In A Messed Up Situation

[AdmiralSparklez]

Alright I'm sure there's been a ton of these posts but it's worth a shot.

I just bought HPTuners with the motivation to read and learn how to tune my 2015 Mustang GT on my own. It's currently tuned by Palm Beach Dyno (garbage customer service lmao). Long story short my plan was to learn the changes made in the PBD tune and research and learn that way so I understand what's modified and where to go from there. And also just get the transmission shifting how I want. I found out they lock their tunes for obvious reasons.

The car cannot be reverted back to stock since the stock file says "mismatch" and doesn't load the stock tune. PBD will not help and ignore the situation. HPTuners support cannot map the calibration since it's stuck on the PBD tune.

I have other ways to force the stock file. The car is currently running catless long tubes, full exhaust, 2018 ported mani with IMRCs active, CP-e 110mm intake. The car definitely won't run on the stock tune.

I feel stuck. It's either I stay on this mediocre PBD tune and live with it or get the PCM to stock and attempt to completely retune the car on my own. I wanna learn but this is becoming a more difficult path for me to learn. What advice or guidance could be offered? Is it pretty tough tuning a bolt on gen 2 Coyote?

Much appreciated to any insight offered.

[Seishuku]

Sounds like you really don’t have much of a choice…
Stuck with the current tune, or get a dealer (or someone with dealer level tools) to flash it to stock and start from there.

[Admir101]

What did you use to load the original PBD tune? Is it an sct device or similar?

[AdmiralSparklez]

After a ton of reading and comparing, this actually doesn't seem that bad. Seems all I do with my mods is turn off O2s, change volume size for the manifold to 12.5, change IMRC sensor voltages to the correct voltages, and adjust the MAF for the intake. Seems like that's really it to get the car running.

What did you use to load the original PBD tune? Is it an sct device or similar?

I am using an nGauge

[aaronson]

After a ton of reading and comparing, this actually doesn't seem that bad. Seems all I do with my mods is turn off O2s, change volume size for the manifold to 12.5, change IMRC sensor voltages to the correct voltages, and adjust the MAF for the intake. Seems like that's really it to get the car running.

Make sure you are choosing the correct stock file, I know sometimes it will save it as several ones. Had a customer with the same issue and it ended up being that he was choosing the wrong stock file. Just make sure it?s the one that has your vin number defined underneath and not just the basic stock file.


I am using an nGauge

[superman07]

"learn the changes made in the PBD tune"

So if you dont like the PBD calibration - and I have no opinion either way, what are you expecting? So if you were able to see their changes or even just reverse engineer some data from logs you would get some benefit of their time like cam positions etc. Not too surprised they are not chomping at the bit to help anyone in that regard. In my experience the Ford guys all believe they have mastered black magic (everyone knows something the rest do not.....), and do not want to share anything of consequence. Many that do share dont know what the hell they are talking about.

Were there no instructions on how to save or restore the stock file? I'm sorry you dont like the tune, you learned a valuable lesson.

[AdmiralSparklez]

"learn the changes made in the PBD tune"

So if you dont like the PBD calibration - and I have no opinion either way, what are you expecting? So if you were able to see their changes or even just reverse engineer some data from logs you would get some benefit of their time like cam positions etc. Not too surprised they are not chomping at the bit to help anyone in that regard. In my experience the Ford guys all believe they have mastered black magic (everyone knows something the rest do not.....), and do not want to share anything of consequence. Many that do share dont know what the hell they are talking about.

Were there no instructions on how to save or restore the stock file? I'm sorry you dont like the tune, you learned a valuable lesson.

Honestly the tune runs fine. I'm just picky and want it catered to me. I plan on having this car for an extremely long time and it's gonna be procharged. I want it as healthy as possible, especially better shifting. Hence why I wanna learn all this myself so I can make the changes I want and not have someone else spend hours or days dialing in my specific desires. I'd rather just do it myself so I know how.

I'm not surprised they lock their tunes so I'm not disagreeing with you there. But at the same time this is email tuning with a big name company. They're going to be quite conservative tunes and not exactly dialed in for the specific car. It's almost like a one size fits all depending on mods of course. Again, I'd like mine dialed in and running healthier whatever that may mean.

Managed to get the stock tune file corrected. After battling them on the phone, they finally corrected my file and I gave it a shot. Car went back to stock. So it's pretty much ready for HPT at this point. My idea was to learn from the PBD tune so I could at least have a foundational understanding of what was changed and research why so I can better grasp why my car is able to operate with these modifications. But without it, I don't care. I'm still gonna learn this one way or another.