First impression-FICM REPAIR/ATLAS 40 tune

[DELTAJOHN]

Installed my rebuilt FICM last night, Ed Stefan, as usual, came through in a timely manner. I was concerned my truck would be down for the big "Superstorm Sandy" event, but I was pleased to see the FICM here when I got home yesterday.

Put it in last night, (boy that last plug is a pain in the azz with that coolant line hanging over the FICM) plugged everything back in. I had my batteries on charge while the FICM was out for repair, so I disconnected them while I worked to allow for a VCT re-learn when I restarted. The truck started right up, and sounded great, FICM voltage holding 47-48.5. I allowed the truck 5 minutes idle time to re-learn then went for a 20 mile test drive of different driving conditions. (pulling grades, full throttle, etc) I was impressed right away with throttle response, it was definitely improved, not astounding, but snappier. The truck definitely had better torque, I noticed much less push on the accelerator to get up to speed and hold speed. What was wild though, was on a smooth, straight, stretch of road wet from the storm, I kicked it into passing gear, and the rear got squirrelly at 65-70 mph! YOWSER! It never did that before, and my tires are in great shape. Overall, I can see where the Atlas 40 will save fuel, (with less throttle input) and will definitely pull better (PHP's graph of the Atlas 40 shows a HP increase to 365, and torque to 700 lbft, YEOW!) Did I experience stunning performance? No. Improved, definitely. I feel it is definitely worth the extra coin if you need the FICM repaired anyway. I'm still running my stock exhaust and cat, I'm planning on getting a cat delete pipe, I'll see if that untaps a little more juice. But overall, I'm very happy with the results, thanks Ed and PHP, nice package!

[Chatham036]

Glad to see your happy with your FICM tune!

[WarChild]

I like the tune also. It goes good when you stack it with another custom tune like from Vivian or the like. Stack the stacks on top of stacked stacks.

Sent from my SPH-L710

[Gridder]

Did same repair/tune in september by Ed with same results as you described. Very pleased also. A digging bar fit into the cat on my 05, that and a sledge hammer emptied it out, then reinstalled it on truck.

[DEVERO2]

This is the mod I want to do and will do. I just have to wait unil my FICM gets worse.

[10secondC]

I should have mine back Friday....I hope I am as happy.

["WTF" Stroker]

Originally Posted by DELTAJOHN

Installed my rebuilt FICM last night, Ed Stefan, as usual, came through in a timely manner. I was concerned my truck would be down for the big "Superstorm Sandy" event, but I was pleased to see the FICM here when I got home yesterday.

Put it in last night, (boy that last plug is a pain in the azz with that coolant line hanging over the FICM) plugged everything back in. I had my batteries on charge while the FICM was out for repair, so I disconnected them while I worked to allow for a VCT re-learn when I restarted. The truck started right up, and sounded great, FICM voltage holding 47-48.5. I allowed the truck 5 minutes idle time to re-learn then went for a 20 mile test drive of different driving conditions. (pulling grades, full throttle, etc) I was impressed right away with throttle response, it was definitely improved, not astounding, but snappier. The truck definitely had better torque, I noticed much less push on the accelerator to get up to speed and hold speed. What was wild though, was on a smooth, straight, stretch of road wet from the storm, I kicked it into passing gear, and the rear got squirrelly at 65-70 mph! YOWSER! It never did that before, and my tires are in great shape. Overall, I can see where the Atlas 40 will save fuel, (with less throttle input) and will definitely pull better (PHP's graph of the Atlas 40 shows a HP increase to 365, and torque to 700 lbft, YEOW!) Did I experience stunning performance? No. Improved, definitely. I feel it is definitely worth the extra coin if you need the FICM repaired anyway. I'm still running my stock exhaust and cat, I'm planning on getting a cat delete pipe, I'll see if that untaps a little more juice. But overall, I'm very happy with the results, thanks Ed and PHP, nice package!

I did the same last night and i would have to agree. The Atlas tune is the only tune Im running now, I did a 250 mile trip today and hand calcuated 21.3 MPG @ about 73 MPH. Thats 4MPG better then before.

[Willy Mo]

only tuning my truck has is the atlas 80 ficm tune and it made a huge difference from stock.. and i gained 3mpgs.