Gary Lewis

It is fun driving these old trucks, but there are usually so many layers to peel to get down to the good that many people never really get there. But I think with your persistence you will. The heater does sound like a bit of a problem, and just a shutoff valve probably isn't going to suffice from what you've described. Perhaps the temp cable is broken? Anyway, you'll get there, and will have a truck that you really love.

Bill - Maybe you could send me a copy of your tune file? That way I could easily do a compare in BE and see the differences.

Ok, now I'm reading all the parameters in Binary Editor to see what to play with to get the cold-start idle down. It currently goes to about 1500 R's on the initial start when "cold". And maybe I should define what the various temps are: Cold Start: Below 60F engine coolant temp Warm: 60 - 120F Hot Start: above 170F So given that the shop is roughly 70F then the engine should never be in "cold start mode" right now. One parameter I found is Idle Air Adder For ECT, meaning engine coolant temp. The table that came with this tune is shown below, and adds 304 RPM until 86F, tapering down to 0 at 160, holding that until 220 where it starts back up for cooling. I'm not convinced this is the culprit as 304 + 648 = 952 R's and I'm seeing far more. But perhaps this is part of the problem? It would be easy enough to make this 0 until 220F to see what happens. But then there's Idle Speed Startup Adder Based Off ECT, and maybe the combination of the two could do it? In theory it shouldn't after the engine starts, but...

Yes, I fully understand. The electronic speed control is MUCH better than the vacuum units. LOVE IT! How did you dial in your AFR with the wideband? Did you adjust the MAF curve?

Thanks, Jim. I, too, hope this radiator lasts far, far longer. As for the session on the dyno, it actually isn't scheduled. In fact, the other day when I pushed Ben to schedule it he said I don't need it - unless I just want to pay him. Instead he said that if I adjust the AFR with the results of the wide-band that he will work with me to get the last bits sorted out, including the timing table. Ben said he's done enough big-blocks that he knows very closely what timing the engine needs. So there's not much need to dyno it. However, I've not given up on the dyno session. I'm not convinced I'm going to get all of the issues resolved myself, so it may take the pro to do so. (And, I'd kinda like to see the dyno numbers. ) But this sure is a different engine with the EFI on it. The combination of the large lower plenum and a carb wasn't a good one. As said, it wouldn't pull below 1200 R's, and now it'll pull from idle. Makes gear selection a whole different story and 2nd gear starts easy.

Here's Friday's update. First, I took the truck to the exhaust shop and Scotty put two new bungs in - one for the factory driver's side O2 sensor and one for the wide-band. And, on the trip I played more with the speed control. Man, this thing is great! Not only is it smooooth, but hitting Set/Accelerate while already at speed raises the set point 1.00 MPH. Yep, while running 45 MPH on the GPS I punched the button 10 times. Pretty soon I was running 55 on the GPS and the acceleration was nice and smooth. Then I punched Coast 20 times and I was soon running 35 MPH. Next up was the coolant leak. I contacted Amazon and they contacted the seller, Stay Cool. Their response was that they'll ship me a new one! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I made a couple more "programming" changes to Big Blue's "Dashpot Maximum Based off Vehicle Speed". I'd had it at .1 at 0 MPH and then .2 at anything over 0. But I wanted lower so I set it to 0 at all speeds, inc 0 MPH. However, as expected, that didn't allow it to control the idle when stopped. So I set it to .1 @ 0 MPH and then 0 anytime the truck is rolling. That seemed to work quite nicely on my test drive. On the chart below the yellow trace is RPM and the Y scale is for it. The green trace is MPH and the run starts at 5 MPH in 2nd gear and goes to 65 MPH in 5th gear. You can see that the RPM comes down linearly on my shifts, meaning there's no dashpot function which would have a curve to it. Given that, I think I'm there on the dashpot function! Tomorrow maybe I can get the wide-band hooked up and do some datalogging with it so I can get the fuel properly adjusted - although it sure is running GOOD!

Interesting! How cold is it there? But the brake shield looks great. Be glad you even have them. Big Blue doesn't have any as they were beat up so badly I couldn't use them.

Makes sense to me. There are always more layers of the onion to peel, and you just have to figure out which one to peel next.

Nice truck! And a LOT of truck! The $26K is a hefty price but probably worth it. And I thought Big Blue's engine compartment is stuffed!

Glad you found it. Are you going to replace the switch or just use the trick - until it quits working?

John - I don't have a steering stabilizer - yet. So I can't really answer your question and hope someone else can. But that design is really poor A flat strap is going to flex, especially when extended that far below the lower frame rail and with a hole that weakens it right on the lip of the rail where the forces are concentrated. You could strengthen it a lot by replacing the inner strap with the piece of angle you mentioned. And move the bottom bolt up to to higher hole. Plus cut off the extra length of the outer strap just beyond the upper hole as well as the extra length of the bolts. That would make it a bit neater as well as stronger. But it isn't kosher to drill the lower flange of the frame as that weakens it. It is ok to drill the vertical part of the frame as it is basically just keeping the upper and lower flanges in place. So while a piece of angle bolted to the bottom flange would seem like a good idea, I don't think it is. Maybe you could design something that would bolt to the two holes towards the front and the one almost under the strap that would then have a piece projecting below the frame for the stabilizer? A piece of channel opening to the inside, and then a piece of angle welded to it and pointing down?

Looks good from a distance.

Wow! That is wild! A carb with a computer-controlled vacuum leak to put the AFR at the target. Interesting!

