Dead Ford 2012 F150 after WOT fuel adjusted with i3

[sethrocon]

2012 F150 3.5L Ecoboost

This problem happened to me twice now. In December 2018 I was adjusting the WOT 4K setting in a parking lot, it was rainy/snowy and cold. I adjusted the fuel level to be %10 lean.

Dead ECM #1:

The i3 tuner went through it's usual backup and wrote the file %100 compete but then the dash lights flickered and the tuner froze for about 10 seconds and then told me to turn the ignition off then my dashboard started spitting out over 10 errors, oil pressure, oil level, coolant, brakes what ever.

After many attempts to re-flash this unit with the i3, it simply would not connect. I then connected Forscan to the ECM and scanned all the modules but the PCM wasn't there. At this point I concluded that the unit was bricked/dead. When I turned the ignition on, all the PCM errors would show up, the throttle body makes a clicking noise, as well as the fuel pump and some other devices in the engine bay. The clicking and ticking is consistent/paced.

I towed the truck to the Ford dealer and found a used ECM off eBay and Ford reprogrammed it and I was back up and running. I installed a new battery, ECM relay, new fuses and checked the ground cable on the ECM box. Everything is good.

Dead ECM #2

After getting the truck back, I flashed the ECM with my i3 tuner and used it for about 3 months. After having success with the MPG tune I started looking into my throttle/surging issue at high RPM So I posted this issue in another post. I read some other forums that suggested more fuel. I assumed that my battery died mid tune last time and that's what cooked my ECM. I was confident in my setup this time around to adjust the WOT setting to ad %5 rich 4K-7K and try get rid of my strange throttle issue.

The exact same thing happened. The program wrote %100, the dash-lights flickered and every known error started flashing at me. Clicking and ticking in the engine bay. Not PCM communication with Forscan.

I've modified my programs many times and reflashed many times for tire size/fuel type/shift points/shift pressure and have had no issues. I follow the steps perfectly but only have problems with the WOT settings.

Currently my truck is at Parkway Ford getting a second ECM programmed for my truck. Each time this has happened it is costing me about $450 (more because this time it cost $600 for the dealer to reprogram the pcm) and I'm not doing anything wrong here.

What is going on with this tuner???

[mikel]

Did you contact us after the first failure?
there are files on the device we can get that will generally lead us to what happened or what caused the failure.
Id like to do the same here. More so, if you call us we'll just fix it for free, we'll issue a label to overnight the pcm to us and we'll fix it (rarely do we actually need to replace them, dealers always seem to want to replace).

if its not too late, please try t get the pcm from them and we'll get it here and recover it for free.


Thanks

[sethrocon]

After the first time it happened I thought it was related to the battery/PCM relay. Thought it was a fluke.

I have both ECM's still. I can send them both to you.

[mikel]

Please give us a call, we'll issue a shipping label to get them here.