Well most say that the top three gauges to get especially if you are running a tuner are: egt, tranny temp, and boost. Now if your truck came with a boost gauge that seems to be a fairly accurate gauge surprisingly enough, so unless you are going to upgrade the turbo you might could get away without that one gauge. The other two I would suggest you keep rather or not you tow alot, if your running a tuner especially you need those two gauges. As to filling that empty slot, I have two choices although one is debatable by others. I would either fill it with water temp(although some say oil temp is better, I understand the pros and cons of both arguments, but to me water temp is just the better one) the other would be fuel psi as the injectors on these trucks hate being starved for fuel and this will keep if you appraised at how well the pressure is holding up. I would argue that at this stage you would probably be better getting either water or oil temp as the 3rd one so that way you'll know when your truck is up to operating temp and then you can start giving it a workout or if your working it too hard. Just my thoughts on that(of course, I should tell you that I have 7 gauges in my truck, so I'm a firm believer in gauges).

 

iam looking at getting gauges soon.Ill be doing all of them boost,egt,trans,water temp,oil temp,oil pressure,HPO,fuel pressure,volt

oil pressure iam wondering about.
you guys running an aftermarket oil pressure gauge what are you seeing at idle and also at 2500 rpms

 

Oil pressure is not one that I look at all that often but if I remember correctly idle I'm seeing little over 25 psi and when cruising at good speed(73 which puts it at 2300 because of the 4.30 gears) I'll see be between 60 and 75 psi. Tomorrow in the morning I'll take a look at both to make sure I'm remembering correctly and hopefully in early afternoon I'll be able to post again to make sure.

 

Tex,


First I want to thank you for all of your help! I checked out your truck…what a sweet ride! With everything I have read on the site about tunes and programmers and the potential head bolt and head gasket leaks I am wondering what is safe if anything? I am looking for some better towing performance and more MPG’s when not towing. I realy don’t want to risk the longevity of the motor and trans. Based on your recommendation and what Matt says I will sell the Edge and go with the tunes. Can you give me Matt’s contact info and I will give him a call.


Thanks!


Jon

 

Custom tunes are going to be the safest that your going to be able to get if your wanting to go thru the tuner route. Some will argue that tuners right off the bat will cause headbolt failures, lot of debate over that and you honestly can't say one way or the other with what people have as evidence now.



Custom tuning will definately help you with that especially with an auto. I have a horse tow program that took him about a month(all via email so that does take time) and it hauls wonderfully, much better then the stock ford tuning which is basically a one size fits all. With custom tuning you can better mate how you drive with what the truck's computer is trying to do and when your driving is at odds with the factory tuning that does cause a loss of efficiency(which translates into loss of mpg). I will say this, most people(not all but most) will see an improvement with a more aggressive tune then the flat out economy tune, however, you have to drive it with a mind for economy, which is very hard with Matt's tunes.



I can understand that. There are other mods if money is permitting that you might consider investing it that will help with the reliability of the motor especially. The torqshift is really a good transmission and can take alot of abuse before it craps out on you, motor is where you need to a little more concerned with.


828-606-3263 is going to be the best way to get ahold of him. To get his email addys for tune requests and recalibrations go to http://www.spartandieseltech.com/

 

Thanks!

I will give him a call on Thursday.

Jon