Just picked up an 06 PSD and thinking about getting the SCT XCalibrator3 and getting
Econmony Tune , 65hp tow tune and the 100hp street performance tune.

Anyone have this? How is it and do you recommend it? Where is the best place to get one at? Thanks.

 

Those are pretty much the standard tunes that most would suggest to have for just general DD with the truck. I would have a different suggestion for the tow tune, but that would depend on what you tow and how heavy(does require some weight to really work well).

For SCT, most would say that the best place to get it and your tunes would be Eric at Innovative Diesel.

 

I just got my X3 in this week. Eric at Innovative Diesel was very good in answering my questions which made my choice of where to buy easy. Now if they would just reply to my emails and phone calls so that I can get the tunes for the X3 and actually use it I'd be a happy camper. Three emails and two calls leaving messages and I'm getting frustrated.

 

My apologies to Eric and the staff at Innovative Diesel. The tunes were sent out the same evening that I sent the email to Eric. Somehow Bellsouth managed to lose half of my emails this week.

Thanks for the very fast replies and great service Eric!

 

I've noticed that too. Apparently when bellsouth/att went with yahoo as their email partner, the spam folder has been a lot more aggressive with filtering out stuff.

 

I've been running the F350 on Street setting for a couple of weeks now. My impressions of the X3 are as follows:

Very easy to install the tunes and update the tuner IF you follow the directions that Innovative Diesel sends you. Their directions are dead on and easy to follow. However they also sent a link to a write up that another user did about installing tunes and updating the tuner that had me turned ten ways to Sunday and about to give up. I tried that first and then looked at the instructions that came with the X3. Loaded everything that way and it worked like a charm.

The street setting doesn't have as much power as I thought I'd get. I can barely chirp the dual rears unless I power brake. My '05 F250 on a Bully Dog tune would leave twin black marks about 12 ft. long, foot long marks when it caught second, and would chirp third. I would have thought the lower geared F350 would have had more giddy up at take off. The street setting I have is stock +100 hp. I could have gotten a hotter tune but I have no plans to race the truck nor to do any serious modifications to the engine.

I do like the way the transmission is tuned with the X3. It shifts smoothly no matter if I drive it normal or if I have my toes planted in the throttle body. Very little black smoke with the X3 tune which surprised me. I've read that's the sign of a great tune (more power without a lot of smoke). MPG's suffer only because it's fun having the extra ponies to play with. When I drive normally the mileage is right in line with a stock tune. Turbo lag is history too.

Next I'm going to run the mileage program I had installed and see how that does. Then after a couple weeks of that I am going to take the truck back to stock and run the Bully Dog tuner I have as a comparison.

Will post back my findings.

 

Speaking as someone that had the Bullydog tuner(triple dog); I wouldn't put it on your truck. It'll make power, but it won't be safe for your truck and it isn't actually tuning your truck either. It's maybe a hair better then the the in-line fuel modules, but not by much. Your tranny will suffer in the higher(extreme and even the street setting) settings as mine did. It may or may not feel like it is, but it doesn't work with the intermediate clutch and that is the weakest link in the torqshift when you add power.

 

I haven't had time to do anything with this yet, the truck is still on the street setting I got with the SCT. Good thing I left it there a little longer I guess because my MPG's are dropping, something I hadn't noticed before. I'm down .7 mpg over stock setting. I'd like to say it's due to me playing but it's not. The last two tanks I've ran through have been normal commute driving.

Time to switch to the economy tune but I know I'm not gonna be happy with the power. Hopefully the turbo lag will be gone at least.

How does Bully Dog stay in business if their products are no better than that? Granted I never ran my F250 hard but a few times and I did notice the tranny didn't do what I thought it should. I paid $600 for that thing too (triple dog, same as you had). I've kept it updated, surely they've done something to fix those problems?

Now you got me worried about comparing the two........

 

Well you have to realize a few things.

1. Their products do fairly well in the Dodge scene and GM scene, so you have those that for the most part are pretty happy and give favorable reviews of those products.

2. Unlike products like Spartan and SCT, Bullydog has means to put out more ads and to reach more people and there are those that they reach that don't do a thorough job with their homework(I too have fallen into this area when I was first doing this).

as to the tranny issue and it's fix:

It won't happen. It won't happen because a shift on the fly tuner cannot properly tune a vehicle. Now on some vehicles you can get away with that, but not on the 6.0 and the torqshift. If it says anywhere that it is able to do shift on the fly(no matter how that is achieved) it won't be able to properly tune the vehicle. So technically speaking there isn't going to be a fix for it as long as the product is shift on the fly. They might be able to hide the problem more efficiently, but there won't be a true fix for it.

 

Well so far I don't have many good things to say about the SCT X3 either. Power is good at the tow and street settings but it kills mpgs. I averaged 15.6 combined on the stock tune. Running the street tune mpgs dropped to 14.1, tow tune was 14.2. This was normal everyday driving and I drive like an old man most of the time.

The real kicker is I have been running the economy tune for three weeks now and am averaging 15.0! Which is .6 mpg's less than I can get on Ford's stock tune. I'd gladly take my money back if anybody wants to buy this tuner.

 

how much do you want for it?

 

i just got my X3 tuner into my '04 F250 with 38" tires, 4.10 axle and manual trans and ERG cooler delete. i love the power it produces on the 65HP tow setting. great for everyday driving and only makes the pyro gauge max out at 10,000, same as stock.

the highest setting, "STREET" produces an unreal amount of power. makes me forget i have 38"! mileage went from 15 to 13 but i dont care. i wasn't expecting an increase with that kind of power. if you want MPG's get prius. the EGT's can hit 11,500 pretty easy though.

i am curious about the setting called "aggressive tow/haul" though. anyone know what that's about?

 

H get custom tunes and be happy lol ,, do you belong to AZPSG?

 

i am a new member there. thanks to jason.

 

cool! See you there