Hey, guys.
Adam here with americantrucks.com.
Today we're taking a closer look at installing and, of course, dyno testing the 5 Star X4
SF4 Power Flash tuner by SCT with 3 custom tunes available for the 2015 and newer 2.7-liter
EcoBoost F150.
Now, before we jump into the three tunes included here from 5 Star and the features of our X4,
what do you say we head right on over to the dyno graph to take a look at the results?
So, we strapped our 2015 2.7 EcoBoost F150 down to the dyno.
It's got a cold air intake under the hood, 33-inch tires on it, a 4-inch cat back and
it's got 93 octane in the tank.
Now, we ran it in third gear closest to one to one, walked away with a baseline of 259
horsepower, 309-pound feet of torque at the rear wheels.
We then uploaded our 93 tune from 5 Star, ran it again under the same conditions and
walked away with 323 horsepower and 368-pound feet of torque at the rear wheels.
Now that's good for peak gains of 64 horsepower and 59 torque at the rear.
Now those numbers alone are super impressive.
We definitely expect good gains with an EcoBoost, they pick up power so easily with a tune but
the curve gains get even better.
We're seeing curve gains of as much as 69 horsepower and 73-pound feet of torque at
the rear wheels and that's right around the mid-range of the RPM band.
We're seeing at around 4,000 to 5,000 RPMs.
That's gonna make a huge difference in drivability guys and with a simple 93 tune from 5 Star
I'm very impressed.
Taking a closer look at the 5 Star tunes included in the kit, you'll have an 87 octane option,
great for the daily driver out there who may be commuting to work, looking to get a little
bit extra out of their truck as far as throttle response and acceleration goes.
Maybe have a little bit of an easier time towing and hauling on 87 octane gas.
Ninety-one octane is gonna be great for towing and hauling as well giving you a little bit
more of that low-end torque available for your truck to make it a little easier pulling
that heavier weight.
Ninety-three octane goes without saying is gonna maximize your vehicle's performance
and that's exactly what we just saw on the dyno.
We're seeing really good low to mid-range gains, lots of low-end torque being gained
with these 2.7s which is exactly what we expect.
And when it comes to adding bigger wheels and tires, it can make your truck feel a lot
less sluggish.
Now, the tunes from 5 Star are taking a number of things into consideration.
For example, the factory tune from Ford has fuel strategies that are a little bit more
moderate.
They have delayed timers before adding additional fuel especially at wide-open throttle, which
can make it tough to make additional power.
The 5 Star tunes here are gonna make that modification to make sure that it can put
a little bit more fuel at the top end to give you those higher-end gains that we just saw
especially all across that RPM band.
You're also gonna feel a drive-by-wire delay difference.
That's essentially the delay in time between hitting the gas pedal and your truck getting
going off the line which can be even worse feeling with those bigger wheels and tires.
Now, this will minimize if not eliminate that drive by wire delay, especially in that 93
octane tune.
Your torque converter is gonna lock sooner and stay locked longer to give you more access
to the torque curve in the RPM band as well.
And there's a number of other parameters being taken into consideration while keeping your
Ford factory fail-safes in check.
So, it is a safe and reliable ride with both economy and performance in mind from 5 Star
and you have those options there with all three loaded onto your device.
The X4 itself has a number of features to take advantage of including the DTC code reader.
Anytime the check engine light comes on, you can read and clear the diagnostic trouble
code right here on the device without needing any other module.
Gauges and data lock screens are super useful for the guys who wanna track and monitor live
engine vitals on the fly within arm's reach of the driver's seat.
You can use customizable gauge screens to monitor things like air-fuel ratio, engine
coolant temp, intake air temperature, RPMs, speedometer, and a number of other PIDs.
As a matter of fact, you can track up to eight at once with those customizable screens.
You can also data log your vehicle's performance to record its performance and communicate
back to your tuner for possible revisions if you wanna improve upon the current tune.
Now, anytime you add power mods like cold air intakes, cat-back exhaust, downpipe, so
on and so forth, you can have tunes revised to add those into the tune and maximize their
performance as well.
You'll have a couple of other customizable settings within the device.
You get Wi-Fi access for wireless updates both software and firmware for your SCT device
which is super useful.
Now, this device is gonna come in right around 500 bucks, the install is gonna get one out
of three wrenches on our difficulty meter.
Anybody can tackle this in the driveway at home with about 30 minutes from start to finish.
I'm gonna show you guys how to tune your truck, walk you through the features.
So what do you say we get started?
All right.
First up here, grab your X4 device and the OBD2 harness included in the kit.
We're gonna plug it into our OBD2 port located under the driver's side dash.
Once that's plugged in there, you could take the other end which is an HDMI and it goes
right into the top of the X4.
