So even though it's your opinion, you're stating as fact that the Evolution devices are prone to failure. For what it's worth, ANY programmer can and will fail during communications depending on the age of the PCM and the accuracy of the internal clock. Yes, Edge had some DLC cable failures but to my knowledge, Edge has made good on all problems caused by the cables.

I will leave this statement alone ONLY if you can provide me with a link to a "CHIP" that Edge makes. Edge only deals with flash programmers (like your Infinity) and inline "fueling modules", aka, "Juice". Otherwise, your "not a fan of chips" statement is misguided.

I don't toot my own horn, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and shouldn't comment at all about this unless you have seen the tuning, driven the tuning, and hopefully have some inkling of an understanding about what goes on with all of the pretty lines and colors on a computer screen in regard to tuning.


There is a HUGE difference in the way different people write calibrations for these. Until you know what is actually going on, I'll ask you politely to please stop spreading misinformation.

 

I tend to want to believe that, as it is logical that different people will do a complex task differently. However, I think its only fair that you expand on that, and "back it up" as you have called others out for.
I'm not asking you to reveal fine-detail "secrets" (although, if you don't sell tunes commercially, what do you have to protect/hide?), but I think many of us would really like to know how/what tuners may do/approach differently. Having a better understanding of how tuners can approach the same problem differently may make for more educated consumers ( and "better" enthusiasts), and help to eliminate much of the misinformation/misunderstanding.

 

It was a Juice with Attitude. It failed twice. They replaced the first one at half price with a newer model. It failed 2 months later. They would not replace that one except at retail, but offered to diagnose whats wrong with it since the new model was serviceable. I'm in Canada, so cost was about the same for that service with shipping etc. For what, 2 more months. No thanks.

All the guys I know who tune trucks. Tune there own trucks, and race them for fun kinda like a club. So , yes there tunes work great. They make great power and they all argue all the time whos methods are better. More than half of them have similar or the same engine build I did, and more than half of them blow my doors off all the time. So there tunes must be equal or better than Jodys. Not cutting Jody at all. I think hes great. My friends have the advantage of live tuning there trucks, while Jody got me close to the same by emailing me tunes until I liked the way it ran. I'm sure if Jody was live tuning my truck my buddys would have alittle more competition. So live tuning is the key for perfection. And no, they can't tune my truck because Jody encrypts his work obviously, so they can't touch it. And they cant access the infinity to make me a new tune either, unless I buy Jodys programmer system, which is well out of my budget at the moment. He does have one on his site. At least that's what I thought I saw while shopping, near the bottom, a data programmer thingy.

No I don't understand the pretty lines etc. But actually when I watch my friends play, there are no pretty lines. Its a screen with a massive grid of numbers, they say is the fuel mapping of there run, and they change those numbers to try new set ups. There are other screens they alter too, but as said. Havn't a clue what stuff. They then run it and look at the pretty lines to see if the changes worked. So I don't know how to program, but have lots of experience watching good programmers play.

One last thing. I have an Edge on my mustang and it works great. But that's a completely different world. So like gas chips, no luck with diesel chips. Juice with Attitude is quote over the phone with Edge to be a chip. So you may want to check there site again. They have a few products now a days. Lol

 

If it plugs into the the OBD2 port (where a diagnostic scanner would plug in), it is NOT a chip. It is a "tuner" or "flash programmer".

If it plugs into the J3 port on the PCM itself, then it is a "chip".

 

Ok, better call Edge and tell them they are wrong about there product then. The juice with attitude plugs into the usb for gauges only. It does not flash. To flash you must stop, shut off, and change tune by flashing. A roughly two minute process. A chip, is shift on the fly. The Juice uses usb for gauges, and has a jumper plug on all the sensors. Edge calls it a piggy back chip. It takes the signal from the pcm, re roots It threw the edge, and sends its own mapping to the motor for power. Your pcm then throws a code and an engine light comes on. If it were flashed you would not get a code because the pcm reads what it sent, not what edge sent. Call them up. They can bring you up to speed. A chip does the same thing. Infinity does flash, but the hub allows me to attach multiple chips to it. Can have the best of both worlds with that.

 

Sometimes you just read stuff on the internet that makes you laugh your a$$ off.

 

 

This has been discussed at great length over the years on all the diesel forums. It usually ends in a pissing match, feelings get hurt, and threads are closed.

On a public forum, someone that writes tunes can talk about what they do without any problems. Start talking specifics about other tuners, then you get into areas of liability issues, lawsuit possibilities, etc. Some years ago, I read a thread where 2 well known tuners were openly discussing their tuning ideas, and it was between those 2. They never brought up anybody else. I will also say this, some of the others did briefly chime in, but never offered anything substantial on the topic at hand. That took place on a different forum BTW.

