IDS Flashing, and Calibration Location

Bruce Amacker · March 23, 2007

I have a fast question for you guys:

Most of the time when I flash a truck, the files are on my hard drive and the calibration is installed without a problem. I tried doing one the other day (2005 6.0) and IDS said, "There is an updated calibration available, but the file is not found on the hard drive. Would you like to go on the network and retrieve the file?" At the time, I was at a location that did not have internet so I was not able to install the calibration.

Until this time, I was under the impression that all calibrations were kept on the HD. Is this not true?

Thanks!

Joey Kaylor · March 23, 2007

I had the same thing happen today bruce. 06 F350, went to check for updates, showed it had updated software (i was excited, i wanted to see what the inductive heating stuff was all about) and it came up with that message. i have a screenshot, im hosting it right now and it will be up in a minute.

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Keith Browning · March 23, 2007

Until this time, I was under the impression that all calibrations were kept on the HD. Is this not true?

This is normal and it happens with WDS as well. It appears that keeping your software up to date helps keep your calibrations up to date, sort of. Here is my observation:

You still need to manually update your calibration files after a software version update but not all files make it into the files you download. It seems to me that there might actually be a "list" that you get of available calibrations. If IDS checks the vehicle calibration against the list, and an update is available, it goes and downloads it and then stores it where it remains available locally. (on your machine) Once you have it you don't need to download it again and the calibration may be used up until a revision is released to replace it and the process begins again.

I also believe this process is a part of the overall concept of keeping your software and calibrations current. When critical calibrations become available for things like recalls, the calibration updates typically require a software update as well. For example, I recently updated our IDS to version 47 to obtain the new Inductive Heating Flash. When the calibrations for the new 6.4L recall came out, we were instructed to update to version 48.5 before we could update the calibrations. When I actually performed the update, it ended up as version 48.6! I guess the tech people at Ford are very busy.

As a side note, I read an SSM that also advised us that this new calibration released for the recall DOES include all the "bug" fixes they have been working on that address some 10 or so codes, driveability issues, A/C in-op and so on.

Joey Kaylor · March 24, 2007

ok...i figured it out and got the flash files.

for those that havent done it:

go here and when you have the file names you need (this time it took two times of connecting to the vehicle, getting the list, installing them, and then getting another list of files needed, apparently it will only show 3 files at a time) enter it in on the download search bar.

save the file to the c:\Program Files\Ford Motor Company\Calibration Files directory, if you dont know how, just save to the desktop then copy/paste it into that folder.

after that, you should have it ready to go.

there are several patch levels on that site also, if you want to know how to do them, open this PDF

after i get the wheel bearings in this truck, im very curious to see how well it runs with the new flash.