Tracking the Boss

[VoodooBoss]

It hooked up great even on stock tires and alignment. I cant wait for better tires and some negative camber!!!!!

I'm always amazed how well this cars hooks up and goes. 8)

 

[2012YellowBoss]

Boss1, the MGW shifter will help out with many issues on the stock shifter like the sloppiness of finding gears. If you are lined up correctly and still get "locked out" the shifter can not help those problems as it is another problem. I have been very happy with the MGW unit, light years ahead of the stock unit and some other aftermarket units.

The cylinder misfire should not happen with the Trackey. You need to take the car to the dealer for a re-flash, if they do not understand that call Ford Racing and they should be able to help. I had the same issue after the Trackey was installed and after the re-flash the problem went away.

While there is a giant debate on brake pads for the Boss but I think everyone will agree you need to put a good DOT 4 fluid in there and keep it fresh for your track days!!!

 

[2012YellowBoss]

I snapped mine, as did my buddy, when trying to remove it, but no damage to the deck lid. Scott (2012YellowBoss) and Rick got theirs off successfully so probably have some trick to do it. Mine will never go back to stock anyway so no biggie.

Even if you did they are not that expensive ;D I did nothing special, just slow and careful, at times I thought I would break it. Just another part collecting dust now.

 

[steveespo]

I finally got the Boss to the track today!!! VIR full course. It started off cold at 45 or so but ended up 62 and sunny. The car ran great and is the most neutral car Ive ever had on the track. If anything there was some push. the car was 100% stock except for track key. The car did well and held up to 3 25 minute sessions on the stock brakes and fluid. NO brake fade but I was getting use to the car and not hitting the brakes as hard as I will. Car felt great up the climbing esses and southbend. I have to work on the slower speed corners some to get them down with a heavier car. Slow in/fast out... Back straight speeds were between 145-150 and will be faster as brake confidence grows. I did get into the ABS and get a hard peddle twice at about 145 which was not great. Turn in could be crisper and I hope that R compound tires and an alignment will help that. I had the exhaust disc in and next time they will be out. Advance track off. The only thing I had trouble with was the shifter!!!!!! Horrible is the best way to describe it. I was wrestling 4th and 5th every time. I missed or just could not get in to gear atleast 10 times. I dont get it. On the way home the car did not want to go into 6th???? Anyway, I will take it to the dealer monday and see whats going on there. If they cant get it shifting better, then I will have to go after marked. The other issue was a CEL light I got twice for multiple misfired cilinders????

Lap times started at 2:22 and ended up at 2:18. I hope to find another 10 seconds or so there......

Anyway, now its time for cooling and safety mods and some new wheels and track tires...... I think the boss is going to be a blast...

Boss 1
I was at VIR today too as a spectator, my family and I stopped on the way to Daytona. I saw a CO 302S, a silver GT that looked like a LS, a yellow Saleen with a tiger hood and a white and blue 500S. What color is your car? We were only there from 4-5pm, just a quick side trip as I wanted to see how long the trip is from home (7:30). NASA had a pretty nice mix of cars and classes going. VIR looks awesome, the wife and I plan to stay at the Lodges on a HPDE weekend this summer. Hope you have a good run again tomorrow.
Steve

 

[cloud9]

boss1 sounds like you had a great time. You need to take your car in for the crank sensor relearn TSB. This SHOULD fix the P0300 random misfire codes. We battled through that all last year and it seems they found the fix by doing this crankshaft sensor relearn. The issue appeared to be vibrations transmitted from the curbing or skittering across the track from the rear wheels up through the driveline into the crankshaft sensor. The sensor is reading it incorrectly as a misfire. The TSB retraining corrects it.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Boss 1 if you don't have a Laguna Seca, make sure you order the trans cooling scoop if you plan to keep tracking the car. That may well solve your shifting issues, as well.

 

[boss1]

I finally got the Boss to the track today!!! VIR full course. It started off cold at 45 or so but ended up 62 and sunny. The car ran great and is the most neutral car Ive ever had on the track. If anything there was some push. the car was 100% stock except for track key. The car did well and held up to 3 25 minute sessions on the stock brakes and fluid. NO brake fade but I was getting use to the car and not hitting the brakes as hard as I will. Car felt great up the climbing esses and southbend. I have to work on the slower speed corners some to get them down with a heavier car. Slow in/fast out... Back straight speeds were between 145-150 and will be faster as brake confidence grows. I did get into the ABS and get a hard peddle twice at about 145 which was not great. Turn in could be crisper and I hope that R compound tires and an alignment will help that. I had the exhaust disc in and next time they will be out. Advance track off. The only thing I had trouble with was the shifter!!!!!! Horrible is the best way to describe it. I was wrestling 4th and 5th every time. I missed or just could not get in to gear atleast 10 times. I dont get it. On the way home the car did not want to go into 6th???? Anyway, I will take it to the dealer monday and see whats going on there. If they cant get it shifting better, then I will have to go after marked. The other issue was a CEL light I got twice for multiple misfired cilinders????

