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steve142857

11's in '12 ; )
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I think it is a house filled with Muslims..... Who else would have that many relatives???

I live in Iowa... and we too have lots of Porches -(most of them are white and sit behind a fence).... BM..W's (Bad Meth Widows....) and man do we have lots of Grand MARQUIS'!!!!

Go... Corn-Hawk' "I"s....

Back on topic... I have called my dealer, Ford, My Lawyer, and my Minister.... and told them I am demanding a new engine...... Something has to be wrong with it.... I should be in the 12's by now....
F= M x A
You have lots of A, but lots of M too! (Mass)
But I'm sure you'll find a way to get in the 12's soon... Come up North on a cool night in September (50degrees), it should get you there.
G/L!
Steve
 

EcoBrick Bob

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I was hoping for a "Cool Night" in Iowa... but so far they have been A.W.O.L.

Good news is my top speeds are up 1 - 2 mph... so I am making more HP!

Back on topic... what perplexes me is that some owners of Taurus & Flex seem to have many issues with their vehicles.... brakes, tranny shuttering, engine issues etc....
but others, like myself have had great experiences with this platform. Almost seems to be a supplier issue....
 

SoCalSHO

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I was hoping for a "Cool Night" in Iowa... but so far they have been A.W.O.L.

Good news is my top speeds are up 1 - 2 mph... so I am making more HP!

Back on topic... what perplexes me is that some owners of Taurus & Flex seem to have many issues with their vehicles.... brakes, tranny shuttering, engine issues etc....
but others, like myself have had great experiences with this platform. Almost seems to be a supplier issue....

Bob,
I have been in Des Moines since Friday morning. Drove out here from Southern California. This humidity can't help your times, Does it?
 

yamahaSHO

E85 whore
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I was hoping for a "Cool Night" in Iowa... but so far they have been A.W.O.L.

Good news is my top speeds are up 1 - 2 mph... so I am making more HP!

Back on topic... what perplexes me is that some owners of Taurus & Flex seem to have many issues with their vehicles.... brakes, tranny shuttering, engine issues etc....
but others, like myself have had great experiences with this platform. Almost seems to be a supplier issue....

Do you make it out to Omaha at all?

Bob,
I have been in Des Moines since Friday morning. Drove out here from Southern California. This humidity can't help your times, Does it?

Nope.
 

RealityCheck

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I will someday look at how these are 'tuned' for different octane for these cars. My guess is that it's 'tuned' to handle knock like most motors. Problem is, it has to see knock to adjust for it (short-term/long-term/course/fine/etc). If these were designed to run on E85, then I'd say it has a sensor in the tank to measure content.

Good luck with getting the replacement. :)


Paragraphs please...

This post pretty much captures the basic problem in a nutshell: By the time the computer intervenes, knock has already occurred. You may not hear it, but it's there.

8 or 9 years ago, an acquaintance was shopping for a Regal GS (supercharged 3.8) and asked me to come along on some test drives. One particular car was very clean, but seemed "off" to me (i.e., slow). Someone who wasn't familiar with these cars wouldn't have noticed the missing power, but it was immediately apparent to me. Other than being down on power, it ran great - smooth and quiet. I asked the salesman if he minded if I ran a datalog on it. I already knew what the problem was - too much KR (knock retard) - and the datalog verified my suspicions. The salesman confirmed that they put regular fuel in all of their cars. A quick trip to the local gas station and a fillup with premium later, performance was restored and the KR was 0.

Any forced induction car that makes peak torque/hp on premium fuel is almost certainly experiencing knock on regular fuel. The fact that the computer intervenes so quickly that you can't hear it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Does permanent damage occur? Who knows, but why take the chance? Anyone willing to risk damaging their engine over a few cents per gallon and isn't concerned by the loss of torque/power of running lower octane fuel may have been better off with non-SHO Taurus in the first place.
 

itguy08

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8 or 9 years ago, an acquaintance was shopping for a Regal GS (supercharged 3.8) and asked me to come along on some test drives. One particular car was very clean, but seemed "off" to me (i.e., slow). Someone who wasn't familiar with these cars wouldn't have noticed the missing power, but it was immediately apparent to me. Other than being down on power, it ran great - smooth and quiet. I asked the salesman if he minded if I ran a datalog on it. I already knew what the problem was - too much KR (knock retard) - and the datalog verified my suspicions. The salesman confirmed that they put regular fuel in all of their cars. A quick trip to the local gas station and a fillup with premium later, performance was restored and the KR was 0.

