OK guys, it's almost 1 AM, and I've been searching all over, but I can't find the definitive answer I'm looking for, so please help me out here.

Today, my wife and I brought home our (her) new baby, 01 CCLB 4x4 7.3 4R100, 252k. PO included in the sale the Bully Dog Triple Dog programmer that has been installed on the truck, according to him, set on the 75 HP setting. Truck is bone stock except the muffler was cut out and a pipe welded in place (sounds great!!). I told her that it needed to be reset to the stock setting until I could get a better intake and a set of gauges, just so we know exactly what's going on in there. She gave me the usual wife response, "You're not touching anything on my truck!!" But, she also gave me a chance, saying if I could prove to her via my forum (the best forum out there) that it was a bad idea to leave the tuner on the truck in its current state, she would let me take it out.

So, with that being said, please help me convince my wife that I am right (for once) and that it needs to be set back to stock. What would happen if we just run it the way it is???

 

Not only should you reset the tuner to stock, you should remove it completely. The Bully Dog tuner uses generic tuning techniques to perform the changes it makes, none specific to your truck, and with very little research to that specific motor. Thats just the type of build you get by a company who makes a product for EVERY motor out there. They simply cannot test every one of them.

The end result is a sloppy tune that increases exhaust gas temperatures, cylinder temperatures, pressures, and timing, and not in a good way.

Yes, you should get a set of gauges. But honestly the intake is probably fine. Drop in an OEM paper filter and that will serve you well with mild tunes. Other options are available though, such as the 6637 and AIS which will also do just fine.

After you have torn out the generic tuner, you need to contact on of the specialist tuners that work specifically on powerstrokes and 7.3s.

DP-Tuner, PHP, and Gearhead to name a few.

 

My wife ran Bully Dog 75 hp calibration in her truck for about a year. Stock intake, stock exhaust with muffler delete. No issues.

 

Empty, I wouldn't think it is a "necessity" to remove it, if you plan on towing or hauling heavy then I would want gauges for sure then.

 

If it was me I would leave it on and drive, if you plan on towing with the truck I would get some gauges installed so you can see what it going on with the engine and trans, and to keep from getting it too hot if you are towing and pulling hills with the loud pedal mashed.

I have Superchip programmers on both of my 7.3's, the 80 hp setting on my f450 ( the hottest one offered by the Cortex tuner) and the 110 hp installed on my wifes Excursion ( the highest offered by the 1705 tuning device.) I have had the one on the F450 for the past 3 years with no gauges and no real problems. The Excursion is due to get the gauges installed after I get the new exhaust installed this next week. I am leery of towing with it but since the trailer is less then 5K lbs I am not really worried about it. My Brother inlaw has the exact same Bully dog tuner on his 02 Excursion with no gauges, running the same tune and has for the past 3 years with no issues at all, I really don't think the lower hp tunes are that hard on the trans.

I testdrove an X that had the Edge Extreme tune on it and it shifted really hard, and hauled a$$, so I would agree that the Edge tuners are hard on equipment.

You are going to get a lot of "advice" on this site telling you that it is hard on transmissions, as it is not custom tuned for your PCM. While it is true there are better tuners out there, unless you need to have the ability to change calibrations on the fly... I would keep your current tuner and just get some gauges on it before hooking up to a larger trailer, and then, if you have drive-ability issues, I would look to other programming options. Most of the other tuners you will need to have gauges installed anyway.

 

seeing what kind of exhaust temps are easily hit with tose generic tuners, i would not drive the truck until it was disabled and returned to stock or a pyrometer is installed.
and then i would remove it and install a chip.
if for no other reason because i do not like computer re-programing tuners.

 

If you don't have anything nice to say (or TRUTHFUL for that matter), don't speak as though you know what you're talking about. The reason these false accusations keep resurfacing is that some people just hold on to this garbage information and bring it up every few weeks.

 

Wow! I have something to contribute here... because I have actually seen a programming map for the Bully Dog. I wouldn't let that program touch my truck. Mind you, I'm not a tuning expert... but I understand the systems and I know just enough to recognize a problem when I see it - like when you look at two different types of gauges:





VS.





If you asked your wife to promise she'll never do anything with the right pedal to hurt the truck... she may be compelled to ask "How will I know?" With at least proper EGT and transmission temperature gauges (with alarms), you can tell her "Let up when you see a red light".

When these trucks were new, it wasn't such a big deal... but they're not new. An exhaust/boost leak or something else going awry in the aging truck can make things get weird... and she'd want to know it before the weirdness turns bad/expensive.

 

i have not run the bulldog but i did run a super chip, and the egts where higher than with BTS tunes. just driven it was not a problem but towing and they would climb fast even in the low tow setting.
so i say you need gauges or pull it out until you do.

also are you 100% sure it is a tow tune it could be in a hot tune then you can really hurt it.

 

Ditto.

I know it doesn't take much to get into a pissing match so ill keep it short and sweet then hold my tounge.

You didn't really provide any additional information to the OP or the usefulness if this thread, just stomped on my post. I know you know your tuning, I'm not belittling that.

