I have a 1995 F-250 7.3L Powerstroke. I was wanting to chip my truck, but I dont know what one to get. My truck is all stock besides a S and B Cold Air Intake, Wicked Wheel, and 4inch straight pipe. Any help would be appreciated.



1995 F-250 7.3L Powerstroke
MODS

Wicked Wheel
S and B Cold Air
4inch straight pipe(stock downpipe)

 

What are your plans for the truck? Going to be upgrading anything else in the near future? Budget?

 

What Jarrett said, also nothing beats custom tuning.

 

If you plan any future mods I would do a hydra. Free reburns

 

I've heard of the ts6 chip being a good chip, it has stock, high idle, 50hp, 75hp, 100hp, and 140hp. I just want something that will wake my truck up when I need it and won't blow the guts out of it when I pull something

 

I went through what you're going through a few months back. I bought the TS 6 Position with the stock burns on it. I think it was $150, or $200 or something close to that.

It's definitely noticeable, but honestly i wish i spent the extra money then and went with a Hydra or something with custom tunes. My trucks pretty much stock like yours, but i'll be doing more in the future, and when i do i'm either going to have to buy custom tunes for my TS or spend the extra money and buy a Hydra and be done with it forever.

Same logic applies when you're buying a welder; buy the best one you can and cry once.

 

Basically, it all boils down to what you want to pay. Keep in mind the stock injectors can't handle anything over either the 50hp or 75hp setting (I think? never ran a chip with stock sticks), so right off the bat you have two or three useless tunes on your chip. The hydra comes with a gazillion canned tunes from php for every PCM code. Stuff like quiet idle, tractor mode (shuts off one bank to get serious lope if you're into that), and other stuff. Besides, you can have like 15 different tunes on at a time... Not that you would ever need that many but excess is success right?

So yeah. You can get a TS6 chip for 150-200 and if you upgrade hardware on the motor or decide you want to have different tunes or whatever you can pay anywhere from 100-300 in reburn as well as have the chip out of the truck for however long it takes the tuner to get it back to you. Hydra you pay 375 right off the bat and 100-300 for custom tunes but they email the tunes to you and with some clever USB cord running, you never take the chip out of the truck. It is up to what you want out of your truck and, again, what you're willing to shell out.

 

The included tunes are met for a stock truck. you have to pay for any modified tunes.

I have a Hydra and I like it so far. The included tunes are a bit Smokey when you put your foot in it or going up a hill. (I also have larger tires and 3.55 gears)
Also "tractor mode" is not available, at least for my PCM code.

 

First thing you'll want to do is swap that wheezing stock downpipe for a real round one. Bigeffin' straight pipe after the stock choke-pipe is like putting a condom on after... well... Once the exhaust flow has been restricted, opening it up downstream gains you very little; you really make use of the straight pipe only after installing a Diamond Eye, MBRP, etc.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions really helped with my decision

 

What did you end up going with, if you don't mind me asking.

 

So Im confused, I thought the Hydra was similar to the TS 6 pos chip. Are you saying its a smarter module that can have multiple modes enabled at the same time? I assumed it was just a dial like the TS.

 

It is similar in the way it communicates with the pcm but there the similarities change. With the ts6, you physically send the chip to a tuner for reburns and it holds 6 tunes at a time, chosen with a rotary ****.

Hydra tunes are sent via email from the tuner to your computer, at which point you upload the tunes via a program to the chip. Stock tunes are available online and do not cost extra to use. Tunes are selected via a small remote looking thing with two buttons and a display. Up to 17 different tunes can be uploaded to the chip's memory, really only 15 since there is a stock and no start tune from the factory.

Only one tune at a time can be selected using either chip.

https://swampsdiesel.com/products/hydrachip/

 

Well thanks for the info. I was going to have my TS reburned but now I may need to get one of these.

 

There are plenty of people that run ts6 chips and are just fine. The main advantage is you don't have to mail the chip in to get new tunes.