Beyond Boss
Rev your early Coyote automatic past 8,000 rpm thanks to HP Tuners
By Steve Turner
Photos by Steve Turner and courtesy of HP Tuners
If you own a first-gen Coyote automatic, you might have been jealous of the high-revving antics of those manual-transmission cars. Well, you can now end that envy thanks to the industrious crew at HP Tuners. They have cracked the code to allow 2011-2014 Mustang GT automatics to rev all the way past 8,000 rpm.
“The 11-14 Coyotes use a different PCM,” Eric Brooks, Ford Calibration/Development specialist at HP Tuners, said. “The 2015 PCM is quite a bit more powerful and from the factory do not have some of the limits that the Copperhead PCM has.”
While the newer PCM is powerful it has its own tuning challenges. When it comes to the Copperhead unit that controls the earlier Coyotes, there was an easy fix to make the manual transmission cars rev like their RoadRunner and Voodoo cousins.
“We knew the Boss 302 and Cobra Jet were capable of more rpm, and merely reflashing a 2011-2014 Mustang GT with a factory Boss 302 tune would raise the limit up to above 8,000 rpm,” Eric explained. “The problem with this fix though is that it only applied to manual-transmission cars. We spent a few days studying the code and were able to figure out exactly what where the limit was coming from. We can now patch any Copperhead PCM to raise this rpm ceiling up quite a few hundred rpm.”
Watch Rebecca’s Mustang rev to 8,000 rpm here...
[video=youtube;uw2rPo0MFXM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2rPo0MFXM[/video]
Of course, the extended rev range is great, but to turn that extra rpm into performance your car is going to need the supporting hardware to take advantage of that higher rpm.
“Not everyone will benefit from the extended range. Combinations that have Cobra Jet intake manifolds or aftermarket camshafts will now be able to take advantage of that extended range,” Eric said. “And what is more awesome that auto shifting at 8,000 rpm without a hiccup? We should see some e.t’s drop this year with this code patch.”
Not only does this software patch allow the automatic Coyotes to rev like a Boss, but the logic allows the Twin Independent Variable Cam Timing to function properly throughout the rev range.
One tuner that has already taken advantage of this new feature in the HP Tuners VCM Suite software is Justin Starkey of VMP Performance. He expects more consistent performance and lower e.t.’s from high-powered Coyotes automatics like the one his wife Rebecca campaigns in the NMRA Coyote Modified ranks.
“The patch allows us to exceed the 7,700rpm rev limit on automatic 11-14 Coyotes. On quicker, higher-horsepower ’11-’14 auto cars, this has been a big limitation at the track. Part of getting my own 2015 Mustang GT into the 9s with a stock motor and 82mm pulley was revving it higher,” Justin explained. “The more rpm you can turn, the less power drop off you see during shifts, and the quicker you go. I think this advancement in tuning is going to allow a lot of ’11-’14 6R80 Coyotes to go quicker. Already having done the dyno testing, we'll be track testing it this weekend at NMRA Georgia race on my wife’s 2011 Mustang GT.”
So thanks to the continuing product development at HP Tuners, the future looks bright for early Coyote automatics. We can’t wait to see the performance this latest software patch unlocks.
The RPM Limit Patch for 2011-2014 Mustang GTs with automatic transmisisons is available right now to all calibrators using the HP Tuners software.
If you have the hardware, the HP Tuners software will allow you to rev your early Coyote automatic past 8,000 rpm to take advantage of free-flowing intakes, big cams and rev-happy superchargers.
Don’t rub your eyes. You are seeing that correctly. During his development testing Eric Brooks of HP Tuners was able to rev an automatic Coyote to a staggering 8,236 rpm, which is almost as high a Shelby GT350 can rev!
