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Do you, live like you want, ETC. Makes no never mind to me what you do. I never judge (I may point and laugh, but I never judge...)
I am seeing a lot of chatter about tuning the 2.3 and am thinking I am missing something. (it does not apply to those of us with 7-speeds coming, we have no choice). Can anyone explain the rational for going with Ford tuning on the automatic 2.3 rather than popping the estimated $1600 for the 2.7?
Math trigger warning for people who worry about such things...
As I understand it, Ford gets you a physical tuner and emissions compliant tune for about $850.
It requires 91/93 Octane over the goat-pee 87 stuff. For my area, that is about $0.75 a gallon extra. (we shall use the current, per AAA, nationwide average of $0.60 a gallon difference for example purposes, all numbers are ballpark only obviously)
Male demographic for the Bronco (ages 25-54) average about 19000 miles a year. Assuming the average combined fuel economy will be about the same for both the 2.7 and a tuned 2.3 of... say 19MPG (for ease of calculation and probably about right anyway) that is 1000 gallons a year.
Every year you will be forced to spend an extra $0.60 for each of those 1000 gallons ($600)
V6 delta cost of $1600 - tuner/tune of $850 - (yearly fuel cost delta $600 x 1.25 years (and 23750 miles)) equals zero.
So if you tune, after a year and three months, you are at the same cost as running 87 Octane and ordering the 2.7 from the git go. The you are behind the curve on running costs forever after that. I would expect that the resale value of the smaller engine would be considerably less and should be factored in as well. For the added expense (as outlined above) and occasional difficulty in finding higher Octane fuel in parts of the Midwest anyway, you get less torque and about equal power compared to the 2.7.
Am I missing something, or is a factory tune on the 2.3 (auto) a loser economically and performance-wise in the ownership period of the truck with average use? (again, 7-speeds are not part of this as we have no choice and the automatic costs would be the same regardless of the engine)
I am seeing a lot of chatter about tuning the 2.3 and am thinking I am missing something. (it does not apply to those of us with 7-speeds coming, we have no choice). Can anyone explain the rational for going with Ford tuning on the automatic 2.3 rather than popping the estimated $1600 for the 2.7?
Math trigger warning for people who worry about such things...
As I understand it, Ford gets you a physical tuner and emissions compliant tune for about $850.
It requires 91/93 Octane over the goat-pee 87 stuff. For my area, that is about $0.75 a gallon extra. (we shall use the current, per AAA, nationwide average of $0.60 a gallon difference for example purposes, all numbers are ballpark only obviously)
Male demographic for the Bronco (ages 25-54) average about 19000 miles a year. Assuming the average combined fuel economy will be about the same for both the 2.7 and a tuned 2.3 of... say 19MPG (for ease of calculation and probably about right anyway) that is 1000 gallons a year.
Every year you will be forced to spend an extra $0.60 for each of those 1000 gallons ($600)
V6 delta cost of $1600 - tuner/tune of $850 - (yearly fuel cost delta $600 x 1.25 years (and 23750 miles)) equals zero.
So if you tune, after a year and three months, you are at the same cost as running 87 Octane and ordering the 2.7 from the git go. The you are behind the curve on running costs forever after that. I would expect that the resale value of the smaller engine would be considerably less and should be factored in as well. For the added expense (as outlined above) and occasional difficulty in finding higher Octane fuel in parts of the Midwest anyway, you get less torque and about equal power compared to the 2.7.
Am I missing something, or is a factory tune on the 2.3 (auto) a loser economically and performance-wise in the ownership period of the truck with average use? (again, 7-speeds are not part of this as we have no choice and the automatic costs would be the same regardless of the engine)
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