I have a 2004 Mach I and everything is stock. I'm looking at possibly getting a tuner and have a few questions.

First off, the owners manual says to use 91 octane gas... it's kinda hard to come by around here and I'm wondering if I can get a tune for 89 octane, since I can get 87 and 89 for the same price.

And what would be the best tuner so that I can have different tunes such as:

89 octane w/ good gas mileage for daily driving
91 octane stock tune only w/ improved gas mileage and some power increase
tune for 89 octane w/ new exhaust and intake (don't have it yet, just want to plan ahead)
same thing for 91 octane

Also can I get another tune later once I get new exhaust and stuff or do I have to get it now? Because I might not have any mods for 2 years

 

SCT will have a good off the shelf tune for your stock car. I run a 4 position chip in mine so I can run 87 on the street and 94 at the track. You really don't have to re-tune for exhaust changes. When I drove mine to Modular Depot in Cincy for a dyno tune they could only squeeze a couple of hp out of it over their canned tuned they had mailed to me. That's how good the mail order tune from them was. I mainly wanted to road test and tune the transmission shift points and convertor lock up. Those can only be done by road testing trial and error.

 

Ok here are the two SCT products I found at MT:

http://www.mustangtuning.com/sct-xcalibrator-2.html
Hand-held tuner, it says it comes with one tune, so I take it that I have to tell them I want a certain octane and blah blah blah and they will give me a custom tune, but then I am able to modify parameters on my own later on if I modify my car, or I can download another tune over the internet right?


http://www.mustangtuning.com/sct-4-b...uter-chip.html
This comes already tuned and I have no control over it (if I change gears etc)?

 

What does the GT use for gas according to what Ford says to use? 87/89/91? I'm just wondering because they say I'm supposed to use 91 octane and I'm wondering if I can get a tune for 89?

 

the xcal is what you want. You can get updated tunes later or buy the pro racer package and be your own tuner.

 

Gt's run fine on the cheap stuff. You have more compression and HP so I automatically hate your guts. I assume you can run on the lower octane by retarding the timing.

 

You would kill me in a race

Nice car btw

 

Ok, when I plug the xcal in, it will save the stock tune so I can go back to that right? And the tune that I will get on the xcal will be whatever I want, which would be one tune for 91 octane (the stock tune plus a little better fuel economy and the 15hp it claims) and then I can purchase another one for 89?

 

Only until you put similar mod's on then I could analyze the rear of your car all the way down the track.

 

Yep. That's right.

 

Here's a preview :banana:

 

Thanks for your help! I think I kinda know what's going on now.