loosen up bud...

Tuners are not the "new" way of doing things just a different way of doing it.

Remember just because you have experience with a tuner that not everything else is junk, talk from experience not from what you hear and read.

Question for you, do you know why someone might want a chip over a tuner? give you a hint, shift on the fly...

 

Technically speaking, if it's a different way of doing something, then there is a good chance that it is a "new" way of doing something. Modules have been around a lot longer then tuners, then tuners came along, now the ends might be the same but it's the means that they go about it is fairly new. Just because modules(or chips) have been a round along time and in past engine configurations has been quite successful, doesn't mean that they still work now with the same rate of success.

If I've got a good portion of those people report problems with something that fits the same type of engine that I have, I'm not going to disregard what they say and go out and take a chance that it might work for me, vehicles are too much of an investment nowadays to have that kind of lax attitude. Now I'm not going going to totally based my decision on what they say, but I'm not going to disregard it right off the bat until there is reason for me to do so. In some instances, learning from the mistakes that you make isn't the way to go, when it comes to costly investments I would rather learn from someone else's mistake then my own. Technically speaking I didn't say all tuners were better then modules(further explaination forecoming coming), so that's a little bit of a strawman fallacy on your part, and on your part about my not having experiance with modules, just because I don't have experiance with modules doesn't not logically mean that what I am saying is not correct(that would be an ad hominem fallacy)(those always rear their ugly heads, I'm sure I'm going to get some groans and eye rolling when people read that).

Question for you did you know that there are tuners that are shift on the fly or atleast advertise themselves as such? Give you a hint, there are. I also used to have one of those tuners as well. Now when I went to do custom injector work and all the stuff in my siggy, I found out that I had warped heads, machine shop hat to take off I believe it was .0003 off the passenger side, all that for a tuner that had shift on the fly and something that I had to get rid of because I didn't think I would do custom work that would mean custom tunes, expensive lesson learned. It was nice for awhile, but once you find that one program that you like to drive round with most of the time, your going to stick with that program, so what good is shift on the fly at that point? Other then the occasional wild hair, it doesn't serve much good. Another question for you, would you get a product that has had problems in order to have that novelty of shift on the fly v. a product that has not had as many bad things happen to people's trucks(unless the tuner(the person, not the device) they were dealing with was a hack or some type of driver error or the owner didn't do supporting mods like stud the head when they got a bigger turbo or bigger injectors) and have less of a chance of something bad happen?

 

According to Ford and it says this right in the owners guide... Any tuner you put on these trucks is detectable by Ford, even if they are removed. They claim it leaves an unerasable sign in the PCM. I tend to believe them because I attended a fleet expo and had the occasion to attend some classes and speak with a couple of engineers regarding the capabilities of the newer PCM's and they can retain quite a bit of information. Most of what we talked about was regarding pre crash data and man you dont want to know what they can pull out of your PCM regarding that stuff. The only good thing at this point is that the stuff is proprietary and normally they wont release that info to anyone without the vehicle owners consent, or court order of course.

 

Okay lets clear the air here. There are different tuners for different applications. I personally looked very hard at the different tuners before I decided on one. I bought my edge tuner almost a year and a half ago. When I bought it I wanted to ensure the tuner was able to monitor the transmission temp, EGT, boost, and engine temp as a minimum. I was looking between the bully dog triple dog power pup and the edge. The bully dog one at the time did not have monitoring of transmission temps. This was a show stopper for me. With the edge you can set alarms with will defuel the truck for things such as EGT above 1250, transmission temp above 190 (this is where I set mine), you can set the shifts on the transmission for more pressure depending on percentage of load or firm all the time. I am not saying the edge is the best tuner out there. I am just saying these are the benefits of the edge tuner. I have heard good things about the SCT tuner. I personally wanted shift on the fly. I understand SCT now has a device out that you can do that with. One thing of concern to me though was in the October issue of Diesel power they tested an SCT on a F250 and stated the tune appeared to be working because the SCT tuner broke the tires loose at 50MPH?!! Um how is that good for your transmission?? As for the exhaust brake functionality of the SCT I would like to see that in action. I have read that due to the flimsy design of the VGT in the 6.0L that exhaust brakes cannot be used. This is due to the backpressure will warp the vanes. As to TEX's question about have you been under the hood looking for coolant leakage. I would venture to say that I am alot more attentive to my truck than most. I do not take anything to chance. I have personally placed marks on my overflow bottle so that I can ensure there is not any leakage. Oh by the way I have spoken with three different individuals without tuners that had their head gaskets let go. I think it has more to do with driver style, improper install, defect in the particular truck. I am aware that with greater power comes greater responsibility and so I watch all of my operating parameters very closely. By the way Tex what do your EGT's run normally, what temp is your transmission at when driving in the city, on the highway? I bet you don't know.