Now we can hop in and get to work.
All right, guys.
Jumping right into it, once you have your X4 plugged in, we're gonna take you through
the process of actually uploading your 5 Star tune.
So, from the main menu, select Program Vehicle, continue on Street Notice.
Make sure your key is in the ignition and on, but don't start your engine.
Continue.
From here, select your tune.
We're gonna focus on the 93 octane, that's all we have loaded here but you'll have multiple
to pick from, 87 and higher octane.
So, select the one you want.
From here, you can adjust any of the options if you want to.
Now, we are gonna use strictly what was sent to us from 5 Star but you can make adjustments
to speed limiter, rev limiter, tire revs per mile, axle ratio, global spark.
There's a number of options to mess with here.
We're just gonna hit Approve and make any changes that you'd want.
From there press Continue.
Next on any notices or disclaimers, if you wanna change your tire size, you can.
We are going to change our tire size because we do have larger tires, so we're gonna hit
Yes.
So you wanna hit tire size in inches.
Now we're running 35s, so we're gonna put 35 inch in there, press Done, 93 octane change
the tire size, perfect.
Once you're finished making any changes, follow the instructions.
So, turn key off.
Just wait.
From there, it will instruct you to turn the key back on.
And wait.
From there it will save your stock tune to the device.
So if you ever wanna revert back to stock, you can do so and then it'll go into writing
your file.
All right.
From here it says "Download complete."
You can hit Done, takes you back to the main menu and you're good to go.
All right, guys.
So, I wanna take you through some of the other features of the X4.
So, underneath Program Vehicle, which not only can do the pre-loaded but also custom
tunes, you'll be able to read gauges and you can data log your vehicle's performance.
So, gauges, you get to monitor live engine vitals.
Once you press Continue, key on, it'll bring up configurations and I'll take you through
that.
So, select your vehicle that it applies to.
So, we're at '16.
So, we wanna hit Ford Gas '08 and Newer.
Press Continue.
From there, you'll be able to track things like boost, air-fuel ratio, coolant temp,
intake temp, voltage, so on and so forth.
So, just off the bat here we have two gauges.
Top one says Boost and PSI and bottom Control Module Voltage.
Now, obviously, car is not on so we're not actually reading any boost.
But if we wanted to change that, we just select that, then Item.
Say we wanna monitor intake air temp, select it, hit Approve, and it changes that gauge.
So, really interesting stuff you can monitor on the fly every single day.
Now, if we wanted to change the gauge layout, you can monitor up to eight vitals at once.
So we can select that from the menu and now we have eight different gauges and we can
change all of them to monitor whatever we want out of the list.
You can also start recording data.
So, if you get a new custom tune from your own tuner here, you can data log, you could
send it to them via email, plug this into your laptop, you'll have access to it.
So, that's really useful right here on the device.
So, if we wanna hit Stop Data Log, it goes back to the main menu.
Vehicle functions under that.
Read and clear DTC or diagnostic trouble code.
So, check engine light comes on, plug this guy in, read the code, get the code and description,
and then you can clear it.
Special functions most people won't touch, something like cam relearn, most people won't
have to worry about that.
If we go back to Exit, Vehicle Info will display your Vin, your ECU strategy code, and things
of that nature.
So, whenever you're requesting a custom-tune, you'll most likely need that piece of information
you can access right on the device.
Device Info will give you a software update, firmware version, how many pairs you have
left, married status.
You'll also get device serial number, things also needed for writing a tune, but the serial
number is also located on the back of the device.
Device Settings.
You can check for updates and you can connect to Wi-Fi.
So, this kind of go hand in hand.
If you wanna check for updates, you're gonna need to be on a Wi-Fi network, so you can
connect that here.
You can also control the brightness of the device itself during the day and night.
It can automatically change.
You can rotate this from portrait to landscape, change the theme.
There's red, blue, and then dark.
Blue just switches things up.
Dark changes the whites to black.
Under that, you have sensors, management mode, audio, has a little beep every time you hit
a button.
And startup function I think is pretty interesting too.
So, if anyone wants to actually read the gauges on the fly every day, you might mount this
to a windshield mount.
It has these two mounts on the back here so you can hook that on if you wanted to buy
the SCT windshield mount.
Now, if you were driving and you want this on all the time, you can select this to start
up directly into the gauges screen.
Anytime you put your key in and this is plugged in, it'll go right there.
So, from there, you can hit Factory Reset or hit Exit back to the main menu and you're
done.
That's gonna wrap up my review, install, and dyno test for the 5 Star X4 SF4 Power Flash
Tuner with 3 custom tunes available for the '15 and newer 2.7 liter EcoBoost F150.
You can get yours right here at americantrucks.com.