Im planning on purchasing a 30' travel trailer. Does anyone know if its worth investing in a superchip to add performance? I drive a 2001 F 250 V-10 with 35" BFGs---4" Rancho Lift---Flowmaster Exhaust.

 

Super chip Micro tuner,you will like it.With those tires you might try a gear change to 4.30's if you dont have them already.Taller tires put your truck at slight disavantage as far as pulling.

 

Also if you have an auto trans -get a cooler to help the trans live.

 

I hear this "get a cooler" statement a lot. Is an additional cooler really necessary? The truck comes standard with a towing package and a trans cooler doesn't it? My father-in-law is pulling a 30' trailer with a Durango... I might suggest a cooler for him, but a SuperDuty??? Just wondering.

 

I know you hate my long posts so here is a short one!

Get an AUX cooler with fan and a good trans temp guage.

Why.... because if you have a 2000 or later 4r100 and never let the Mercon exceed 220F and it will outlive the V10!

Scorch the fluid once, and don't realize it.... buy a tranny!

 

So what's a good one to get? I'm figuring on the Autometer electric tranny temp guage, but what cooler? Does it replace the one that came in my truck or is it an addition?

Doug

 

Sky is the limit

The factory cooler is OK only if you can watch the temp closely and SLOW down when heat is building... if you want to keep motivating up the hill and smoke that Dodge diesels *** then you need to down shift to drive, hit the fan switch, bleed off heat and keep climbing the hill. An auxilary coller with fan ADDED to the factory system is needed.

Bone stock I could turn trans fluid very hot in less than 3 miles of up hill... with deep pan, small aux cooler, and a fan, I can pull the same hill with out slowing down and still keep fluid temp under 200F big *** grin right here!

I did not do a kit but cobbled together from stuff I had ( I race anything with wheels or wings!)

On the high end there are MagHitech(sp?) deep sump trany pans Summit and others sell the B&M brand pan.

Every catalog has cheap to expensive auxilary coolers with and with out fans some automatic others with a dash switch.

Plenty of room on the pass side for a good out of rocks location for the cooler, easy to run wires for fan power and switch. The factory trans cooler lines to the radiator area are easy to figure out and get to. Basic common sense plumbing/electrical skills needed.

Trans has a pipe fitting plug that can be removed and most temp guage sending units will fit easily there or you can plumb it in as part of the new cooler.

Several guys have posted how they did it, here and on the diesel site.... check if eurekaboy.com (Stan) has pictures.

Hope this helps

 

Great job... only 59 words! Then you had to go and type a text book for next reply I thought it was Harry Potter IV.

I hope you realize I am just kidding. Type all you want, I just hope the internet is big enough to store it all.

So, as coolers go, the factory transmission cooler is under sized for towing the loads that the truck is rated for? What a crock. I'm taking mine back.

Darn, now I better look into tranny coolers. Thanks for the info!

 

I don't have any specific evidence to really fault the factory cooler. All my past auto trans hauling machiens forced me to down shift and slow down to regulate engine and trany temps, especially on very long steep mountain passes.

The real problem is the adaptive learning module and the torque converter not staying locked up the hill. You just gotta believe the Ford engineers have sized the cooler for average conditions and not worst case.

With that in mind, remember my first para here. Ford and other owners manuals have always included, notes to watch temps and down shift/slow down.

I really don't think they had a clue that they were producing such an awesome truck (PSD and V10) and that us SuperDuty owners would drag 22,000 to 26,000lbs of stuff up a hill at 75mph!

I think Ford's biggest mistake is to have different internals for the 4R100 based on engine application. I wish I could have ordered the V10 with the PSD trans. (they are internally different)

On the other hand ......from a Ford bottom line perspective.... What percentage of F250/350 SuperDuty sales are really just Big *** status symbol driveway candy in a suburb?

I am sure we would all be suprised to learn that O'Riely is probably right and this (SuperDuty) is just another conspicous consumption toy lumped in with other Giant SUVs.

 

With those big tires you've really altered the towing capacity of the truck. The best thing would be 4.56 gears. The chips are OK but require permium fuel.

 

Did you order yours with a PTO option? That is the strongest version of auto tranny you can get with the V10.

 

i dont think 35's should warrant a change of gears for pulling. i pull a 27 footer with my 2000 V-10 on 38.5 swampers and 8 1/2" of lift with 3.73's and it does amazingly just fine. i also have the K&N FIPK and a dynomax exhaust system(which makes the truck sound very very tough). i am going to purchase a superchip which unfortunetley only produces about 25hp for our engines. that should be plenty enough. i also live in reno nv where the elevation is above 4000ft. but yes to answer your question if you got the money for the chip or the programmer, do it!!!

 

dcblue84

WOW! 8.5 lift, 38 swampers AND tow a 27 footer in the Reno area. Man I hope you upgraded the brakes!

Be carefull brother the GC being that tall, combined with trailer geometry can cause you a lot of grief in a emergency.

On the other hand.... not to sound too preachy, you have one very strong engine to haul all that with 38s and 3.73:1s

 

yes, i tow my waverunners and 27 footer very carefully. i have had no problems towing any of it, i have had to brake rather promptly sometimes and it feels great. i have redone all my brake pads and rotors at 40,000 miles not too long ago. but they were shot before i purchased the trailer. i have a tendancy to brake hard at the last minute like im driving 911 turbo!! well take care and i will post my truck with pics and all here in about a week or two. still trying to get this dig cam to work on my pc...and yes, my motor is really strong for some odd reason. i raced (and this is with my 38.5's and lift and all) a 1500 chevy with the 325cu motor getting on the freeway yesterday, man he thought he was gonna kick my butt and i sorta thought he would leave me too, but when it downshifted into 1st, it ripped my neck back and i shot out a small lead on him. he didnt catch up untill i was into at least third doin somewhere inbetween 60 -65. we then both pulled off at the next exit and he rolled down his window and he said for as big as of truck it was and it being a 1 ton, he couldnt believe how quick it got up to speed. i then asked him if he wanted to have a towing contest!!!!!! he turned that down...thankx bye