Ed,
I've run a tuner on my truck for quite a while....I started with a Bully Dog programmer around 120k miles (ish), but eventually moved to a PHP PHX chip. I don't think a quality moderate tune will reduce engine life since most people don't drive WOT all the time. At part throttle, the calibration is only asking for a certain amount of fuel anyway so it's really not any different then what a stock tune is doing. The amount of power required to cruise at a given speed is the same for each weight/incline/drag scenario so each calibration will control the engine to generate that much power and no more. As far as I know, the stock calibration never calls for full fuel (empty the injector) anyway so there is more 'headroom' in the calibration and that is what the tuners make available. So, higher than stock power levels are only experienced under high demand situations.

Mashing the pedal to the floor on a regular basis is a different story. An operator with that sort of driving habit is going to apply more force to the power train and that can reduce the service life of some components. I think the 4R100 is the primary item at risk when the calibrations are modified especially if the driver drives in a 'spirited' fashion on a regular basis.

Just my $0.02.....

 

Thanks for insight Greg ! And in keeping with what the thread is about I'll say that since a few of you guys have spoke up about your thoughts on a tuner and miles on the truck I am starting to rethink the effects of a tuner and how it will effect the life of a engine.
Now if we could just take the variable of the loose nut behind the wheel out of the equation.

 

If I had to do it all over again, I'd still get the tuner. Not because of the HP increase but because the drive-ability of the truck is much improved due to how the transmission is controlled. Because I have a heavily modified transmission and TC, the tuner was able to tailor the calibration(s) so the truck makes more efficient use of the power that is created (or it appears that way at least...). I have tried my calibrations (Bully Dog and PHP) on my wife's truck and it didn't drive as well as my truck. Our trucks have the same engine components (stock injectors, turbo, etc) but her transmission is a basic Ford re-manufactured unit so it didn't work the same as my unit. I can provide more details if you are interested.

 

Which tuner do you have?

 

2000 E350 7.3L diesel








Gary Uhlman's Ford F250 7.3 has over 703,000 miles on the clock, with no overhaul.








2001 F350 cab and chassis 4X4 Lariat edition 7.3 (owner name not provided)













There is also a 2002 Ford 7.3 truck that logged 1.2 million miles, and a 2002 Ford 7.3L van that logged 1.4 million miles. Both of these vehicles were still in use at the time their mileages were reported all over the media. The stories behind the vehicles exceeding a million miles are popular enough to find easily on google's first page return of hits, so I didn't bother to post the images and links.

There are many 7.3L on the road now with in excess of 800,000 miles and counting. I think the odometer pictures are the most compelling convincers however, so it would be fun if more people would post odometer pics. I haven't even reached 60K miles on my truck yet, so no pics from me.

 

I am using a PHP Phoenix 6 position chip. (Power Hungry Performance).
About us - Power Hungry Performance

There are several good tuners out there but I chose PHP because Bill was part of the team that originally developed the calibrations for the PowerStroke engine so I figured he might know how best to adjust them for my modified transmission. While a little extra HP is nice....that wasn't my primary motivation. I went with (modified) stock, 65 Daily Driver, 80 Performance, Hi Idle, Tow and Extra Tow. The Stock setting is standard HP calibration but modified for the different shifting and TC characteristics of my transmission.

With my PHP tunes and modified transmission, my trucks runs and shifts as good if not better than a standard 6.0 liter truck. In fact, I prefer my transmission over the 2015 models also (we have 2 in our fleet).