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Old 12-05-2008
JimIII@JDM's Avatar
JimIII@JDM JimIII@JDM is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Toms River, NJ
Posts: 403
Default JDM Engineering Saleen truck and Upgrade kit info!!

In the beginning for 2007 JDM Engineering was approached by Saleen with some problems they were having with their production S331 pick up trucks. These issues included power output, transmission shifting, and overall drive-ability. We had never seen one of these trucks before so we told them we would have to see one in person in order to help. Saleen responded by sending us a brand new 2007 S331 truck to play with! Bumper # 04 in a brilliant White with black stripes on the side. This truck was probably the most gorgeous F-150 we had ever seen!

We were very excited to have the truck at our disposal. We actually had it for two days and headed down to Orlando Florida with it for the Fun Ford weekend spring break shoot out. On our way down we noticed the problems Saleen was having. They all seemed to be tuning related. As we data logged the truck we found many things that we didn’t like. A lot of the things we didn’t like were in the transmission functions. Mainly torque converter lock up would kick out of lock up at a steady speed which would make the truck down shift anytime you breathed on the throttle. This became very annoying almost enough to make us want to put a tune in it before the trip was over! We ended up holding off on the tune however as we wanted to see what it did at the track and on the dyno.

We made it down to Orlando in just enough time to make the Muscle Mustangs magazine hooters party/ burn out contest. Here we met Carlos Duran and Ned Shortsleeve from Saleen Speedlab for the first time. So we were approached by Muscle Mustangs Editor Evan Smith. He asked us to do a burn out for the magazine we looked to Carlos and Ned, they gave us the nod, and it was on! We were ready strike the hides loose and put on a smoke show. So we back the truck into the burn out pit and power brake it, NOTHING. The tires wouldn’t even break loose foot braking it! Possibly the most embarrassing moment you could ever have. We eventually got it to spin the tires for some pictures with a few guys holding up the back bumper and pouring some beer under the tires. It still struggled the whole time and didn’t like the attempted burn out. We stuck our tails between our legs and went to our hotel to get ready for the race that weekend.

At the track we pulled in and met another guy who already had an S331 also, in white too! We pitted next to him and hung out the whole weekend. He had claimed to run a 14.5 ¼ mile time with his truck back home in Massachusetts in good air. All the both us could muster was some 15.0 ¼ mile times in stock trim in Florida spring weather. We packed up for the weekend and headed home to New Jersey.

When we got back home we strapped the truck down on the dyno. We made a few pulls and saw what it was making at the tires, a very lack luster 323 RWHP and 352 TQ. We saw the air fuel curve and timing levels and knew we could only slightly improve on the power but there was some torque to gain. The mass air meter was pegged stock so it limited us to how much power we could make. With a few swift strokes of the keyboard my father had the truck finely tuned in a matter of hours. We pumped out 337 RWHP and 390 TQ giving us 15 HP and nearly 40 TQ gain from just a computer tune!

After we were happy with the power numbers, my father took the truck out on the streets for a few weeks spending countless hours each day to get the shift points perfect and create better drive-ability. We were able to also pick up some fuel economy with the new tuning. We presented Saleen with our finds and gave them a copy of our tune to use as a reflash upgrade for their trucks. They actually used this reflash for customers who would call in and complain about their trucks, and even took most of the tuning and used it in the production of the rest of the 07 and 08 trucks.

After the initial tuning was done we went ahead and designed some upgrade parts. Including our power package, 4.56 gears, Traction bars, Electric fan kit, and custom exhaust. We were able to get the truck up to 425 HP at the tires with everything installed. We ended up racing the truck at 10 more events and put over 25,000 miles on it! After the race season was over we headed back to Michigan with the truck to show Saleen what we had done. Guys there were taking turns driving it, beating the pants off of it! We even got in trouble for doing a burn out in the parking lot, security was all over us! The plant managers and everyone who drove it loved it. They could honestly not believe it was the same truck! They ordered 5 of our upgrade kits for their personal trucks that same day! We also struck a deal with Carlos the head of aftermarket parts at the time to purchase 20 kits from us. The only thing was Saleen wanted us to exclusively sell the kit through us and them. In doing so we had to keep our price the same as theirs. This is part of the reason the upgrade cost so much.