 

Respectfully, one would ask the question "How does it detect slip?" Slip is when one wheel or more is turning at a different speed than one or more of the others. There are three speed sensors on the truck: Rear, front left, and front right. ABS reacts to slip or skid and adjusts the brakes accordingly. I won't pretend to know if it compares wheel rotation or rate of deceleration to detect a skid - because ABS won't activate when stopped (same tire rotation as a full four-wheel skid). In order for me to adjust tire size with AE, I must connect to the ABS module, not the powertrain. The ABS module is where all the speed calculations take place, and thus... the odometer is effected here.

Example 1: Tuner A will trigger an SES light on a regular basis. In order to counter the phone calls, they disable the ability of a P1211 to trigger the SES. The problem is not gone, but there's no alarms in the driver's face. The advent of AE, Torque Pro, Infinity, and many other easily-attainable code readers in recent years has exposed this little nugget. How many P1211 threads did we get before everybody loaded up with AE and Torque Pro?

Example 2: Tuner B front-loads the throttle to give that "Yahoo" factor, but doesn't leave anything in reserve at the bottom of the throttle. What this means is you get a real 2/3 or 3/4 throttle when your foot is 1/4 of the way down. It feels cool to have gobs-O-goop with a light foot, but that leaves the 2/3 foot to floor leaving you feel like "Uh... where's my acceleration?"

Example 3: Tuner C Balances the throttle and sets the shifts for a friendly in-town experience. 1/4 foot is 1/4 throttle, and WOT is like 120% of stock WOT.

Example 4: Tuner D hits the shifts with neck-snapping power. This gives the impression that you are absolutely locked in, with nothing slipping when you get on it. This is really old-think, though. When you compare programmable transmissions vs. the old mechanical transmissions - you can ease into a good lock with the newer stuff, without the need for a slam.

One other point: Ask yourself this one very key question - "If tunes/tuners are all alike, why does each tuner provide a whole array of tunes?" If a tuner can change their own technique, why would it be so incredible that different tuners have different approaches?

 

Interesting facts. I never knew that about ABS. I assumed that monitoring and running the system off of speed data would be very difficult and costly to produce, when just monitoring changes in speed and not the speed itself would be much easier and cheaper, and result in the same. What I mean is it doesn't matter if your doing 100 or 60, if it senses a change in speed unconsistant with the other wheels, then it will pulse. The pulse is the same at all speeds, so it doesn't need speed to adjust the pulse rate, its always the same. So it doesn't make sense to have a system that manages all the different speeds and makes adjustments to match speed. Its unnecessary and a waste of programming. Unless the system needed to adjust pulse rate to speed, which it doesn't. But now that you tell me it also effects the odometer, then it makes sense that they just combined two modules into one to save money and spent it on programming instead. Makes it complicated, but saves on modules I guess.

 

DP does have good customer service...to a point. Everyone has their limitations. If you haven't experienced a problem then that is great luck for you. That and $5 should get you at least a cup of coffee at your favorite diner. There are others who have not been as lucky. I am certain that everyone has had good and bad experiences with most of the sponsors/vendors on this site. What would be more helpful is if you would state how many different tune writers you have purchased tunes from and actually run in both pavement queen mode and full out work mode. That is where the rubber meets the road. Since you have the INFINITY maybe you should log the data from your truck and submit it to Tugly for analysis. Anything less from you is subjective and anecdotal at best. The data will tell us about your tunes and how much experience you have with judging good tunes.
The devil is in the details.

Everyone has a different perspective on what equates to getting screwed...if you pay for something based upon the promise that the vendor can sell you their product and it will not cause problems and fix it in the rare case that it does cause an issue and then fails to deliver and won't issue a refund...well...how would you feel?

@Absolute: To further this point: any tuner can create a smokey, smelly, low power, hot turd of a tune...on brand new or old worn-out injectors, turbo, HPOP and etc....if you don't believe it...you haven't tried some of the available "drive-thru/stealth" tunes from some of the vendors. Have you ever logged data from one? Have you ever compared that data to various different tunes from various different vendors to see what some of the common denominators are? If not, you have an INFINITY....why not?

So, if a tuner can write a tune to accomplish the above, what else can they do?

Could a tuner write a tune to artificially/unnecessarily increase either IPRDC or ICP or both simultaneously and hold it there until the HPOP falls flat on its face to make it seem as though you need a new HPOP? How about effecting boost with fueling so that it looks like you need injectors or a turbo? Then when all of the above are replaced and something is still amiss, you then need live tuning on a dyno....well, by this point most are $5000-8000 into the fray...and this will cost an additional $400-600.

How about a combo of the above coupled with the timing of IDM along with fuel and the amount? How about increasing injector noise? Why are some tunes by certain tuners louder than others? How many different DTC's could a tune writer cause?

I can tell you that they can cause a ton of them. I learned this back in the late 90's early 2000's with a gold colored rectangle that plugged directly into the PCM. Then, later, I had Superchips, then an Edge Product etc.

Now, I am not suggesting that any one of them is that unscrupulous; however if one or more were, there would be a definite pattern that would be established that would lead to a somewhat predicable upgrade path that would leave evidence. It would almost always have to begin with and rely on tuning. They would also most likely sell all of the stuff needed for the upgrade path to maximize their profit.

