By Ken Payne

The Ford truck diesel aftermarket has long been known for performance electronic tuning. With gains up to 150 horsepower or more on basically stock trucks for a few hundred dollars it no surprise they are extremely popular. In recent years the direction of the market has been changing for some owners as fuel prices go up. While there will always be those who want more power at all costs, the practical buyer is often more concerned with fuel economy and drive-train longevity, with a little added power as a bonus.

For the 2004 F250 project truck (2004 King Ranch Crewcab equipped with a 6.0L Power Stroke diesel) DP-Tuner ( www.dp-tuner.com provided custom programming. Jody Tipton has long been known for providing safe, reliable tunes with excellent drivability. Power with diesel tuning can come very easily with simple injection changes and pumping more fuel in the engine. However, the difference between a good tuner and great tuner is delivering power safely while improving the overall driving experience. Jody has spent a lot of time on research and development, writing a large variety of tunes tested with cylinder pressure test equipment, his personal driving and customer feed-back. In a short period of time DP-Tuner has become somewhat of a tuning legend.

I’m not a stranger to the tuning world and it was refreshing to talk to someone who knows his stuff. Jody just doesn’t tune, his company is actively engaged in creating new technology. Those of you with older 7.3Ls have seen the introduction of new products in a market many have abandoned, such as the F5 16-position chip (one interesting tune available is a “drive-thru” designed to make the truck as quiet as possible) and F5 Gauge.

Jody provided my truck with 3 tunes, an economy tune, a street performance tune and a race tune. On the stock tune the truck has been averaging about 13-14 mpg in the city and 15-16 mpg on the highway. The truck is a 2004 F250 King Ranch Crew Cab with a conservative 2 inch lift and 35 inch street tires. The shift characteristics left a lot to be desired. The transmission didn’t feel intuitive. Going up hills required too much throttle to downshift, and by then the engine would end up roaring due to the additional throttle. Shift feel… was like jello. Torque converter lock up was okay, but nothing earth-shattering. Mileage didn’t live up to my expectations either.

Currently Jody uses SCT products for his 6.0L tunes. Each tuner is loaded with tunes specific for your needs. Normally you fill out a custom forum and supply this to DP-Tuner but I had the luxury of having Jody available face to face to discuss my tune needs. After this discussion he put together the tunes specific for my needs and wants. Next, he loaded them only an SCT Xcalibrator 3, commonly referred to as an “XCal3” or “X3”. The X3 is SCT’s latest hand-held tuner. It features a larger backlit screen, is pre-loaded with “off the shelf tunes”, stores up to 3 custom tunes, has both on and off device high speed data logging, reads and clears DTC trouble codes, and allows you to make various simple adjustments such as shift firmness. After loading the tuner Jody then proceeded to install the mileage tune in my truck.

Like all hand-held tuners, programming with the X3 is a simple matter of plugging the tuner into the diagnostic port under the dash and following a few simple on screen prompts. If your tuner fails to power up check the cigarette lighter fuse. Once powered up we followed the prompts to install the economy tune. The initial tuning takes about 10 minutes the first time you use it because it first saves a copy of the stock program into the tuner so you can restore it in the future. Reprogramming at a later time takes about 5 minutes.

Once the economy tune was loaded we took it for a test drive. Immediately I noticed a difference. The shift pattern changed. Jody says he uses a 6.0 shift strategy similar to the successful strategy he employs with the older 7.3l Power Stroke. On inclines it dropped down a gear when it felt like it should, not at all like stock. The downshifts were quick and clean. The downshift pattern isn’t simply better than stock, it’s dramatically better. Torque converter lockup was smooth with a more aggressive lock strategy. Due to weather conditions I wasn’t able to test the power of the tune at the time.

Over the course of the next week in city driving I went through a tank of fuel and averaged 15.9 mpg, an improvement of 1.9 – 2.9 miles per gallon. The following Friday I went on a road-trip to the north Georgia mountains. It was a mix of mostly highway with city and mountainous miles as well. Mileage was a respectable 17.6 mpg with maximum highway speeds of 72 mph.

Finally, a strictly highway mileage test was made, calculating mileage by hand. At an average highway speed of 72 mpg with the cruise control turned on the mileage was an impressive 19.8 mpg. Note that this truck has a stock intake and exhaust. A good intake system with a freer flowing exhaust could easily push this into the 20 mpg range.

This added economy does not come at the expense of added power. The tune is written in such a way that when I get very aggressive on the throttle the truck launches dramatically better than stock, with more than enough power for street and towing use. The economy results were impressive, netting average economy gains of 16% (city), 18% (mixed use) and 20% (highway). Results like this are hard to ignore, and with current DP-Tuner retail price of $379 it will quickly pay for itself, especially with current diesel fuel prices. Add to this the fact that while its not as much fun to drive as my supercharged F150, its turned a slug into a much more fun vehicle to drive than it used to be without suffering with added trips to the filling station. DP-Tuner has exceeded my expectations.

Stay tuned for an article detailing gauge installation. Once gauges are installed on this truck I’ll be doing a follow-up DP-Tuner article with Jody’s street and race tunes.

--------------------------------------------------------------

2004 Ford F250 Super Duty Project Truck Sources:

DP-Tuner
116 River Bend Drive
Hoschton, GA 30548
Phone: 828-221-0076
Web site: www.dp-tuner.com
Project: Increasing Fuel Economy, Power and Driveability with DP-Tuner