I have an 03 F350 with straight pipe exhaust, and i just installed a hypertech max energy programmer on stage 2 on the truck today, and I have a few questions about it.

First off, it has always smoked a healthy medium gray, and after the programmer it is smoking blue for a long time after startup, it does go away after driving though.

I could always hear my turbo whistling from out the exhaust, and I could hear it spooling really loud when I feathered the throttle. It doesn't do that now after the programmer.

I tried driving it a little hard to test the difference, and it feels slower at low RPMs, but after 2500 it feels faster. It also sounds alot different.

I just was curious if any of this was normal, cause I have no problem going back to stock if this thing is going to hurt my truck at all.

I do plan on getting an Edge Insight very soon to monitor temps.

 

If I experienced what you did AFTER installing this programmer, I would remove it. I would bet the canned tunes are not agreeing with the VGT vane movement and to put it bluntly, these motors HATE canned tunes....just my opinion. The only tuner for these trucks was the superchips 1704A a few years ago and now the SCT with custom tunes written to your specific truck.

 

I wouldn't have a tuner set on stage 2 of any type on these trucks without gauges first. Depending on how you drive the truck with your new found power, you could be doing some damage. Even stock, you could be doing some damage without knowing your engine vitals.

How big is your exhaust? Tuning could be responsible for your low end "problems", but it also could be combined with having gone too big with your exhaust size as well(contrary to popular opinion that bigger is always better). It seems like you have done 2 things at once, so it's a little harder to narrow it down to any one of them, or it could be both.

 

I actually bought the truck with straight pipe, and I'm not sure what size, but it isn't much bigger than stock, just that the muffler and cat is gone. I'd say its 4" pipe if I had to guess. Not huge. I've had the truck a while and got a feel for how it drives before I added the tuner.

I thought I'd try stage 2 cause I didn't think I would even notice a difference with stage 1 adding 40hp. I do NOT romp on this truck, I have a drag car specifically for that....

But I also unplugged my EGR about the same time as I did the tune, I've read on here thats a good thing... but maybe these turbos need that extra back pressure? Maybe at my higher elevation things are different than most of you people closer to sea level.

 

If you are correct about the size then I would be concerned with the exhaust then.

You'll notice 40HP in that big of a truck, however, since Ford from the factory already had these things on tight specs performance wise, I wouldn't run anything without knowing accurately the engine vitals. You might actually have another issue going on that the tuner might bring to your attention pretty quickly. May or may not be caused by the tuner, but it'll bring it to your attention sooner whether then later.

Contrary to popular belief, the EGR systems are not this malevolent being that plagues these engines. There are a lot of misconceptions about the EGR system, how to handle the EGR system in a diesel truck versus a gas engines.

Let's put it this way, I'm at 508HP(which takes a lot more mods then tuning and exhaust alone) and I still have the stock EGR and Oil Cooler as well as the stock EGR valve. If you use the truck as a truck and don't idle it extensively you shouldn't have a problem out of the EGR system unless there is something left from production that is going to plug up the oil cooler which will ruin your EGR cooler. Irony is, even if you do unplug, delete, bypass the EGR system, you could still have an issue with the Oil Cooler, which is the main culprit behind the scenes, not the EGR in of itself.

 

Are you still running stock headstuds with 500hp?

So basically, the consensus would be tune back to stock and then run as far away from that programmer as possible? I only paid 200 bucks for it, I'm sure I can get my money back pretty easily.

 

Head bolts are stock, I'm running studs right now. I do still have stock gaskets though.


I would do custom tuning, but before any type of tuning that you do, get gauges first.

Some people have had good luck with hypertech, some haven't. That's mainly, in my opinion, due to the fact that they are canned tunes, not custom. Which means that they might work for you, but then again they might not. You take a chance.