Ford F150 Tuners / Programmers

What You Need to Know About F-150 Tuning

Tuning is one of the most cost-effective and best bang-for-your-buck upgrades you can do to your F150 without the need for installing hard parts. That being said, there's more than a few tuning options out there for your truck and there's plenty you should know before taking the plunge.

What Is a Tune Anyway?
An aftermarket tune is essentially new software for your F150's Powertrain Control Module (PCM) which controls various functions of your F150's engine and transmission. The new software changes key parameters of your truck's engine management which allows it to make more power and torque, while also changing transmission function to get improved shifting and driveability. These tunes come on tuning devices (also called programmers) that upload the tunes to your truck using its OBD-II port. While there's a ton of different devices out there, they all function in a similar way.

"Canned" vs. Custom Tuning
Despite the plethora of tuning options on the market, there's really only two types of tunes out there: "Canned" and custom tunes. "Canned" tunes (more professionally known as Pre-Loaded Tunes) are the tunes included on most devices out the box. These tunes are created by the device manufacturer and are built for essentially any F150 with a given model year and engine type that the manufacturer supports. Canned tunes provide good power gains and a small amount of parameter adjustability. Custom Tunes are tune files built specifically for your truck by a custom tuner. These tunes are locked to your F150s' PCM and are specifically tailored to your F150's unique strategy code, modifications, and features. This means that custom tunes generally make more power and torque than canned/preloaded tunes and they do a better job of fine-tuning transmission functions. You can read more about our custom tuning process over on our F150 Custom Tuning Page.

Handheld Tuners vs. Monitors
The vast range of tuning devices for the F150 can be broken down into essentially two categories: handheld tuners and monitors. Handheld Tuners are your basic, old-school style tuner that are small, compact, and just as effective as anything else when it comes to tuning your truck. A handheld tuner is easy to store and is a handy thing just to keep around, but you can always put it out of sight when you're not using it. Monitors are larger than handhelds and are designed to provide additional information on your truck's powertrain. These devices usually have a large screen meant for displaying digital gauges. Monitors tune just as effectively as handhelds, but are typically more expensive due to the larger screen and additional functionality they provide.

Calibrating Your Speedometer for Different Tire Sizes
One of the most common reasons folks want to tune their F150 is because they've jumped up to a larger tire size. Adding larger tires to your F150 throws off the truck's final drive ratio, which in turn, throws off your F150's speedometer and odometer. The reason is that your F150's PCM is programmed with the factory tire size in mind. If you're solely interested in changing your speedometer settings, then there's plenty of more basic devices that solely adjust for tire size and are more affordable than a full blown tuner.