Michael, welcome to FTE. This is an old thread by a couple years or so. There is nothing wrong with TW tunes. Nor is there anything wrong with DP, or PHP or Swamps. There are a few others out ther as well. The most important thing is that each of these will customize a chip for your truck based off what you want, and supporting mods that you have done to your truck. All of these are better than the off-the-shelf tuners you can buy at various speed shops. Do yourself some good research and then decide what you want. All too often folks get into a pissin' match about this tuner is better than that tuner, and all it does is get folks upset. They all offer a good product, and many of the folks at own these businesses are friends.

 

Does anyone know if it would be smog legal to have a tuner on my truck if it had a stock setting tune and at the time of smogging my intake was stock? Since I am new to the diesel and tuners/chips can they tell this is installed when they hook the truck to the smog machine?
If you cant tell I live in Ca.

 

Welcome to FTE Michael, alot of great tuners out there, Campers got you above.. Got to see an old friends post again with this revival, Brother Markadeck..awesome fella he was..

 

for what its worth i like the tunes tony did over the TS stock tunes, i also like that as you upgrade your truck, he will your chip. the 16 position option for the DP is enticing, also i like the dash mounted controll as opposed to the ****. but i also like a ten and two fives, or a twenty!!

 

I'm looking for a bad a$# programmer or tuner or even the chip

 

Tuning isn't as simple as popping it in and go on safari for ricers to rip. The truck is tuned to protect itself from... well... itself. If you unleash the beast within, you can break it right quick... and all you're left with is a bad a$# tuner in a dead a$# truck. We can guide you, but there are questions and feedback.

First... bad a$# at what? Economy? Towing? Racing? Durability?
Next... if you want more heat in the oven, then you'll need gauges to know when you've cranked the **** a little too high.
Finally... I've gained more power from making sure my truck was 100% than I did from a chip alone. Are you really sure your truck isn't sagging in performance because of another issue... that a chip will just misbehave with?

 

All of the above there isn't anything wrong with my truck it runs great it has all its normal power I just want the extra for everything power, performance, economy, and towing and I want to make the coal roll

 

You don't want to roll coal. First It a waste of power and fuel and second its one of the damn reason all the new truck have all this emissions crap on them.

 

And believe me they are racking down on the emissions
Edge Products LLC Settlement | Enforcement | US EPA

 

Coal is unburnt fuel... as in not used to apply torque to the wheel and just lost. It also blows serious Exhaust Gas Temperatures. Most tuners do everything in their power to avoid excessive coal. When you see those trucks darken the sky with today's fuel in a turbodiesel, they have money to fix what they break... or the truck is rendered worthless in a short order.

You will want to watch your transmission because of the added torque - transmission gauge. A hot tune with boost leaks is bad - boost gauge. EGTs - the bane of diesels - Pyrometer. Chip? There are two styles (more or less) that the serious modders use. TS-based (generic to most tuners) and DP-Tuner (proprietary to just them).

Mods to your truck? If so, you may be a candidate for live-tuning... so picking somebody close may be the call. Gearhead, Power Hungry Performance, BTS, Beans, Swamps, and a number of others use the TS chip. PHP has the Hydra that can have tunes downloaded from a server to your laptop (from PHP and other tuners), and you put them in the truck. DP-Tuner has the F5 (like a TS) and the F6 (like a Hydra), where you can have the tunes emailed to you and you put them in the truck.

 

The coal rollers have in part, are bringing an end to the diesel world as we knew it. Go to utube and you can find plenty of idiots "blowing coal" on people, or just smoking up the street and think they're cool doing it. I don't mind saying, I kinda like it too, but there's a time and place for everything, like at the track and at truck pulls. A good friend of mine has stopped selling "smoke only" tunes for quite some time. He has also quit doing EGR deletes, even those on older trucks, not just the ones on the 07's and up. It's a shame it came to this.

 

I run the Edge Evolution with an AFE stage ll Intake and 4" MBRP exhaust on my 2002 and it comes with a 60,80 and 100 HP/100, 140 and 200 TQ. It seems to work well you can adjust shift points and line pressure as well as other things like Wide open fuel and idle RPM. It allows you to moitor several things like engine oil temp, boost, transmission temp, and comes with a Exhaust temp probe, its not a shift on the fly though. It was around $400 at extreme diesel. I have read a lot of good things about the DP F-5 or F-6 also and some day I may try them. Good luck- Mike.

 

Picking a tuner is more about who takes care of you the best. Call a couple different places, it doesn't matter who (DP, Beans, Swamps, TW, those are just a few) and if you like how one treats you over another, or your more comfortable then ask that tuner about their tunes, they will be happy to give you information about any one of them. I called a couple and ended up going with a Beans chip, and I am very very impressed with his tunes and how my truck performs with them. Any custom tuner can do this, its just more of a personal preference and who your comfortable working with.

 

I have a Beans Diesel Performance chip because it was cheaper and I liked the selector switch. My truck performs great with it, but, my tranny was slipping on the 2-3 shift until I installed a John Woods valve body in the tranny. It has a daily driver [about 80 hp], tow, exhaust brake, no start, and stock settings. I'm getting about 14.5 mpg. I spent a lot of money trying to get closer to the fabled 20mpg I hear others get. Tried lightening my foot, ng, all sorts of new and improved stuff, but...

 

DP F6 you can download new tunes buy email and they have gratecustomer serves.