I did a search and didn't really come up with anything conclusive so here goes. I'm looking at a 6 position for my newly pruchased 7.3. It's completely stock minus the 6637 mod which I recenty did. From what I read it looks like our trucks are pretty much limited to a max of somewhere around a 60hp gain with stock injectors, agreed? With that being said if a guy had no intentions of going with bigger injectors why would anyone order a chip with 80, 100, or 120+hp options? On paper one would think the Power Hungry guys have a better deal with their, "whisper, lope,and high idle" options because of this. What are your thoughts? Pro's and cons of each? My goals with the truck are to be able to tow a 7600lb trailer 3 times a year and also to drive it here and there when the weather is nice. Thanks guys!

 

TS tunes are like buying one size fit all pants.
It works well for some but sucks for others

My advice would be to go with PHP and get tunes that you would actually use.

With stock sticks you'll see a mX of 60-65hp

The only benefit to getting a 80hp or higher tune would be the different shift points. (E40D)

I had TS tunes and PHP. The PHP were much better.

With the TS tunes all I noticed was a real touchy go pedal, high EGT's and WOT was at 50% of the go pedal

 

I might have to try PHP

 

Glenn I liked the PHP tunes but ended up with BTS tunes cause I was never happy with the smoke level. But keep in mind I was running 180/80 with a stock turbo

 

Man all this talk of 180/80 just makes my head spin. Just when I get a TS installed in my truck, I find out one is better than the other. Just kidding, but it makes me laugh. Anyways, carry on!

 

I've read nothing but good things about PHP's tuning. It's the service that got me. To each his own.

 

Glenn, I've ran php since I started this truck build. Only reburn was shortly after I got it, the tunes were messed up a little according to Jim so I sent it back to him. I haven't touched the chip in 4+ years. I talk about trying other tunes, but don't know if I will ever get around to it.

I've never dealt with php directly.

 

It's fairly common practice for places like PHP and other custom tuners to include tunes greater than 60 hp for the older trucks for a future upgrade to Stage-1 injectors. If you have stock injectors then stay in the lower tune settings. If you ever have your injectors worked on (I don't charge any more for Stage-1 build than a stock build) and go to Stage-1's then your tunes are there and ready to rock up to about 140 hp over stock.

If you never plan to go with big injectors (not sure why anyone would not with an older truck, there is a lot of hp to gain) then focus on filling out your 6 tunes with other stuff like No Start, High Idle, Valet, etc.

You will not notice anything with the Lope tune and stock or Stage-1 injectors, unless they have changed things in the past few years. But then why would you want your truck to sound like a hot-rod when you only have stock injectors and the truck can barely get out of it's own way anyway...

For places like TS and others, tunes greater than 60 hp or so are absolutely pointless and are not custom tailored to Stage-1's.
Just go with PHP, you'll be happy you did.

 

If you're going to get PHP tunes anyways, it may not be a bad idea to get their Hydra chip. You'll have access to all of their canned tunes for stock injectors that way and you will have the option of burning custom tunes to the chip in the future without even pulling the chip out of the PCM.

I'm running a PHP Hydra in my new truck and the only thing that I dislike is the switch for it. The rest of the setup is a home run. The price is right, you get access to quite a few tunes to try out from PHP, you can receive/install tunes from many different tuners, and the Hydraflash software to burn tunes onto the chip is incredibly EASY to use.

 

Great info! I appreciate it. Obviously with my questions you can tell I'm completely new to the diesel game so I'm going to throw another one out there. Please don't laugh When we start talking stage 1,2 etc... with the injectors what exactly does that mean? Is that just like going from say a 42lb injector to a 60lb injector on a gas engine? Just a difference in pintle size so when the injector fires it's allowing more fuel to pass? With that being said, it it mandatory to upgrade a fuel pump on our trucks when injectors are upgraded or can the stock pump(s) (I don't even know if there are more than 1) do the job? Thanks for all your patience!

 

Something like that.
Stock injectors are 90cc of fuel stageI's are 160cc with stock nozzles

You have one fuel pump and a hpop (high pressure oil pump)

The stock fuel pump can handle stageI's

The hpop can too but can benefit from a upgrade (T500)

 

This will help you understand how the 7.3 works
Ask a Mechanic - A deep look at the 7.3L Power Stroke

 

Edit! Thanks for your last post.

 

Thanks guys for the info, I'll put PHP on my winter list, LOL

 

I was totally amazed with the t500, quicker turbo spooling, more throttle response. I have a set of stage 1's from Jim but I ran out of time to get them in and now I am out of town for 2 weeks. at this rate they will be out of warranty before I get to run them.