Runs bad on tune

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

Zinprogress

Member
Joined
May 29, 2025
Messages
36
Reaction score
23
Location
Arizona
I just recently purchased a tuner with a 3 bar and plugs from a well known vendor on these forums for my 2013. With the tune, the car falls flat on its face when getting into boost and throws a cylinder 3 missfire. Stock tune and map and it runs perfect again, after talking with the vendor he assumed the 3 bar was faulty and sent me a new one and same thing.

I rarely beat on the car so I was trying to drive it more aggressively on the stock tune to verify there wasn’t an actual issue that is more affected by the tune. I noticed that sometimes when getting into boost the car feels like it’s lagging before it really hits. When looking at the data it’s like boost hits but there is a big delay before power enrichment starts to add fuel then it takes off. Went to do a smoke test and found the turbo inlet pipe is leaking on the front turbo where the hard pipe attaches to the soft coupler, but being speed density I wouldn’t think that’d really affect much. Will be ordering a new one.

Things to note-
Car is extremely well maintained, all fluids changed. Plugs and 3 bar are motorcraft. Intake valves are clean. I tried swapping coils with my Explorer platinum with no improvement. Commanded fuel pressures closely match metered pressures. Vendor verified tune was correct for my car and yes I swapped the map sensor on top of the intake.
 

Majestic

SHO Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
1,262
Reaction score
1,012
I just recently purchased a tuner with a 3 bar and plugs from a well known vendor on these forums for my 2013. With the tune, the car falls flat on its face when getting into boost and throws a cylinder 3 missfire. Stock tune and map and it runs perfect again, after talking with the vendor he assumed the 3 bar was faulty and sent me a new one and same thing.

I rarely beat on the car so I was trying to drive it more aggressively on the stock tune to verify there wasn’t an actual issue that is more affected by the tune. I noticed that sometimes when getting into boost the car feels like it’s lagging before it really hits. When looking at the data it’s like boost hits but there is a big delay before power enrichment starts to add fuel then it takes off. Went to do a smoke test and found the turbo inlet pipe is leaking on the front turbo where the hard pipe attaches to the soft coupler, but being speed density I wouldn’t think that’d really affect much. Will be ordering a new one.

Things to note-
Car is extremely well maintained, all fluids changed. Plugs and 3 bar are motorcraft. Intake valves are clean. I tried swapping coils with my Explorer platinum with no improvement. Commanded fuel pressures closely match metered pressures. Vendor verified tune was correct for my car and yes I swapped the map sensor on top of the intake.
You positive about that?
 

Majestic

SHO Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
1,262
Reaction score
1,012
Just making sure you changed the MAP underneath the engine cover. I've seen too many people change the wrong one.
 

Zinprogress

Member
Joined
May 29, 2025
Messages
36
Reaction score
23
Location
Arizona
Yeah I saw a bunch of posts on that. He had me put the 3 bar in the pre TB port and the pre TB in the intake for testing purposes which ended up with him sending the new map. I’m kind of at a loss on this, when it first happened it kind of felt like spark blow out. I have a bunch of tools for looking at data but on HP tuners there are an insane amount of PIDs and a lot of them don’t yield data. I have the SCT but still figuring that out and an old solus pro and a new autel d1. Just don’t know what to look for at this point.

And just to clarify, tune with 3 bar drives perfectly till you start really getting into boost.
 

kryptto

The Best Thing About Cars... ones in my mirror.
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2023
Messages
3,205
Reaction score
2,077
Location
South East, Florida
ok not saying the vendors name is concerning, share since you are also claiming that you sent them pictures. the 3 bar mounts on top of the intake that runs to the individual cylinders and NOT the pre throttle body on the charge pipe to the throttlebody. if you changed the one on the charge pipe and not on the top of the engines intake then that would be a mistake.
 
Last edited:

SM105K

Streetlight Grand Prix Champ/ IG @fafomotorsports
Joined
May 3, 2018
Messages
7,431
Reaction score
9,732
Location
Arizona
I would ask the tuner if they can write a tune for the stock MAP sensor and eliminate a software/hardware issue.
 

Zinprogress

Member
Joined
May 29, 2025
Messages
36
Reaction score
23
Location
Arizona
ok not saying the vendors name is concerning, share since you are also claiming that you sent them pictures. the 3 bar mounts on top of the intake that runs to the individual cylinders and NOT the pre throttle body on the charge pipe to the throttlebody. if you changed the one on the charge pipe and not on the top of the engines intake then that would be a mistake.
Gearhead.
 

Majestic

SHO Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
1,262
Reaction score
1,012
That is the correct sensor, and if you are using GH, I'm sure he can figure out what the issue is.
 

Zinprogress

Member
Joined
May 29, 2025
Messages
36
Reaction score
23
Location
Arizona
That is the correct sensor, and if you are using GH, I'm sure he can figure out what the issue is.
He sent the new sensor and I left town for a week so it took a while to try it. I emailed him but haven’t heard back for a while, I assume things got busy with the 4th and all that.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
107,133
Messages
1,181,768
Members
16,179
Latest member
Jimmymac3467
Back
Top