SJRaptorG2
Full Access Member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2016
- Posts
- 187
- Reaction score
- 160
Round trip from NJ 7,583mi in 18 days with 11.8mpg average. I weighed the truck at a truck stop and total weight was over 8,000 loaded. For the extra weight I added stage 1 91 octane Whipple Tune, +3 Deavers, and E load/S speed rated KO2s
Trip was awesome, Raptor suspension handled the washboard roads like a champ, I was easily driving at 60mph on the dirt roads. Rock crawling was no problem; I could not believe how much abuse the tires took, so many sharp pointy rocks, it is difficult to avoid them. On the highway I didn’t even feel the extra weight or wind resistance. Note: I drove it hard, cruising at 84mph, passing at WOT and using manual up/dawn shifts while offroading, my rpms were constantly 3-6000rpms while offroad and up/down hills.
OK, here are the issues; I hope this helps someone with the planning on their trip:
Death Valley requires lots of driving, and you have to fill up every chance you get. There are 3 gas stations in the area and one only has 87 octane the other claim 91 octane. I skipped the 87 octane and drove to the next just in time with 2 miles left. I filled with 91 octane, 5 min later my dash lit up with all warnings and initiated limp mode. I didn’t know what it was because my scanner just showed powertrain fault codes, I thought I was having tranny issues again. I cleared the codes, disconnected the battery to reset ECU and started to only drive in AWD. Everything was fine, codes returned only when I restarted truck so I spent the rest of my trip only turning off truck when sleeping and resetting ECU every morning. After I left Death Valley and I filled up in Vegas with Shell 91 octane the problem went away, that’s when I realized it was bad low octane gas. I stopped at a Ford dealer and had them read the stored codes and he said I had bunch of misfires. I didn’t notice the misfires because I was driving on dirt rds. So now I have to come up with a fix to the quality gas requirement for my tune, if I have this problem with a 91 octane tune I feel for those with a 93 octane tune. Truthfully, I didn’t find any gas higher than 91 octane until I returned to the northeast. I’m going to bring octane booster additive next time and hope that works.
Other than that all was great, Death Valley, especially the Saline is made for the Raptor. I’ll send some of my favorite rds.
Trip was awesome, Raptor suspension handled the washboard roads like a champ, I was easily driving at 60mph on the dirt roads. Rock crawling was no problem; I could not believe how much abuse the tires took, so many sharp pointy rocks, it is difficult to avoid them. On the highway I didn’t even feel the extra weight or wind resistance. Note: I drove it hard, cruising at 84mph, passing at WOT and using manual up/dawn shifts while offroading, my rpms were constantly 3-6000rpms while offroad and up/down hills.
OK, here are the issues; I hope this helps someone with the planning on their trip:
Death Valley requires lots of driving, and you have to fill up every chance you get. There are 3 gas stations in the area and one only has 87 octane the other claim 91 octane. I skipped the 87 octane and drove to the next just in time with 2 miles left. I filled with 91 octane, 5 min later my dash lit up with all warnings and initiated limp mode. I didn’t know what it was because my scanner just showed powertrain fault codes, I thought I was having tranny issues again. I cleared the codes, disconnected the battery to reset ECU and started to only drive in AWD. Everything was fine, codes returned only when I restarted truck so I spent the rest of my trip only turning off truck when sleeping and resetting ECU every morning. After I left Death Valley and I filled up in Vegas with Shell 91 octane the problem went away, that’s when I realized it was bad low octane gas. I stopped at a Ford dealer and had them read the stored codes and he said I had bunch of misfires. I didn’t notice the misfires because I was driving on dirt rds. So now I have to come up with a fix to the quality gas requirement for my tune, if I have this problem with a 91 octane tune I feel for those with a 93 octane tune. Truthfully, I didn’t find any gas higher than 91 octane until I returned to the northeast. I’m going to bring octane booster additive next time and hope that works.
Other than that all was great, Death Valley, especially the Saline is made for the Raptor. I’ll send some of my favorite rds.
