Those that have tuned or programmed
My Smarty programmer has economy, tow and performance settings. My question is, do you all tow exclusively in tow mode or any of the other 2?
Forum Discussion
4x4ord wrote:
You're right, towing 13K down the highway is never going to give you an opportunity to put 548 HP to work for any length of time. If you tried pulling something heavy up a long steep grade on a hot day the cooling system would become over tasked in no time. We have engines designed to put out 500 HP all day long. They have 6 foot diameter cooling fans drawing air through absolutely massive radiators.
And that is the reason why I know all of these 400+ crank horsepower on these stock trucks is BS under sustained conditions towing these 30k tow ratings. You might be able to sustain more than 400 hp at the crank on a truck with modifications to handle it, but not with the coolant system on stock trucks having to cool down both the engine and exhaust gasses. Then you have the bottleneck of the DPF in the exhaust creating higher EGT's for the EGR cooler to try and cool down.
I will say that towing 17-18k gooseneck trailer with little wind drag puts less constant stress on my truck at highway speeds than a 13-14k 5ver does in terms of temps. I have never taxed the dual radiators in my truck to that extent mainly because I purchased a truck to tow around 14k and would have went with a different setup if I needed to tow more.
Back when I worked at one of our dealerships as an area sales rep, I had many oil field customers across Texas who also had locations up in Colorado. I relied on several hot shot companies to deliver to the various customer locations and I got to know them very well. They were actually the ones gave me advice on my set up since most of them drove Ram CTD's as well. Anyways, the ones that were deleted and tuned generally stated they leave their trucks in the 425 hp at the wheels tune no matter what they tow. That is close to 500 hp at the crank. I don't tow as heavy as their DRW trucks do so I can get away with a higher power level without taxing the cooling system especially unloaded. They also recommended that I leave it in the lowest tune possible or at stock power if I were going to choose emissions intact tuning.