Lap times started at 2:22 and ended up at 2:18. I hope to find another 10 seconds or so there......

Anyway, now its time for cooling and safety mods and some new wheels and track tires...... I think the boss is going to be a blast...

Boss 1
I was at VIR today too as a spectator, my family and I stopped on the way to Daytona. I saw a CO 302S, a silver GT that looked like a LS, a yellow Saleen with a tiger hood and a white and blue 500S. What color is your car? We were only there from 4-5pm, just a quick side trip as I wanted to see how long the trip is from home (7:30). NASA had a pretty nice mix of cars and classes going. VIR looks awesome, the wife and I plan to stay at the Lodges on a HPDE weekend this summer. Hope you have a good run again tomorrow.
Steve

Hi Steve. I saw those cars as well. The silver one was a gt. I ran three groups in the am and had to leave for a meeting. Sorry that I missed you but glad you got to VIR.

 

[boss1]

Boss 1 if you don't have a Laguna Seca, make sure you order the trans cooling scoop if you plan to keep tracking the car. That may well solve your shifting issues, as well.
[/quote]

Thanks Arizona, it is on my short list. This has been the hardest car to shift that Ive ever had since day onw. I never miss shifts but it seems very difficult to shift this car under fast conditions. Slow regular shifting is no problem but in faster shifts with more HP it jams up and just does not go in to gear. I thought that it might be needing semi solid transmission and engine mounts or something. Its literally like the slot just is not there when you go to shift. Its not grinding but more like the gate has moved??????? Now 6 is grinding just to go in so I will take it to the dealer tomorrow. I hope they can fix it. It is a major complaint to an otherwise awesome car!

 

[PeteInCT]

Boss1, the MGW shifter will help out with many issues on the stock shifter like the sloppiness of finding gears. If you are lined up correctly and still get "locked out" the shifter can not help those problems as it is another problem. I have been very happy with the MGW unit, light years ahead of the stock unit and some other aftermarket units.

The cylinder misfire should not happen with the Trackey. You need to take the car to the dealer for a re-flash, if they do not understand that call Ford Racing and they should be able to help. I had the same issue after the Trackey was installed and after the re-flash the problem went away.

While there is a giant debate on brake pads for the Boss but I think everyone will agree you need to put a good DOT 4 fluid in there and keep it fresh for your track days!!!

Yellow - I'm curious why a reflash would make a difference unless Ford changed the tune program. I should not be possible to download the program incorrectly since the ECM should be doing a checksum on the data load (insures all bytes programmed are the same as what was downloaded from Ford). The only two reasonons I can htink of is:

• There are tuning options that the tech can adjust as part of the ECU programing process. I doubt this is the case, the egnine mapping should be static.
• FOrd change the tune parameters wth an upgraded map

All that said, you obviously had a real experience where a reflash made a difference. Did Ford change naything alse when they reflashed you? Do you have any info on if Ford changed the ECU engine mapping for the Trackey?

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Thanks Arizona, it is on my short list. This has been the hardest car to shift that Ive ever had since day onw. I never miss shifts but it seems very difficult to shift this car under fast conditions. Slow regular shifting is no problem but in faster shifts with more HP it jams up and just does not go in to gear. I thought that it might be needing semi solid transmission and engine mounts or something. Its literally like the slot just is not there when you go to shift. Its not grinding but more like the gate has moved??????? Now 6 is grinding just to go in so I will take it to the dealer tomorrow. I hope they can fix it. It is a major complaint to an otherwise awesome car!

Yeah, first take it to the dealer and make sure everything is OK. If the car checks out, you might want to look into a shifter bushing to replace the stock one. I just put one from Steeda in that is supposed to help the shifter behave normally under high-throttle shifts. I've missed a couple on the track already, I'm thinking this might help. Whatever you do, definitely get the trans scoop. This was recommended specifically by the FRPP engineers if you are tracking the car.