This is one 'tiny' reason why everyone on here that has “esoteric” knowledge and has experience will always suggest that tuning comes LAST after you have a totally healthy truck. Why throw parts at something that ain't broke when you could be fixing the stuff that is?

Then, with a healthy truck, if suddenly you have problems out of the yin yang after installing a chip, you know exactly where to point the finger...and you should know within a short enough period of time to get a full refund.

This is why, and there are many other reasons, it is healthy for everyone to be able to be open about their experience(s) with a vendor(s) without having to worry about being flamed.

Within my family and friends there are five of these trucks w 7.3's. We have or have had DP Tuner, Gearhead, Tony, Bill, Brian and some other dudes tunes plus those from the above mentioned companies. They are not all created equally. I have data logged from most of them, yes, even the old gold bar.

So, I can say that there are some very close similarities between all of the problematic tunes. What I cannot do is access the base code and do a comparison. I am not that gifted. How much of the base code from the tunes that have the same old tired issues would be identical?...all the way back 5 years or 10 or 15 even. cleatus12r had a post referencing this not too long ago. He called it “copy and paste” IIRC.

 

I'm not sure what your telling me here. But I agree with all that tune talk. That's what I have said all along. I know 20 guys, all different tuners, all there trucks run differently and built differently. I judge there ability by the way there truck performs, not by the pretty lines. Who knows if they are killing there motors. They don't seem to care, and theres have been going a lot longer than my new build. As far as DP Tuner goes, If you look back to the start of this, I was only defending him and his product from an unhappy customers comments by stating I loved his products. So I agree with you. Edge gave me terrible product, and support, So I hate there products, DP gave me outstanding support and products. That said the support went on for almost a year correcting things to get right. Like said live tuning is the bomb, and the best results. Jody did not come to Canada to tune my truck, he did it by email and phone. I also get free adjustments or alterations on tunes for life. What a deal! So fine you don't like him, but to me he is a god at this because my truck performs darn near the same as the live tuned friends trucks, gets better mileage, and is much quieter, and the power is throughout, no low end or top end bag out like some tuners. So if he can do by email against live tuning. Then he is a god to me. The other guys on this site seem happy with there systems too, which again supports my comments that lots of people can be gods with these trucks. One other reason I liked my tuning is the extra safety parameters Jody installs to protect guys like me from killing there trucks. On my hottest tune, if the motor is cold, it wont go. Acts almost stock. As it warms up it releases more power until it reaches a certain temp, then it lets me go. Saved my motor a few times I suspect when my ego took over and I hammered it when cold to catch a loser. Never caught him, because Jody's safety parameters saved my motor. Thanks Jody!! Your the best.

 

What would be more helpful is if you would state how many different tune writers you have purchased tunes from and actually run in both pavement queen mode and full out work mode. That is where the rubber meets the road. Since you have the INFINITY maybe you should log the data from your truck and submit it to Tugly for analysis. Anything less from you is subjective and anecdotal at best. The data will tell us about your tunes and how much experience you have with judging good tunes.
The devil is in the details.

Your Edge experience does not count.

I re-read what I wrote above and I did not state that I don't like him. I think he is a decent fellow.

EXACTLY!!!!!!! You are spot on. If you have a pavement queen, then maybe, just maybe, this year long process works while you live with high ICP, hard shifts, smoke, EGT's that have to be actively managed.

Who has the time or the patience for this year long process of dealing with any of this from anybody regardless of who the tuner is? Let me see a show of hands....

Plus, during all of this, I'll bet the return period for a refund has expired....

BUT, if you or your family or both rely on the truck for your livelihood, then you don't have time for this nonsense especially considering the fact that some tuners will get it 99.9% correct on the first set of tunes...thru email and the US mail or equivalent.

And this has now become circular....and you made our point.

Are these not native in the stock tuning?

 

Do you remember which forum? I would be interested in reading the content.

 

Just a snippet and I highlighted the areas I'm asking about.

Is this true? The AE I know is Windows based. Does Inifinity really have AE built in, or just similar features

Listen, if you're happy with your tuner hardware, tunes, and service, great- tell us about it and why you like it

Don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about that. As a matter of etiquette, most are quite careful to tout different contrasts or other opinions, but never directly say one thing isn't good or another is. Saying you have a preference and why isn't always "correct" but it's polite and not generally an issue.

As far as the comparison of some of the "top tier" tuners (at least from what I've read of tuners other than my favorite) to your buddies, we don't know your buddies. But, the names being thrown around are consistently the ones who rise to the top when tuning discussions come up. They have pretty much earned their wings, so to speak

Now if your buddies have really good tunes, I'd love to see some WOT logs and see how the graphs look. They may be onto something new, or just a really good combination. Some people have natural talent

I have great respect for those who have real skills at anything and like to appreciate their work.

I'm not doubting you are pleased with your choices and have pointed out some pros of the system you're using. But there are a few assertions stated as facts that don't sound quite right. Maybe we'll all learn something by asking the questions.

If you don't mind, can you elaborate on this AE being built into Infinity? I don't remember reading that