 

No at that time, you would have had to send it in to get a newer one that had the tranny option, that's what I did. I swapped it later because it didn't have the option to act as gauges for a non bully dog tuner when I was going custom injectors. The only reason that I can think that they took that option to work with other tuners out is because they had to make room for the extra memory to do the tranny gauge and the defuel feature for that gauge as well(I don't know for sure, that is just what I believe).

I would also like to make a note about the use of OBD-II gauges(digital gauges in other words). I have noticed that my tranny fluid had run a good bit cooler using the bullydog digital tranny then with the analog one with the sensor in the pan. So that at the very least tells me that the sensors that the computer looks at in the case of tranny are not the hottest part of the liquid and as long as you have a part of the fluid getting pretty darn hot you can have damaged to the tranny itself. Also the volts weren't as accurate, I was getting a constant 13.2 on the digital and with the analog hooked right up to the battery I was getting 13.8-14.0 depending on the eletrical load I was demanding on the battery and alternator. Now I'm sure the differance in this case used due to the electrical that is lost traveling thru all the wires to where the computer is and getting the reading, but it's still not showing a true reading, just like the tranny temp. Where Ford has their tranny sensor might be safe with that defuel point set on the monitor, but there are hotter spots in the tranny that are past that 190 spot if you happen to hit 190 on your edge gauge(I have with the BullyDog, but it was only 191 and my defuel was at 200, which really would have been a no no considering what I know now, now the fluid could have handled hotter, thats just my own preferance for temps, right or wrong). With the exception of the EGT gauge for sure, your readings using the OBD-II port may be accurate, however, they might also be in the wrong spot to be taking those readings, so what good is accuracy if your not in the most accurate spot(and also defuel points based on those readings)?

All possible, I didn't say any of those weren't, you just take a greater risk when you put any aftermarket power booster on your truck and with some that risk is more then others.

Egt: Normally round 780-830 if I'm driving with normal acceleration and no hard launches. Hard launched I can get to 1100 really easy. The first aggressive street tune I had with the new injectoris I pegged 1400 and was pretty disturbed with that. You didn't ask what I've pegged when towing, but I can give you various situations with those as well if you need. I can give you more details on egts in a Pm if you want.

Tranny: Normal driving, the normal distances that I do in the winter it's 140-142(that's mainly in town since horse shows don't normally run during the winter months except occasionally). If I'm really ******* it during this time of year I've pegged about 177. Sometimes on long hauls I'll see 190 in the summer months during the longest haul that I do with the horses(10 1/2 hrs). 195 is the hottest that I've hit and that was going empty on a vacation trip but I was doing 75-80 most of the way. Most driving in the summer I'll see a little over 180 doing small trips with the trailer, around 170 just doing normal errands to the co-op ect. Once again, I can give you specifics in a PM if you would like as my records are more then I would like to copy in a thread msg.

If you also want, I can tell you what my coolant temp readings have been for various situations as well. I have a total of 7 aftermarket gauges that I look at roughly just about every 5 minutes(beyond the point of OCD, I'm sure).

I make a living using my truck(unlike some in these forums, which is population that is growing very rapidly as well(that use their trucks more for fun then for work that is)) so to say that I don't pay attention to my vitals, particularly those two as those I regard as the most important ones to a trailer hauler, is a real no-no particularly when you don't know me all that well(atleast within the confines of the forum). Which is evident since you asked that question. As to the exhaust brake function, I have used it with great success thus far. One final note, I'll say it again, I've read and seen more people switch from Edge to some type of custom programming(not necessarily because they have had custom work done to the powertrain, but due to whatever reason) and have lost that shift on the fly(which is what everyone has harped on, which I can see since shift on the fly was what got me the Bully Dog tuner) and have much better reports and I'm sure that there are some that mirror you "needs" with the module that you got so there might be some ability to do comparisions between the two. That to me is something worth looking at, if a good portion of people have bought something for an ability(such as shift on the fly) and then later for whatever reason(although from what I've read a good bit of that was due to damage only really a few has swapped it due to custom work) switched to the same product in this case, I just find that noteworthy, take it for what it's worth.