I said the name in an earlier post but it blocked it.  He doesn't have the best reputation but he definitely knows what to do with the F150's.  I have been racing a 93 Stang with a blown 347 in it for years and I have seen multiple F150's he tuned put down some impressive times at Sonoma Raceway.  The fellow racer that I have talked to for years has run a 12.50 with just a tune.  It is a 2015 supercab 4wd 6.5' bed.  He is on his 3rd EB tuned by *** and they were all fast.  His 15 is the fastest but now he has a 17 on the way.  *** has tune only SHO's running low 12's and two tune only Sports running low 13's.  I just want to hit the 13's.  I did see a 2015 *** Sport with tune only mod at Sonoma run 13.5 and that was not an aggressive tune.  So, I was pretty optimistic.  I think he needs to fine tune some stuff on the 16's, but I don't feel that the tune is the problem here.  I will work with him more as I get time to test tunes, but this is my wife's daily driver so I don't get much time with it.  I have been tempted to try another tuner, but with the stock tune commanding such a low amount of advance, I am really skeptical that it has any room left in it.  There just has to be something wrong.  I am just not sure how much effort I am willing to put into figuring it out.  I need to focus my attention on my Mustang which needs a new crank and the house which needs a ton of work.  My wife gets pissed when I spend time messing with our brand new car which is the only thing around which should not need any of my time.  Other than changing oil and rotating the tires which I did yesterday.  I also tried wrapping the knock sensor wires as posted by SHOboat, but that didn't help.  I didn't think it would since I believe that the readings are real.

It is very disappointing to say the least.  I have always raced every vehicle I have owned and knowing the potential of the Ecoboost after watching that F150 race was a big deciding factor on this purchase.  With that said, it is 0.8 seconds quicker than our 2002 that I did some mods to.  The 2002 did launch a lot harder though.  It had 2.0 60fts and my best on that 14.56 run with our 16 was 2.194.  Most were 2.23 area.  It is still pretty quick though since my 93 5.0LX 5 speed Stang was only 0.05 quicker bone stock and 1mph slower!

I was just hoping that someone on here had a similar experience and were able to track it down to root cause.

Thanks!

I think it would be money well spent to to try a different tuner.  Not that the guy you're using is bad, but the transverse EB is very different from the others.  I suspect we have different cam profiles in addition to other things.  If you look at our timing it is very different from the other EB's.

The KR stock does not surprise me.  The factory tune is very rich and has a ton of timing advance.  It then very actively uses the knock sensor.

At least with a different tuner, you could eliminate that as a possibility.  I suspect though that you may see the problem go away.  We have had others here with fuel issues magically disappear with the right tune.  Your timing issue may do the same.

To the OP think it will be beneficial if you post some pic's of the engine bay because there was a recent member that had issues with his 16 x- sport and found issues with the harness/connector that supports the rear bov causing an under boost condition and certainly not implying its related to your case but think it might help to do so,also think a dealer visit might be your next step especially having warranty and all.....due setup your signature,thanks.  Z

I am not sure what I would tell the dealer to look for, unless I could get it to ping by running 87.  I may do that.  I did see that post and inspected all of my wiring under the engine cover.  Everything looks good.  It ran 14.56, which is quicker than other stockers I have seen so it seems to be running well.  Anyone ever had weird PCV issues?

The dealer might need to re-flash the PCM to the latest calibration/update if available for your particular model,this might help in your case.  Z

Wonder what the dealer would do even if they heard it pinging

Quote from: AJP turbo on August 08, 2016, 11:09:39 PM
Wonder what the dealer would do even if they heard it pinging

In my experience, they are never able to replicate the condition. Until it's brought in on a flat bed with fluids pouring out, they see it as fine.

Yeah its actually just kind of a shitty situation...Not sure what a reasonable effort for diagnosis would be...Wouldn't blame them for not doing anything as nothing is broken yet...And waiting for a failure would most likely surely be cheaper than blindly changing parts and R and R.

You could see if there is an update or try a different tuner but there is really no secret to spark tuning...If a car is on 2 different tunes and one is knocking at a certain load and rpm with certain environmental conditions then if all things are equal the other tune will knock too if operating in those same conditions if the same amount of spark is commanded.

I have seen some cars run 17 degrees at 1.6 load and 130 degree IAT2 and another car that is exactly the same on be happy at 10 degrees spark....And I can't really come up with a good explanation...Fuel maybe? but Anti Knock Index(AKI) should be standardized from pump to pump

I say it's false knock but if you think you hear it pinging then that kills that idea...If you run race and it makes the KR go away then it's real.

Strange problem though

Yes, I figure that even if I could get it to knock on 87, the dealer would just put better gas in it and have it go away and tell me I got bad gas.  I don't want them beating the crap out of it letting it ping all over the place while they diagnose because they'll do more damage than good.  I already tried to get the dealer to reflash before I tuned it because I didn't want to bring it in later for something and get a new strategy.  I told them about a couple issues and asked if they would give it the latest to see if it would go away.  They said that they would not do anything unless they could verify the complaint and then found a TSB saying that a reflash would fix that.  What a bunch of BS.  How hard is it to just flash the damn thing.  Fine, charge me for 5 minutes of labor!  I have never heard the stock tune detonate, but I definitely have heard the aftermarket tune detonate.  The tuner did not believe me until I showed him my stock log and he was not happy with the amount of knock the stock tune showed with 91.  What if the damn crank sensor was off a few degrees.  I have no idea if that is possible, but if it is then I should be able to get a tune that will work, it just has to command a super low timing.  It wouldn't just mess up WOT though.

