Rough running with updated FICM

[lbjailer]

I experienced a similar event the other day with my 08 F150. It was hot outside, (temp registered 115 on the truck dash display) I traveled a short distance, truck seemed like it wasn't firing on one of the cylinders. Drove about 3 miles, stopped and less than 10 minutes later got in the truck started it up and runs fine. There were no diagnostic codes on the Gryphon, and everything seems ok, but will have dealer check my plug wires and check my CAI screws and make sure they aren't loose.

[88Racing]

Originally Posted by lbjailer

I experienced a similar event the other day with my 08 F150. It was hot outside, (temp registered 115 on the truck dash display) I traveled a short distance, truck seemed like it wasn't firing on one of the cylinders. Drove about 3 miles, stopped and less than 10 minutes later got in the truck started it up and runs fine. There were no diagnostic codes on the Gryphon, and everything seems ok, but will have dealer check my plug wires and check my CAI screws and make sure they aren't loose.

Mine has done this also. Once this spring on a snowy wet slushy day and this summer with the truck being in the garage for 2 weeks, no rain and not humid that day.
No tunes and no cai.

Lars

[Jeremy]

Boy that sucks, I've been leary of used FICMs because of the damn heat inductive flash killing them left and right, you may have bought one that was on its way out. New ones from ford are ~$475 now, i guess with all the failures, ford lowered the price.

[eabrust]

Well, per an email I got from Bill, it was suggested that I could monitor the voltage from the access port directly rather than use a scan tool (why didn't I think of that myself?!). He said he'd get me instructions on what to do, but I know he's busy, and I know electronics enough to just go do it.

So I went ahead and made measurements of both my stock (good working) FICM and my PHP tuned FICM which is giving me some issues. I attached a link to a PDF documenting what I did for reference, should it help anyone else out. I used long enough test lead wire to let me sit in the truck and rev the engine during testing also. As a side note, if any of you want to go testing your FICMs, be very careful, I don't want to hear anyone say they smoked and broke their modules because of me

Long story short, the DC output on both of my FICMs is right at 48+ volts, so it doesn't appear that the FICM is suffering a slow death from the power supply side. It could be a problem on the driver board side, but I wouldn't think that would tend to clear up as the truck warms up, which still leaves me thinking there is some software strategy conflict that may be resolved by another software load.

Still hoping to hear from Bill any further suggestions or if he has any ideas on software conflict possibility. If anyone has any suggestions to the attached PDF let me know, or if anyone finds the attachment useful for future reference, feel free to use it or make it a sticky here on this forum.

The PDF is a 2.3MB file, so I linked to it.
Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=a...4e75f6e8ebb871

Thanks
Eric

[classic trucks]

I had Bill redo my ficm.The truck runs fine on interstate or 60+mph but I have cold start issues especially with the weather cooling down. I also have the heavy loping on start up and long warm up times. I have noticed a skip at lower speeds (40-50) in traffic especially up hills. I don't have an extra ficm to swap in and didn't have problems before the reprogram.I took my tuner off and the issues are still there. Any suggestions?

[Power Hungry]

We're still trying to figure out what's going on with the new I/H strategy. Most trucks seem to respond favorably with the new hybrid strategies but there are still a few trucks that have a cold start issue. The only conclusion I can come to is that the stiction problem on those few vehicles is so bad that only the aggressive I/H strategy will fix the cold start problems. Unfortunately, we already know that the aggressive I/H strategy will mean the demise of the FICM circuitry so it's an option we reserve for only the most extreme cases. If the cold starts are that bad, that's about all we can do.

[classic trucks]

I may have other issues that are not related to the ficm. My truck has started skipping at all speeds. It has a buck and jerk when climbing hills. I have very poor acceleration. If this is ficm related let me know if its something else let me know what your thoughts are on this.

[NHRA6002]

Truck is an absolute pig when started cold and virtualy undriveable til over 120'F. Any ideas on a solution yet Bill?

Hopefully once this is corrected I will go ahead with the custom tunes we talked about in Monroe.

[Treb]

eabrust

That "Testing FICM Power" "how to" you made is fantastic. Thanks. I saved and printed that one. It will come in handy. I have an 04 FICM waiting to be tested and sent to PHP if it checks out okay.

Thanks again,

Treb

[eabrust]

Hey Treb,

Hope it helps, I did a lot of searching on the internet and couldn't find anything that described what to check. Bill gave me the hints to go and do it though.

Bill noted to me that the early '03-04 FICMs are also slightly different hardware wise and have up to 7 terminals under the 'monitor port', not just 4.

also note, this check only verifies the power converter side is working, which I believe is the primary failure point for these modules. If a failure occured on the injector driver side, this check wouldn't find it. You'd have to do a buzz test on the injectors, and even that wouldn't differentiate between the FICM and injector directly. I'm guessing that failures happening on the injector driver side are rare (just a guess).

Eric