Tuner or gears
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Tuner or gears
I pull an 18' toy hauler up to the mountains in So Cal a couple times every year. The road going up is fairly steep and curvy. My '12 f250 6.2l with 3.73 gears does fine except in a couple spots where the grade gets real steep and goes into a hair pin turn at the same time. I have to slow down to about 15mph to make the turn which drops my rpms way down and I lose all my torque. When I mash my foot to the floor it drops to 1st and I can maintain speed until it levels out, which isn't that far. I'm going to try manually shifting before the turn and hopefully go into it with higher rpms but I'd really like to improve the performance so I can eventually get a slightly larger trailer. My first thought was change gears to 4.30 because it seems like I need a gear lower than first. But then I was reading that the 6.2 doesn't open the throttle body all the way until you reach 4000 rpm. Now I'm wondering if a tune would help by opening the throttle body more at lower rpms? I've never ran a tune so this is all new to me. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cargo Master
Joined: Jan 2015
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From: Boise
There are several threads about this same question in the 6.2 section. I run a tuner and it really helped with the throttle response. I am on the fence about getting 4.30 on my next gas SD, but most say it is by far the best thing you can do to the 6.2 if you tow. I do think the gears will make a bigger difference for you, but at a lot more cost. I got my tuner for about $415 though 5star with 3 tunes. For me the tuner was my first choice because I can take it to my next truck if that happens. IMO, for one rare instance in your towing drive that you have troubles, I would go for the tuner first. 5star offers tow tunes that are very well received.
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I went ahead and ordered an x4 with 3 tunes from 5 Star this afternoon. We won't be getting a bigger trailer until next year at the earliest anyway. I can play with the tuner and get a few more pulls up that same road with my current trailer and maybe figure out if the tuner will work for a bigger trailer or if I do have to regear.
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I've got 275/70/17 on right now. It came with 245/75/17.
Mountain Pass
Joined: Feb 2016
Posts: 150
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From: Los Angeles
That's close enough to the stock tire size. Let us know how the tuner works. I got one this week too. I hope to try it out ASAP.
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fordfarmer12
1999 - 2016 Super Duty
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Feb 27, 2012 09:23 AM
