Hello everyone I have an 02 7.3 with 114k miles. I bought it from my dad so it has been well taken care if it’s whole life. I currently have an intake and a 4” exhaust on it and tow a 8k trailer with a rzr in the bed. I’m looking to upgrade to a 5th wheel and tow doubles. Truck does fine currently and goes everywhere in the mountains I need it to go (I live in Colorado). I would like a little more power out of it but obviously don’t want a transmission bill. I did put the 6.0 transmission cooler on it.

How hard on the truck and the transmission is a do tuner say plus20, 40, and 60 tow? Which one would be best and what other tunes would be good to get?

Thank You!!

 

Find the best price on a Hydra...start there.

 

anything over 60 HP increase is a waste because the stock injectors will not support more than 50-60 HP increase in tune.

 

I bought the DP tuner with the preloaded tunes, my main reason for going with DP was the deceleration tune that AFAIK isn't offered by other tuners. I normally run in the 60 or 80 hp daily tunes, using the 40 or 60 hp tow tunes with a 12k 5th wheel. I'm happy with what I have & the service that I got from DP too.
People say that you can't get more than 50-60 hp from stock injectors, but using Torque pro to log 0-60mph runs I'd say otherwise. Running the max 140hp tune brought the time down from just under 11 seconds to 8.0, that requires a lot more than 60 hp. ......using an online performance calculator puts the figure around 100hp.

 

but you also smoke like a 1800's coal locomotive in that 80 or 140 tune when you stomp on it.
in a 40 or 50 tune you will not see any smoke.

 

I've had my DP for years, E99 truck, I run in 60 all the time. I tow a 30 foot 5'r and a 10000 lb boat. No EGT problems and plenty of oomfff.

JS

 

I have a collection of logs that would counter your point, but I doubt either one of us have actually ran a log while on a dyno. I saw some numbers on a dyno in our area, and the numbers were stupid high, telling me his unit was out of calibration - leaving me with a lack in confidence in mobile dynos.

I've seen better 0-80 times on a 60 HP tune that an 80 HP tune by the same tune writer. I also know you can throw Torque under the bus to get a better HP number - I have felt the effect of this, and it sucks. If you click on the website where they sell the 140 HP tune and read the fine print, it will state you can't attain that number without engine mods.

 

If you are only looking for some mild improvement then IMO your bet is to get a Hydra as Dan V mentioned and play around with the free PHP library that comes with it. There's a lot to choose from. Nothing says you can't run a towing tune as your daily driver, a daily driver tune as your towing tune, and so on. Depending on your foot will depend on how hard you run the truck. Any number in the tune higher than "65" and you're getting aggressive if you ask me. Regardless of how much extra "horsepower" is left, how the tuning delivers that fuel will be different between tunes, whether it delivers it all before the injection cycle ends or not.

Tugly gave a great analogy some time ago. Our system are not common rail like the newer trucks so there is not an infinite amount of fuel available at all times. Our injectors have a chamber that holds a specific amount of fuel (for your 2002 truck your stock injectors each hold 140CC of fuel). There is a plunger that pushes the fuel through the nozzle and into the cylinder during the injection cycle. The injector cannot refill until the injection cycle is done therefore there is a finite amount of fuel that can be injected per event. This is similar to a Windex bottle that cannot refill the pumping chamber until you release the trigger. Common rail is like a garden hose...you can spray as much as you want since the hose is pressurized and you are only limited to how long you can spray for detonation. This is why some people go with a "larger" injector that holds more fuel. There's plenty of other threads to read if you are curious about that rabbit hole.

Whatever you decide on, though, I HIGHLY recommend an exhaust gas temperature (EGT) gauge. Once you depart the original factory programming this will be a critical point to monitor and your truck did not come with one. 1250F is the steady state limit and you won't want to exceed that often (if at all), and even then no more than 30 seconds or so. It seems pretty high but you would be surprised how quick EGTs climb with aftermarket tuning, even with stock injectors.