Except the 3.8 Supercharged REQUIRED PREMIUM FUEL.

http://www.edmunds.com/buick/regal/2004/features-specs.html?style=100274235

Any forced induction car that makes peak torque/hp on premium fuel is almost certainly experiencing knock on regular fuel. The fact that the computer intervenes so quickly that you can't hear it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Does permanent damage occur? Who knows, but why take the chance? Anyone willing to risk damaging their engine over a few cents per gallon and isn't concerned by the loss of torque/power of running lower octane fuel may have been better off with non-SHO Taurus in the first place.

So if someone gets me the PID for Knock Retard or whatever you want I'll put the issue to bed. I've got the Torque app for my Droid and the OBD2 connector. I'll run a datalog and we can all watch what it does.

Ford still says regular is OK in these engines so they are doing something to make it all work.
 

Crash712us

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Some thing keep in mind also, the owners manual is on it's 3rd or 4th reprinting and it's still says the sho take 5.5qrts of oil. And the factory service manaul says 6qrts. Just some food for thought.
 

Showgun

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Ford ok's or not, mine will never see regular fuel (with or without a tune).
Can't see taking any kind of chance like that.
 

steve142857

11's in '12 ; )
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Ford ok's or not, mine will never see regular fuel (with or without a tune).
Can't see taking any kind of chance like that.
I bought mine second hand from a dealer. It was a demo and then a director from Ford drove it for a year. I presume it had regular fuel the first 21K miles but since I have it I only put 94 octane in it. If it can give better power, better mileage, less pollution, clean the engine, less risk or whatever, I am fine with the extra cents per gallon. Now with the tune, I need to put it anyways, so file closed.
 

mjhpadi

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Some thing keep in mind also, the owners manual is on it's 3rd or 4th reprinting and it's still says the sho take 5.5qrts of oil. And the factory service manaul says 6qrts. Just some food for thought.

Just had oil change on mine, and the dealer did 6 quarts, and I also agree with Colin, always have and always will run premium in mine.
 

Crash712us

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Same here premium only. Spark knock is nothing to mess around with on a forced induction motor. Is usually fatal. I use to have some broken pistons from my super charged VW I use to have, have to find to post up here on what detonation can do.
In fact I plan blending my fuel in the summer months just to raise the octane up a couple numbers.
 
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Showgun

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Same here premium only. Spark knock is nothing to mess around with on a forced induction motor. Is usually fatal. I use to have some broken pistons from my super charged VW I use to have, have to find to post up here on what detonation can do.
In fact I plan blending my fuel in the summer months just to raise the octane up a couple numbers.

Blending with Aviation?
 

ChrisBnDE

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this kind of sucks i was hoping to get away from the higher octane with this new car...
 

itguy08

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this kind of sucks i was hoping to get away from the higher octane with this new car...

So use regular. Ford certifies all Ecoboosts with regular and there's no evidence that it hurts anything. One blown engine out of the hundreds of thousands sold is not an issue.

Run regular and if the performance is fine for you keep it up. It won't hurt anything.
 

Crash712us

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Blending with Aviation?

No, found this stuff from torco called accelerator can raise your octane rating as high as 105. Have done some investigating on this stuff and it come highly recommended.

To the fellas that think regular is ok, I have heard pinging in my engine while on regular under hard acceleration. So unless you know what your listening for, which I don't think most do. At free way speed under acceleration it sound like a tick a very rapid tick. My car has never seen regular since. But if you plan on driving like grandpa on his way to church on Sunday I would say regular is fine.
Not worth to me, I don't care if ford would give me unlimited engine replacements.
 

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