 

[cloud9]

Boss1, the MGW shifter will help out with many issues on the stock shifter like the sloppiness of finding gears. If you are lined up correctly and still get "locked out" the shifter can not help those problems as it is another problem. I have been very happy with the MGW unit, light years ahead of the stock unit and some other aftermarket units.

The cylinder misfire should not happen with the Trackey. You need to take the car to the dealer for a re-flash, if they do not understand that call Ford Racing and they should be able to help. I had the same issue after the Trackey was installed and after the re-flash the problem went away.

While there is a giant debate on brake pads for the Boss but I think everyone will agree you need to put a good DOT 4 fluid in there and keep it fresh for your track days!!!

Yellow - I'm curious why a reflash would make a difference unless Ford changed the tune program. I should not be possible to download the program incorrectly since the ECM should be doing a checksum on the data load (insures all bytes programmed are the same as what was downloaded from Ford). The only two reasonons I can htink of is:

• There are tuning options that the tech can adjust as part of the ECU programing process. I doubt this is the case, the egnine mapping should be static.
• FOrd change the tune parameters wth an upgraded map

All that said, you obviously had a real experience where a reflash made a difference. Did Ford change naything alse when they reflashed you? Do you have any info on if Ford changed the ECU engine mapping for the Trackey?

I'm curious about this as well. The crankshaft position sensor relearn TSB is supposedly the fix to this. I had it done after the TK flash and was told they don't reflash the PCM to do this TSB.

 

[2012YellowBoss]

I am not sure of all the in and outs of this but like Gary explained and Mark told me it is a re-learn process. If I explained that incorrect, sorry. Nothing gets changed, added or taken away from the original programming in the process. If I remember correctly it was explained to me that there may have been stored errors or codes from older P0300 codes that were set off but hitting the rev-limiter. With these in the system the Trackey program loads into the car but will not work correctly. It was done with a handheld tuner not a laptop and no further info was needed like the tire size, VIN etc. just the quick re-flash.

When I had the Trackey program installed I had almost no lopey idle and I was still throwing codes on the track. After the re-learn was done it stopped throwing codes and I saw more of the idle, even if that still comes and goes.

 

[PeteInCT]

Are you in an area where the quality of 93 octane is an issue ? I hear that some remote parts out west have issues with 93 acting more like 87 octane.

 

[boss1]

I used the Sunoco 93 trackside at VIR.

 

[CaliMR]

So basically they just cleared all the codes using a scan tool? Or was it something different? Can a battery pull clear them?

2012 you said you don't know the ins and outs, but maybe someone else does ;D

 

[cloud9]

So basically they just cleared all the codes using a scan tool? Or was it something different? Can a battery pull clear them?

2012 you said you don't know the ins and outs, but maybe someone else does ;D

I use my Aeroforce gauge to pull and clear the codes. I've disconnected the battery on my GT500 and cleared them in the past, but it's probably not 100% as some codes may need a scan tool to clear. The funny thing with the Boss PCM is that there have been occasions where I've been into limp mode, got the flashing CEL and then after pulling into the paddock, the CEL was gone and no codes were present. I even had the dealer scan for them and nothing. You usually get the P0300 random misfire, but occasionally get a P0305 (cylinder 5) or P0306 (cylinder 6). The crankshaft position sensor relearn is the fix and it can probably be done with a handheld, laptop or the dealer's computer.

 

[CaliMR]

How common is this issue? Is it worth bringing a scantool to the track? I don't have a trailer yet so I have to leave all my junk in the parking lot, which has never been an issue at all, but my scantool is technically my bro's and it is a pretty expensive one.

 

[cloud9]

How common is this issue? Is it worth bringing a scantool to the track? I don't have a trailer yet so I have to leave all my junk in the parking lot, which has never been an issue at all, but my scantool is technically my bro's and it is a pretty expensive one.

It's very common for cars that are put on the track. You often will have codes with no CEL as well. It seems that once you kick the code enough, that's when it goes into limp mode for several seconds until there's no recurrence of the problem. The thing I'm unsure about is whether (assuming they have) Ford has made a running change so this isn't necessary. So, depending on when your car was built, it's possible this is no longer an issue.

 

[CaliMR]

I've never needed one with the various cars I have tracked. I know other people have had issues, but it was usually due to poorly thought out mods and tuning.

 

[cloud9]

I've never needed one with the various cars I have tracked. I know other people have had issues, but it was usually due to poorly thought out mods and tuning.

And once you have this procedure done (if needed) you shouldn't need one for the Boss either. It's just a bug that wasn't discovered during development. Most cars have a few bugs in their first production year.