Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - Alternative to ruining your PCM with an EDGE programmer

Let me start by saying that I have no personal agenda against Edge and nothing to gain from anyone buying anyone else's tunes for their truck. In fact as of now, I don't have tunes on my truck at all. That being said I feel that a bit of a PSA is in order to warn folks of the potential dangers of using an Edge programmer on their 7.3 PSD powered truck (outside the 7.3 PSD you can draw your own conclusions about Edge products).

The bottom line is that while there may be many drivers who have Edge programmers on their trucks and have had very good success with them, there are also many who have ruined their PCM by using an Edge programmer, causing them to need to replace or at least have their PCM re-flashed by the dealer (usually at a cost of a couple hundred dollars).

The issue is that the Edge programmer is just that....a programmer. It uses your OBD port to erase the stock program in the PCM and then re-write a new program into it. That is how you can unplug the edge and put it back into your toolbox and continue to drive the truck on Edge tunes. While this may work for some, for others, the process of erasing the programming and re-writing it can corrupt the data on the PCM causing it to fail to function all together, which generally means you cannot connect the Edge programmer to it again to dump your stock program back into it.

Fear not! There is a (better) alternative to this method of programming. It is called a performance chip. It plugs into the PCM via an edge connector built into the PCM from the factory. These chips stay on the PCM and interpret data that is going through the PCM to allow the truck to run better (and in the case of custom tunes -- much better).

There are a variety of places you can get these chips, but they really are broken down into two categories. TS style and Proprietary style chips. The TS style chips are all based on the design that TS Performance uses on their chips that includes a rotary knob that allows you to toggle to different tunes (usually up to 6 tunes) on the fly. Worth noting of course is that to my knowledge TS performance does not offer custom tunes on their chips, meaning they are all "canned" tunes (more on this in a moment). There are a veritable cornucopia, an plethora even, of other tuners who will take that TS style chip and for a few of your hard earned dollars custom tune a set of programs (of your choice) to that chip so that you can get the most out of your truck. There are lots of choices out there for this, but some of the more popular tuners are:

Power Hungry Performance (aka PHP)
Total Diesel Performance (aka Tony Wildman)
Gearhead Automotive Performance
Brian's Truck Shop (aka BTS also makers of some of the best transmissions you can buy for your truck -- think unconditional lifetime warranty!!)
Beans Diesel Performance (aka Beans or BDP)
Swamps Diesel and
Tyrant Diesel

These guys all can and will use the same TS style chip and custom tune to your specifications. Some will even offer free -re-burns (change your tunes for free) if need be.

The other group are tuners who use a more proprietary type of tuner and the most popular of these is

DP Tuner

DP uses a different style chip and offers a cool digital switcher that can be mounted in a gauge pod.

The other thing to consider is whether you want "canned" tunes, custom tunes, or live tunes. A canned tune is a tune generated by the chip manufacturer as a one-size-fits-all approach to tuning and burned to their chip for mass consumption. This will be better than stock but not as good as the next option which is Custom Tunes. Custom tunes are the result of hours of research and years of experience by the tuner of your choice. You tell them about what you have or plan to do to your truck and they burn a chip to your specifications that is custom tailored to work with your existing or future performance modifications. This generally costs a bit more than a canned tune, but it is money well spent. The highest level of tuning is what is called "live tuning". this pretty much means that you drive your truck to the tuner's shop and they put their gear on your truck and generate tunes that are custom built to your specific truck's performance. They can tweak small things as they tune to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of your setup and give you exactly what you want. This of course costs more than custom tunes and requires you to do some traveling, but you can be assured of the highest level of service and performance.

Finally, you need to ask yourself something, "why do I want a tunes"? Well usually the answer to this is simply MORE POWER (I can almost hear Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor barking in the background). But adding a tune to your truck can change everything from throttle response, idle speed, transmission shift points, shift firmness, smoke output, etc. The tuner can also significantly improve your fuel economy (provided you can keep your boot out of the smoke pedal }>).

Well there you have it. A more complicated, slightly more expensive, but much more reliable and stable way of tuning your truck's drive train.

You have been forewarned. Good luck with the decision!

P.S. Maybe the mods could make this PSA a sticky? Hint, Hint....
P.P.S. I am open to correction if I have made any incorrect statements, but I don't intend for this to devolve into a debate about whose tunes are better.