i recently bought a 95, 4x4, e40d, 7.3. it has been taken care of well and is like new. i drive lot's, close to 100 miles a day and haul a few hundered pounds of tools in the bed. once in a while i'll tow something heavy.
my question is, should i get a preformance chip, is it safe for my motor, why didn't ford tune the motor to have more power and get better milage? I'm wondering if anyone has horror stories about chips or if you recomend any specific ones.

 

i am lookin into getting a chip when i gett he money and allmy gauges in. the chip it self owuldn't cause any damage that i have ever heard of its the right foot that does allt he damage.

 

egts are what result from the right foot........its not hard to hit 1222* with a chip.

 

just make sure you have gauges before you get a chip. that is the next buy i'm going to make and then a 6 pos chip.

 

I would not install any chip/tuner without at least having an EGT (exhaust gas temp) gauge. As 1997F-350 said, it's not hard to hit 1200* EGTs with a chip. Exceeding 1200* EGTs for an extended time period will damage aluminum engine parts. Most people don't like to ever exceed 1100*. To save myself a bunch of typing, I'll just copy and paste Phydeaux88 words from the "exhaust mod" thread. Thanks Phydeaux88.

"You don't need gauges before improving your exhaust and air intake systems. Improvements in those areas will only help your vital statistics not push them to new, more critical, levels. So first = new exhaust: 3" downpipe (most important), 4" pipe from downpipe back (it helps), gut/remove the kitty (a big help), remove muffler (your choice prbly not much help but it's worth 5 KOOL points). Second = replace stock air intake many choices here from a Ford aftermarket system to a home made open element, start a thread on this subject and you will get more info than you can assimilate.

At This point you need gauges because almost any other mod will adversely affect your EGT. You can get by with an EGT gauge the others are fun to look at, may give you some hints of trouble, and will get you 27 KOOL points but EGT will save your engine. If you tow or carry a significant load then Tranny temp is highly recommended. One point on the EGT there are two positions in which the probe can be mounted, pre turbo and post turbo, and arguments are made to support either choice. IMHO pre turbo is the only way to go (I know I just started a big bruhaha but that's my opinion). There is a lot of heat lost at the turbo and you dont know how much so there is inherent error in a post turbo probe. Just remember the error gets larger very quickly as you approach critical temperatures. Since the life of the engine is at stake I want to KNOW what the EGT is not guess at it.

Now you are ready for some serious Mods and a whole world of choices are out there from simple programmers to stage 3 injectors, throw in propane and/or nitrous and/or water injection and your mild mannered 97 PSD can become a real beast.

CAUTION: The Surgeon General has found Modding to be addicting and hazardous to your bank account."

Bottomline is, yes, you risk damaging your engine with a chip if you don't have a way of monitoring EGTs and backing off when getting close to 1200*. The open intake and exhaust help keep the EGTs down so you can add more fuel/power to the engine compared to a stock set-up.