My point is that they don't test the 7.3 on the scale that say PHP does. They can't, they just have too many motors to program for.

Unless you know something I don't about them. But you didn't add anything the first time round.

 

I don't remember anything about your original post in this thread that contributed to the original poster's concerns about needing monitoring hardware before actually driving the truck either. It was nothing but a slam-fest centered around buying a different brand of technically "generic" (as people like to call it ) tuning. I mean, we are talking about a stock truck here.

Yes. You saw what was on an old chip, not a newer flash programmer though. It was likely written using a binary editor instead of a GUI (or a GUI with terrible addressing correlations). If one were to take a look at some current flash programs (or older Evo stuff) and some tuning that is being sold (TODAY!!) by people who just copy/paste other folks' stuff because they have no idea what they're doing, you'll find that they're just a bit rough around the edges compared to more....uh....less "generic" stuff.

 

So what is your answer to his question Cleatus? Should he tell her it's okay to run the Bully Dog with stock intake and stock exhaust, albeit without a muffler, without having a pyro gauge? Would you tell your wife have at it?

 

I am a little bit interested in Cody's response as well. I wonder if the Bully Dog Triple Dog programmer is nearly identical to the Bully Dog Power Pup. If so, then I'd say the OP can leave it in his wife's truck without too much concern. I say this because I ran the BD Power Pup programmer on my own truck for about 5 years in the 50 hp setting and I worked the truck very hard, sometimes towing very heavy (about 24,500 lbs gross) and I never had any EGT issues. The first 3 years I didn't even have an EGT gauge...just transmission temp and boost.

The 75 hp setting would likely be able to create a little bit more heat than the 50 hp setting but it's still probably not anything to freak out about. My wife ran the 75 hp setting for about a year and I never gave it a second though. Her truck does have gauges....but she never looks at them. The only two gauges she EVER looks at are the speedometer and fuel level indicators. The EGT could be at 1600 degrees and she would never know it nor do anything about it. I've driven her truck a bit aggressively once or twice and the BD calibration doesn't seem to be over the edge.

That being said....
It's no secret that I am not a fan of the Bully Dog programming. I ran it for a long time because I basically didn't know anything better was available....or I was just too lazy to try something different. My 2 main gripes with the Bully Dog programmer are that I didn't like how it changed the values for things like Manifold Gauge Pressure and I didn't like how the engine rattled at WOT on a cold engine. My suspicions has been the SOI is too aggressive on a cold engine. No way to prove that....just my hunch.

Eventually I found a tuning company who said they can give me a switch on the fly type chip that I can run on my stock engine without having to change a bunch of hardware so I gave them a try and I've been happy with that product. (PHP) It was at that point when I moved the Bully Dog programmer over to my wife's truck for no other reason than because I already owned it and I didn't want to put it on a shelf and let it collect dust.

I later purchased another truck and it came with a Bully Dog flip chip and I really didn't like that thing. I ended up removing the chip and driving around in the stock calibration instead. Eventually I ordered another PHP PHX chip and shortly afterwards had my injectors rebuilt. Now that truck runs pretty well.

A while ago, I secretly removed the Bully Dog programmer from my wife's truck and waited for her to say something. She never noticed anything had changed so I listed the programmer on eBay and auctioned it off. My wife loves her truck, even on stock calibration so who am I to rain on her parade? For the most part she probably drives in a fairly sensible fashion...at least while using her truck. If she feels like a more 'spirited' drive, then she usually grabs a different set of keys. Either my truck or maybe one of the cars. Both cars are manual transmission V8 engines so they usually get run pretty hard. She tore up the transmission mount on the Pontiac for the second time so now I put a polyurethane mount in there and hopefully that will last a bit longer. I know she drives my truck pretty hard as well (my daughter fills me in on the stories...) but I don't really mind. She can't hurt that thing. And even if she did, I'll just fix it and motor on.

 

I'd run it and since my EX-wife can go take a leap off of a cliff as far as I'm concerned, I don't care what she does. I DID swap the PMT1 computer that was in the truck (that she took) for an NVK2 just before she stole it from me (and I left it stock). She didn't like that. Oh well.

That being said, I've run a lot of stuff that is out there. A lot of it is shady....but not "unsafe" by any means. Since my current SuperDuty isn't exactly "generic tune" accepting anymore, I have to resort to using the work trucks as test mules. It works out better that way. I have numerous trucks available to me with both transmission options from E1999 through 2002.

Since we've strayed a few miles from the original intent of this thread, I'd like to conclude by saying that if the guy's wife is planning on daily-driving the truck and keeping any loads down to about 4-5K lbs. or less, then she'll be fine with the PCM programmed to the 75 HP setting without any EGT monitoring capability.

As far as the stock intake and exhaust. By all means, run it. I finally opened up my 250/200s a bit on ALL STOCK equipment and I surely wouldn't worry about a measly ~270 RWHP on stock stuff that his truck MIGHT be making with that programmer.

 

Aha...I see. That explains some things.