear, rebuilt LSD, rear disc. It wont even turn over the tires on dry pavement.

I went into this project with low expectations, based off of the stock HP numbers. Part of the reason I did the cam while I had the motor on a stand. But the performance bar is quite a bit lower than even my low expectations.


have you taken any long highway drives with yours? I get around 15mpg in town with a small amount of highway mixed in. But, when I go for a long highway drive, I get between 20 and 22, depending on speed and road conditions. (these numbers are with the air conditioning running full blast)

Overall, I am happy with the swap, but I know something isn't right. If I cant get it resolved with a tune, ill probably run a compression test. If that turns up nothing, Ill pull the timing chain cover off and make sure the cam timing is correct. I doubt that's the case, but anything is possible.

 

Just talked to Josh at 5-star tuning. We got the ball rolling, so we'll see where it goes!

 

I didn't know the heads needed machining for new springs. That's good to know. I heard the roller rockers are noisy. My buddy gave me the intake spacer so that if I buy the tall valve covers they will fit under the intake. I have taken longer trips and I still don't get much better mileage either. I rev about 2100 at 60 with 4.10 gears. I don't know if my truck would beat my old one with the 4.0. It had the 5 sp. Automatic and I think that helped it accelerate.

 

Good deal on the 5 star tuning. Do you know if they are gonna need or want you to data log it? And what are you running for an air cleaner setup

 

I would imagine it would depend on the springs. Mine are double springs, hence the machining. I've heard of people using a stiffer single spring setup, which doesnt need the machine work. But, it was REALLY cheap to have done. 56 bucks to be exact.

I would have no luck with the intake spacer, the body is far too low to be able to bring the intake up.

4.10 gears would destroy hwy mileage for sure.




I will datalong after he gets me the first tune.

Air cleaner is a home-made K&N style cold-air intake. Wasnt about to use the stock stuff, and they dont really make a bolt-on intake for the 5.0 Ranger. I guess that was a REALLY rare option from Ford.

 

Lol. I got a home made set up myself for the intake. Is you're truck a 4wd?

 

My buddy that I got the 1 inch intake spacer from said it fits