Sorry Pete, I have no idea how to program your controller. In fact, I'm just learning Binary Editor and am gob smacked with all of the parameters there are for EVERYTHING on this EEC-V. Not just the transmission. The EFI system has even more parameters. As for Big Blue, there are two things to report. First, he has an appointment at the exhaust shop at 10 in the morning. Hopefully then tomorrow afternoon I can get the wide-band going. On the other hand, it looks to me like my fairly-new Champion radiator has a leak in it. I've been chasing a leak for quite some time, and have gone over the system with a fine-toothed comb. All the clamps are tight, but I keep getting a few drops on the floor. Heretofore I've not seen anything on the radiator itself, but as shown below I am now. The bottom rows are wet all the way across. Does it seem likely that it is the radiator? Can any of you think of what else it might be? I want to be pretty certain before I pull it.

Bill, whose E4OD controller are you using? I know the question was to Bill, but I will jump in here. Bill is using the EEC-V ECU that runs the EFI system on his truck to control the E4OD. And he, like I, uses Binary Editor software to change the parameters in the ECU. The screen grab on the left below shows the headings for all of the parameters available. And the one on the right shows the ones for the torque converter within the Trans section since your question sprang from a mention of the torque converter.

I missed your post, Stein. Sorry. But you are right that the 15.5 AFR when cruising is lean, and 16 - 18 is way lean. However, I doubt that at your cool outdoor temps the engine coolant temp could change with an AFR change. Yes, the leaner mix can cause cylinder temps to rise some, but if your cooling system is working properly I can't see that causing the temp to go up enough to see on the gauge. And if the choke plate isn't standing straight up I'd think that would tend to cause the AFR to be a bit richer, not leaner. However, perhaps it changes the airflow in the carb enough to cause it to go lean? Anyway, you are going about it the right way, a bit at a time. And I agree that 12.4 MPG isn't too bad with your engine and transmission if you are doing a lot of slow speed driving as well as some highway. But on the highway I'd think you could see something like 14.

Well done! Neat installation. On the power steering box, you might find that after driving the truck some that the leak goes away. Perhaps movement of the shaft will help. But if not, I'd sure check out the Blue Top. It isn't a job I'd want to do very often, so I'd spend the extra money now rather than later. However, that's just my thinking.

Hey Grumpin, your comment made me laugh thinking about NumberDummy over on FTE. He would say "There's no such thing as a door tag". haha. I mean without exception...he knew exactly what you meant, but he'd never let it pass. That’s funny! I was actually thinking what’s that called? Oh heck, it’s a door tag! Certification Label.

That's what I'm doing, Bill. One setting at a time. But I still have several things to sort, including: AFR: Gotta get the wide-band installed and then sort out the AFR. In my reading it may taking tweaking of the injector values, which still haven't been updated to match the 26# units I installed. And the MAF curve. Timing: Ben Head said he will dial the timing in for me and doesn't think I'll need to bring it down to OKC to do that. Cold Start: The idle is going to 1500 R's on a cold start, and that's way too much. Gotta figure out how to reduce that. Error Codes: Still getting the codes for vapor canister and missfire, even though those are turned off. But apparently all that is doable via Binary Editor. I just need to learn how to do it.

You are now on the map.

Welcome, Craig! Glad you joined. Nice looking truck! It looks really clean and straight. What part of Georgia? We have a map (Bullnose Forum/Members Map in the menu) and could put you on with a city or zip. I'm looking forward to following your adventures. You've come to the right place.

That is strange. But I've seen a number of errors in Ford's Master Parts Catalog, so I'm not blown away with it. But you may find someone on here that has the printed circuit you need. As for not finding the bit about the speedo cable, I'm the one that puts things on here so I'm more likely to know where they are. And even I wasn't sure I'd really done that - although I seem to remember having done it.

The good news is that there is no bad news. I got Janey's laptop to work and wrote a new tune to the ECU with the dashpot values lowered from .4 to .2, as shown below on the right. And on the left you can see the original values. We took it for a spin which confirmed that I'm on the right track. But I think I'll drop it to 0 to see what happens as the R's don't seem to come down as quickly as I remember them doing with the carb. So I want to see what 0 does.

First, I'm glad you are keeping the truck in the family! Second, on the temp gauge does it really spike "immediately"? I ask because that's hard to do with one of these gauges. They are actually thermometers and there's a heating coil that heats the bi-metallic spring to move the needle. So if it really spikes immediately then that heating coil must be getting really HOT. It should just leisurely make its way up. Do the fuel and oil pressure gauges work correctly? They run off the same instrument cluster voltage regulator, a misnomer if there ever was one, and if they are working correctly then the ICVR is working. If so, then you should pull the wire off the temp sender, ground it, and then turn the key on. If the gauge goes up as before then it is probable that you have a bad temp sender. But you can do another test to prove that. The oil pressure sender is supposed to have the same resistance as the temp sender, so you can connect the temp gauge to the oil pressure sender and vice versa. Did the problem follow the sender? As for getting the speedo cable off, go to the page at Documentation/Driveline/SPEEDOMETER GEARS, CABLES, & SENSORS and then to the Speedo Cable tab. There are directions there on how to do it. Last is the printed circuit. Sometimes you can repair them with Super Glue. But if that doesn't work you need to replace it. Below is from our page at Documentation/Electrical/Gauges and you can see that you have a circuit that is for gauges but w/o a tach. But you say you have a tach? Is it part of the printed circuit?

Package received of not one but TWO plugs. It is a real pleasure doing business with you! Now I can replace the rubber stopper I am currently using with a proper plug that looks like it actually belongs there. Thank you again, Chief!