[eabrust]

Looking for some help from Bill or anyone else that has done FICM updating on their truck.

I got a spare FICM off Ebay (a model year '04 module) that had the latest Ford flash on it. Had it in my truck ('06 F350) for a little over a week driving around town to check it out prior to sending off for reflashing. Had no issues, it worked great, so I figured the module must be OK and sent it in for FICM reprogram, got it back pretty quick (thanks Bill!).

I finally tried installing the reprogrammed module in my truck this last week. On first start in the morning, and starting up to go home from work in the afternoon, the truck would lope and idle poorly, and in general run rough like one or so injectors weren't quite working right. After a few minutes, the loping idle would cease, but heading out on the road the truck has no power and stumbles, still as if an injector isn't quite doing its thing. Fuel mileage was also suffering. After the truck was up to temp, it would run just great, had great drivability, and seemed to have no issues.

I gave it a few days to see if it would resolve itself or if the PCM had to 'relearn' anything, truck never threw an CEL and continued to run crappy, and finaly removed the reprogrammed FICM and put my original back in. Truck runs great out of the chute every morning with the stock FICM and program, never a stutter, so I know the issue is tied to the FICM, not to individual injector(s).

I pulled apart the reprogrammmed spare FICM, to see if I could find any issue relating to the modules behavior (smoked resistors, cracked solder joints, etc.) and couldn't find any issues. The DC convert coils and caps all looked OK, and the driver side looked OK to. Pics attached if anyone is curious what is in a FICM.

So I guess my questions are:
1) Does the PCM have to relearn anything w/ updated FICM for some length of time (ie, did I pull the module to quick?)
2) Is the updated programming pretty much canned for any and all trucks, or does it depend on what strategy is in the PCM? My truck was in the shop a week or two ago, and I know they reflashed both my PCM and my stock FICM recently. Is it possible a slightly different program would work better on my truck?
3) From what I read, the behavior of the FICM to work better as the truck heats up seems to match what people find as the module is on its way out, is that the case? (would be my luck the FICM would die just after getting a proper program put on it....) I was hoping to find an issue in the FICM, but couldn't see any indication, looking at all components solder joints under magnification.

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.
Regards
Eric Brust