That is the whole reason I want to put race fuel in it or that Torco stuff.  I just want to see if it is possible to get this thing to read 0 knock.  It is at least one more piece of information.  I need to call my tuner.  He doesn't like to do email.  He is old school and wants to talk through it.  It is just easier for me to get on the computer during work hours than a long phone conversation.  I want to see what he thinks of the logs I did with his "test" tune.

I only want to use someone that has done 2016 Sports.  The guys with the most experience with these use their own tuner that doesn't log, which is why I didn't go with them.  I would be flying blind right now with theirs.  I wouldn't know if fuel was going away or what.

I would think it's more important to get the knock issue taken care of (assuming it's a programmable fix) first, then worry about the way it was fixed.  You can always use SCT (or Torque Pro, or Forscan, or ...) to do datalogs on stock vs tuned with the new guys.  It may not be completely transparent what was done, but you can very likely get a rough idea.

Do your custom tunes pull any timing on the shift?  The stock tune looks like it retards the timing for 300ms around the shift.  It pulls anywhere from 8-16 degrees during the shift.  Is all of that eliminated on your aftermarket tunes or did your tuner leave a little of that in?

You dont really want the spark retard eliminated on the shifts...its part of the tq reduction for drivetrain preservation and helps with knock retard on boost spikes on wot upshifts

Thanks.  That is exactly what I was thinking.


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Hey Guys,

I just wanted to give a quick update on what is going on with my wife's Explorer.  The good news is that I PM'd AJP Turbo and asked him if he was willing to work with me on my Explorer and see if he could give me a usable tune and maybe help figure out what is wrong with this thing.  AJP said he was willing to work with me.  He might not be happy I share this piece of info, but he didn't even want any money unless he was able to get me something I was happy with.  We are still working on it, but I had 3 tunes before I sent him any money.  I do have a tune that has more power and less knock than the stock tune, so I sent him some money for the tunes.

Rev 1 was kind of a test with not much changed.  Rev 2 launched a lot harder and had less knock than stock.  AJP Turbo has been great to work with.  I am hoping to get a couple more tunes, once I get this sling off of my arm (just had shoulder surgery) and can try to get rid of some false knock I have.  Driving and datalogging with 1 arm is a PITA. 

I am almost certain some knock detected is false.  Back to back runs at the track in the same conditions netted a 3 degree difference in advance.  This was also on 96 octane with only 6 degrees advance with a perfect 0.80 measured AFR, so there is no way it should have needed to drop the timing more than that.  This was with less than 13psi of boost.  It was a couple weeks ago, so I would need to double check the log for exact numbers, but it was somewhere around there.  A couple of the runs had higher knock readings in 3rd at the track with 96 octane than it did on the street with 91.  At part throttle, it adds a bunch of advance (knock reads negative).  So I think I am still suffering from some false knock.  The quicker passes had around 7-8 degrees advance and I think the ones that slowed down had 4-5 degrees.  The temps were the same but the knock went up which brought timing down.  I still never see the KR in the 7's like I did stock!

Anyway, this thing is fighting him because it just doesn't want any advance.  He has had to lower the advance from stock to be able to keep the knock in check.  I am pretty sure I have some false knock, eventhough the 2016 has some rubber insulation on the knock sensor wires and I tried to isolate them more like in the posts on this board.  However, I know some was real since I could hear the knock with the *** tune.  I couldn't log the knock however with that tune. I did see that he was only commanding like 10 degrees though so it didn't look crazy.  The boost was hitting the peak at times of the 2-bar though, so it did have more boost and I don't know how much.  It was probably way up there because it was really fast and spun the tires on the 1-2 shift.  I did not like the drivability of the *** tune regardless. 

AJP Turbo's tune launches harder than stock at somewhere around 40% or more throttle positions, shifts nicely, and still drives like stock at lower throttle positions.  He also kept the paddle shifter functionality when in D and changed it to hold the gear you selected when in S, which is nice.  Before in S, it would still downshift on you if it felt you were lugging it.  You couldn't do a 3rd gear pull from under 4k stock because it would downshift on you.  I like that feature and love how much quicker it is off the line.

AJP's Rev 2 picked up 2 tenths in the 60ft and 4 tenths in the 1/4.  That was against a SUPER strong headwind and with the boost and advance fairly low because of whatever is going on with this Explorer.  Even with these limitations, he was able to dial it in and give me a tune that feels much better than stock, especially on the launch which is where I really felt it was lacking stock, at the same time reducing knock.  I need to run his Rev 4 at the track and see how it does, but I want to mess with the knock sensor wires some more and I have to get this sling off first. 

I am hoping we can add a couple more degrees of timing without the knock jumping back up.  I have never heard any audible knock accept when I ran the *** tune.  The *** tune did not look that aggressive as far as timing, and AJP has never seen one require the advance to be lowered so much, so I still have some issues going on and ***'s tune would most likely work on a different Explorer that responds like most others.

Thanks AJP for getting this thing closer to where I want it to be!  I look forward to some fine tuning in the future.  I have an idea I want to run by you, but I need some more logs first.

Thanks again!

Glad your getting everything worked out, AJPTURBO is starting to have quite a large following with very good results. Subscribed for future updates.