philh wrote:
I never understand why people insist on modifying their factory tunes. OEM's spend millions upon millions of dollars testing their calibration programs to ensure they are safe and will work in all environmental conditions.
seriously, what are you going to do with 30 more hp that's only available at Wide Open Throttle? Even tho it's claimed they get that much, at what fuel economy cost?
I have one (Predator Tuner) on my Dodge Charger, because that car is modified. There's one on my wife's Dodge Challenger, 1st because she won it as a raffle prize at a car show, and 2nd, because I HATE 1-4 skip shift.
On my F150, used for towing, not a chance in H E double tooth picks.
They spend millions upon millions to ensure their factory fuel mapping meets emissions first. In many cases, the factory mapping may reduce engine life just to meet emissions.
Take my F150 Ecoboost for example. On my data logs, the factory emissions mapping would cause the engine to have a significantly greater amount of knock events versus my emissions removed tuning which allowed it to run more efficiently with increased timing.
Then there was the EPA mandated cylinder fuel cutoff if the engine has more than one misfire in a certain amount of time. The Ecoboost intercoolers were not allowed to have weep holes like many older turbo charged cars used to have since the EPA does not allow unfiltered air to escape the engine. This caused moisture to pool at the lowest point of the intercooler and would sometimes get ingested by the engine. Not enough to harm it, but enough to cause a few misfires which would then cause the truck to shut off all fuel going to those injectors for 30 seconds causing a dangerous bucking situation with low power. Why? Because un-burned fuel will damage a catalytic converter so the EPA forced automakers to have this in their programming.
Then there is the fact that the factory mapping is generic for many situations as you stated. Custom tuning allows you tune the truck specifically to how the owner uses his truck instead of the one size fits all factory tune that is safe for ways the OP is NOT using his truck.
Both my current diesel and my old Ecoboost had tunes for unloaded and loaded driving that I can switch to depending how I was using my truck at the moment. If I wasn't towing, then I would have it on a street tune that was more fun to drive with greater efficiency. When I was towing then I would flash my tow tow which reduced power output, but altered the turbo mapping to make torque come one sooner.
Also, with most modern trucks, transmission shift points and torque converter lock up strategy can be altered as well. The stock trans is often tuned to shift too soon to conserve fuel leaving you in too low of a gear and too low in the power band when towing. Not only that, but the factory converter may not lock when you need/want it to and the throttle may be programmed with a lot of lag. Custom tuning these things alone without adding any power makes a huge difference in driveability.
OP, I would not go with any "canned" tune like the Flashpaq. They are just that, a canned tuned with just a little horsepower over stock and most don't even alter shift points, torque converter lock up, and/or throttle input. I would go with a custom tune from places like
5 Star Tuning. My cousin has a tune from
Black Bear Performance on his 6.0 and loves it. Either will make a custom tunes specifically for you and how you use your truck, and also do trans tuning as well.
