THE AUTO BUILDER
Featured
A Long Time Coming
How many times have you heard the following: I sold my first truck for $1,000 and wish I had never gotten rid of it. If you have, then you understand the mental grief generally associated with selling your first truck. What can make matters worse is to find out the new owner wrecked it, sold it or that it was eventually parted out or scraped. Perhaps you have succumbed to one of these unfortunate circumstances, leaving you to long for that first ride. Longtime classic truck enthusiast Eddie Rudd of Knoxville, Tennessee, knows that empty feeling, as Rudd drove a not-so-flashy 66 Chevy 1/2-ton to and from work during his teens, and even into his 20s, it served as his daily driver. Times changed, Rudd became a father and soon learned the uncomfortable truth that the truck no longer allowed the entire family to ride comfortably. Rudd knew the truck had to go, so in March of 1982, he sold it to a friend.
THE SNOWBALL EFFECT
The Fox-body Mustang is undoubtedly becoming one of the most popular Fords of all time, and the abundance of aftermarket components is its main attraction. Every aspect of the ’79-’93 Mustang is upgradeable, and whether you want a killer street car or an all-out drag car, the Fox-body Mustang proves to be a great platform for all kinds of performance goals. B.C. Happach of Pekin, Illinois, recognized this great potential and bought a ’91 Mustang hatchback back in March 1996. Small upgrades here and there, including a NitrousWorks plate kit, gave Happach a street-friendly Mustang that consistently ran in the high 12s with the stock suspension.
EARLY-IMPALA LS2 SWAP
Low in its architecture and functionally beautiful, the LS2 engine is an ideal replacement for a previous generation of Chevy powerplants. It offers good
performance, greatly improved economy and plenty of support from an industry leaders.
Spotlighter
TO THE POWER OF FUN
Installing The Granatelli Fuego Controller And Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors
Author
Matt Emery
Story & Photography
So you say that you are not all that hep when it comes to diving under the hood of your new truck, but you play a mean game of computer solitaire? You also say that you would like to add a little more power to that truck, and that you are not really sure where the cam is but you can at least replace the plugs? If that’s the case, then this story is for you.
When you’re talking power, few know more about it than Joe Granatelli. Not only does he come from the legendary Granatelli racing family, Granatelli is a licensed Pro Street drag racer and spent time as an instructor at the Roy Hill Drag Racing School. In 1989, he founded Granatelli Motor Sports, and since that time he has been busy designing and manufacturing items that add power to your truck or car. Those items include the Big G systems as well as exhaust and other high performance systems for not only gas and diesel pickups, but also for some fast Mustangs as well.
Two of those performance items are the Fuego Tuner and Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors. The Fuego is a hand-held computer tuner that not only adds horsepower, it allows the person to control many of the actions associated with increasing the performance of the truck. Do you want the trans to shift not only firmer but also at a different rpm than the stock unit? The Fuego is capable of doing it. Do you have bigger tires? No problem. Want to retard or advance the spark? The Fuego can do that too.
Speaking of spark, increasing the fuel and air intake especially with a supercharged engine, places more pressure (no pun intended) on the spark plugs. Granatelli also offers his Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors. Producing a claimed 60,000 volts, the Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors produce a spark hot and strong enough to stand up to any intake system, and the more completely the fuel is burnt, the more power there is.
We were on hand as Granatelli employee Chris Cardilino took this ‘06 F-150 to new performance heights with the addition of the Fuego controller and Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors. The entire process only took an hour or two to complete, and if you can change a plug and play a video game, you can add a ton of Granatelli power to your truck.
While this install is on a Ford F-150, know that Granatelli has systems for nearly all Ford, Chevy and Dodge pickups. So if you have a truck and a desire for huge power and ability of melt the hides off of the back of your ride, give Granatelli Motor Sports a call. Your truck will thank you.
The Granatelli Fuego hand-held programmer enables the owner to totally manipulate the Ford’s computer. From added power to disabling things such as the top speed governor to changing shift and tranny characteristics, the Fuego does it all at the touch of a button.
Adding plenty of power to the plugs is simple thanks to the Granatelli Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors. This is a job that should be done whenever it comes time to change the plugs.
The 5.4-liter engine that comes in the Ford F-150 is a healthy unit, as it comes from the factory, but that doesn’t mean that there is plenty of horsepower potential lurking inside.
Thanks to microelectronics, coils are now found atop the spark plug rather than as a separate unit. The upside is that the engine is not reliant on a single unit, which may quit at anytime due to heat, but they are also much easier to replace. The downside of modern engines is that there is a lot of stuff in the way, even when just changing out plugs. If you are installing the Granatelli coils, change the plugs at the same time.
To just get to the plugs/coils, first you must remove items such as the air intake tube as well as the electrical connections for the injectors.
There may be other lines and hoses that also need to be removed before access to the plugs/coils can be possible. That is why it is a good idea to replace the plugs while you are there.
The leads for the coils as well as the injectors are housed in a loom, and that loom is held onto the engine by sliding onto posts. A tug on the loom will pull it free from those posts.
With that, the connections are pulled from the coils.
The on-plug coils are held in place with a small bolt. This bolt is removed.
With the bolt out, the on plug coil can be pulled off of the plug.
Prepping the new Granatelli Hi-Performance Coil-On-Plug Connectors for installation is as easy as adding a few dabs of dielectric grease to the inside of the boot.
With new spark plugs in place, the new Granatelli unit is slid into place.
With a good push, the new unit is snapped in place over the plugs.
The stock bolt is installed.
Time to reconnect all of the pieces that were pulled to do the install.
With the air intake tube replaced (did you clean or replace the air filter?) the job is done.
With the on-plug coils in, it is time to hook up the Granatelli Fuego. On the Ford, the OBD-II port is found beneath the dash along the right-hand side.
When the Fuego boots up, it will have a red backlight and the display will show.
The display will show, among others, “Program Vehicle.”
The center button on the Fuego is the select button. By hitting that, the select button it will send the Fuego to the next prompt.
There are two prompts to choose from, an advanced and a standard. The advanced program is chosen.
The Fuego is able to work on many different models, so it is necessary to input which vehicle it is that is being worked on. In this case, the “gas truck” is hit.
The next step is to tell the unit which gas truck is it.
It will also ask to be told which engine the truck is equipped with.
When the basic info is in, the Fuego will then tell you to turn on the key.
There are 22 different perimeters that can be manipulated by the Fuego. The first of these the Fuego will want to know is which octane level of fuel it is that the truck will be operated on.
Another prompt is if you want the truck to be a towing beast or act like a race truck.
For those who are running larger wheels and tires, the Fuego allows that info to be input along with things like gear ratio. This means that the speedometer can be fine-tuned to work with any size tire.
For those who want to add speed to the truck, the stock speed limiter can be disabled.
When all 22 of the questions have been answered, the Fuego will then check the stock settings.
When the prompt says to, the select button is hit to load the new settings.
When the meter hits 100 percent, the Fuego will have transformed the Ford into a completely different truck, performance-wise.
And with that, the job is done. With the key off and the plug pulled from the OBD-II port, the F-150 is ready for the road.
ARTICLE SOURCES
Granatelli Motor Sports Inc.
1000 Yarnell Pl.
Oxnard, CA 93033
805/486-6644
