Went to see Justin at VMP Tuning, very nice guy and easy to deal with. He started out by asking what I was looking for in the way of performance and he also wanted to know if I had any issues with the way the truck was acting as far as drivability.
I wanted to try and extend the torque curve further down into the lower rpm range and I also told him about a throttle problem I was having when doing a moderate first gear start. When pressing the throttle it would take off in a normal way but then there would be a drastic increase in rpms inconsistent with throttle response.
He took a look at the parameters of the factory tune, which there is an enormous amout of information in there, and noticed a couple things there that may help so he made a few adjustments with the cam variation and timing to see what the results would be.
As far as my issue with the rpm jump on take off he again looked at the factory parameters and made an adjustment to the points at which the truck went into open loop.
Justin had no problem answering the many questions I had and explaining his answer if I needed clarification, it was a good experience. I opted not to go with the 88mm MAF housing for now because as close as these motors are to the mustang engine, with the longer runners and the mono throttle body the intake system of these things are still a bit restrictive and the gains he's seen are minimal when the motor is NA.
The truck is definitely a different animal now, she has instant throttle response and alot more power in the lower rpm range. The midrange torque is really noticable I can see this thing towing something much better than before. My trip home from Deltona yeilded 22.6 mpg combined with a 75mph cruise on I-4 and then feather footing the in town portion which made up about 1/3 of the trip.
Another thing to mention is that you can hear the difference in the exhaust of the Trac now, I'm not sure how to explain it but the tone is much smoother at idle and especially while crusing down the interstate, there was a drone there that was bugging me and now it's gone.
BTW I wanted to get a couple clips but my SD card took a dive on me, but this thing sounds really good at WOT on the dyno, I had to smile.
With all said and done I picked up about 30 rwhp and 50 ft/lbs of rwtq with only the tune, a Noc-Perf tube using the stock airbox and Magnaflow exhaust which I feel is pretty solid.
I didn't hit the numbers I was hoping for but we did pull out the lower end torque I wanted so the trade off is fine with me.