Now our upgrade kit was welcomed by Saleen with such open arms because it was CARB legal. You can run our kit in any of the 50 states and pass all emissions laws. We found the air box and inlet tube from Roush’s production F-150’s. We knew the mass air housing on that intake box was large enough for the stock sensor to hold over 500 HP. So we went with their induction box and inlet tube. We then made a throttle body adapter out of billet aluminum to fit this new air kit on the truck. We ran into availability problems with the billet elbows and they were very expensive so we switched over to the plastic Ford inlet elbows. We used these for a few months while we had new cast elbows made which we now use today. Either one of these 3 parts works the same and provide the same power out put and easy fitment.

We had expected to give Saleen the truck back that day we went back to Michigan. Saleen was so happy with our progress and the exposure they got from us racing the truck the whole year they let us keep it for another race season. So we took it to the max! We turned up the tune, added some boost (13 psi) , made a custom twin pump fuel system and tested it out at the trrack on our annual JDM day just before the track closed for the winter. The truck ran its best time ever of 12.5 @ 110 mph! This was and is to date the world’s fastest ¼ mile pass in a S331/HD truck! We rested the truck over the winter, and drove it daily. After the winter was over we headed back down to Florida for the Fun Ford weekend spring break event, where it all started with this truck!

We showed up again Friday just in time for the Muscle Mustang party and burn out contest. Evan again knowing that the truck was no where near the slug we attempted a burn out with the year previous, had us back the truck in for the first burn out of the night. As I rolled into the burn out pit I heard some guys laugh and say “ hey that’s the truck from last year that would barely spin the tires” I thought, just you wait and see guys! So I held the brake and gave her some throttle and within seconds it looked like John Force had just done a burn out in his Mustang Funny car! The crowd went nuts, the magazine guys loved it getting tons of pictures. Most of all we had proved to the Florida crowd that night that this truck was nothing to mess with! http://teamjdmvideo.vidiac.com/recen...55007dd93e.htm

So we went on with the rest of the weekend and actually ended up winning the truck class event with it! In fact we went on to win the first 3 events in a row! This put us in the points lead! We had to miss the 4th event due to scheduling conflict with the NMRA races we run so we had to tighten the reigns a bit. We ended up winning two out of the last five races and with one race left we secured the points championship for the 2008 Fun Ford weekend Tough truck championship!!! Our Saleen S331 and Driver Paul Gamino became world champs! http://teamjdmvideo.vidiac.com/recen...3e01726911.htm

What im trying to show you guys here is that our truck is really something else. We now have over 60 K miles on the truck with hundreds of ¼ mile passes logged. We tow my speed lab race car to every event with it, I drive it daily and beat the pants off of it any chance I get. It sees just as bad if not more of a work load than anyone can put on it. We have brought the power level up over 150 HP to the tires and have been able to successfully make it the worlds fastest, and quickest Saleen truck with out hurting the motor or any tricks up our sleeves. These are all parts that anyone can install and run.

We have come under some criticism lately as to the price of our upgrade package, I just want everyone to know that the price was held in honor to Saleen for as long as it did. We are now changing our relationship status with them and we can change the price ourselves. I’m going to investigate and see what we can offer as a better price to the public. But our kit is more expensive because it comes with some very high dollar parts. We even took the initiative to create instructions on DVD so you can sit and watch the installation before you attempt yours! The kit is proven and no one can offer as much advice and or experience with these trucks as we can. There is no other proven package available like ours and it can’t be compared simply on price alone.

Here is a full list of parts included in the JDM upgrade kit:

SCT Xcalibrator 2 programmer with custom JDM tune
3.20” supercharger pulley (8-9 psi)
Gates Belt
Air intake box
Air inlet tube
Inlet elbow
Power steering reservoir relocation bracket
Intercooler reservoir relocation bracket
Coolant hose and fitting
DVD instructions

This kit will add 80 HP and 100 ft/lbs of torque. Fuel economy will also increase for normal driving.

Here is a few pics of the kit







Here is a cool pic of the truck and some cool video!!



Video links...

http://ywnv.vidiac.com/video/18fca38...94012d4af4.htm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS18tHiDkZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkjnVz93sXI

Last edited by JimIII@JDM; 12-05-2008 at 04:34 PM.
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