Free F-150 Custom Tunes for LIFE from Stage 3 Motorsports!

A few months ago, we here at Stage 3 and the folks over at 5-Star tuning came up with a light-weight version of our classic Loyalty Tunes program that offered free retunes for six months with the purchase of a 5-Star custom tune or package. That program spent the off season bulking up and getting crazy and both ourselves here at Stage 3 Motorsports and the good people over at 5-Star tuning are pleased to announce that we are now offering a full-blown Lifetime Tunes program for the F150s where you can get free retunes for life on your powerful 2004 to 2014 F150 on 5-Star custom tunes and parts purchased from Stage 3. So, if you want to custom tune your bone stock truck, but don't want to pay for a retune when you throw on a bunch of parts down the line, a Stage 3 tuner or tuning package with 5-Star's custom tunes is now your best bet on the market.

5-Star's powerful custom tunes add tremendous amounts of horsepower and torque onto your truck by adjusting the computer files of your F150's Powertrain Control Module (PCM). 5-Star's performance tunes come preloaded on either an SCT X-Calibrator handheld tuner or a Livewire tuner and vehicle monitor. Either device quickly and easily uploads your choice of 5-Star custom tune to your truck's computer in only a few minutes. The files included in each of 5-Star's F150 custom tunes alter key aspects of your engine's function to give your truck huge gains in horsepower and torque. 5-Star can tune for nearly any bolt-on performance or performance parts package in our extensive inventory of hardware for the F150s, getting you even better performance than the performance parts on their own. Currently, the only items out of bounds are supercharger systems for the V8-powered trucks, but our friends over at 5-Star are working on getting a few systems in on their dyno for testing and familiarization.

So, how our Lifetime tunes program works is pretty simple. When you buy a tuner with a 5-Star custom tune, one of our performance packages that includes 5-Star custom tuning, or a standalone 5-Star custom tune for an SCT device that you already have, you're automatically enrolled in our 5-Star Lifetime Tunes Program. For example, you buy one of our 2011 to 2013 F150 EcoBoost Phase 3 Performance packages. It comes with custom tuning from 5-Star, and gets you pretty awesome gains. A few months down the road, you decide that you need even better performance, so you grab a set of Stainless Works Catted Downpipes. A new custom tune is required for the downpipes, but because you bought your Phase 3 kit from Stage 3, that retune is free. If you even more parts down the line, 5-Star will tune for those as well at no additional cost.

Our 5-Star Tuning Lifetime Tunes program applies to all 2004 to 2014 F150s, including SVT Raptors and F150 EcoBoosts and any parts for your truck outside of supercharger or nitrous systems. 2011 to 2012 F150 EcoBoosts will have to follow our revised tuning procedures due to Ford's TSB to address the condensation issue. Our "Free Tunes for Life" Lifetime Tunes Program only applies to you and a specific vehicle. Tunes purchased for another vehicle that you own do not qualify, nor would someone else trying to get free tunes for a truck you've sold to them. Our program only applies to parts and tunes purchased from Stage 3 Motorsports.

There is one small bit of fine print that we need to add here. Ford dealerships have the bad habit reflashing the PCMs of F150s to install new updates when its in their clutches for anything from an oil change to engine rebuild. Updated software is good, but these dealer updates do two very bad things: first off, they wipe whatever custom tune is present on your truck's PCM. Secondly, (and more importantly) dealer updates change your PCM's "Strategy Code" which renders any custom tune that you may have completely inoperable. Your PCM's Strategy Code is one of the most important parts of a custom tune, and having the incorrect Strategy Code built into a tune will cause your custom tune to not even work at all. What's worse, a change in Strategy means that the folks over at 5-Star need to rewrite your custom tunes to match your truck's new Strategy code after a dealer reflash. What this all boils down to is that our Lifetime Tunes Program will not be available for these situations and we and 5-Star will charge a $20 fee for retunes due to dealer updates that result that alter the Strategy Code. So, to avoid losing your hard-earned Andrew Jacksons, make sure to tell your dealership that you do not want any PCM updates or reflashes if/when you need to bring your truck in for service.