Today's Tuners

Most people use a tuner to get more horsepower out of an engine and the result is a blown engine or failed injectors from fuel starvation or blown tranmissions and these guys are not even towing or carrying a load in the bed.

Most diesels are already maxing out the capabilities of the transmission in stock form. A mild tune to get an extra 50HP may not cause a problem and "in general" the Ford transmissions handle this with little in the way of problems.

Emissions controls do cause more fuel to be consumed in return for less pollution out the tailpipe. You can remove this equipment and violate federal and state laws and certainly do no favors for your fellow citizens with the soot you put out the tailpipe but lots of people could care less about anyone else so there is a big market for kits to do this.

A friend with a 2005 truck with the Duramax LLY engine saw a 1.5 MPG gain or about 20% with a tuner when pulling a 13,000 lb. trailer around the USA. Over a distance of 40,000 he would have saved enough in fuel costs to recouped the cost of the tuner. He sold the truck before he put the 40K miles so for him it was a net loss on his tuner investment.

With newer trucks I have a difficult time believing that one guy at a tuner shop can extract better fuel economy from a diesel engine than the manufacturer's hundreds of automotive engineers are able to provide. The big three compete on power and also on MPG so they do everything they can do that is legal and not going to reduce the reliability or durability of their engines while improving fuel economy. You can see this with the claims by Ram for its 2014 trucks which are very impressive if they prove to be close to accurate.

I ran Hypertech E-Con (lowest level) in my 08 6.4 for a couple of years without trouble. It helped power for sure.

The OP did indicate in a later post they have a 2002 7.3L diesel. The DPF, EGR, DEF do not exist on the 7.3 motor. They came about later. It would be a different story tuning for todays diesels. There are some legal issues some may not want to expose.

NO programmer can compete with custom tunes period. For power or dependability. Every truck will respond diferently. I have ran a hypertech and for the past 6 yrs a chip with custom tunes. Absolutely no contest.

I had no problems with the programmer but lots of people have.

Shift on the fly is great

Decell tune for decending those long steep grades is awesome.

Being able to decend 5 miles of 6/7% with no brake use is priceless

Trans stratagies are something you won't get in a programmer.

Tuner can put the shift points wherever you want them, lock the tq when you want & so on.

BUT not sure all this will work on a Cummins or Dmax. Never owned one.

I have had zero trouble with my Hypertech tuner. I highly recommend you check them out. Been using it for 4 years now towing & not towing. It's on the milder side, designed for towing. Would be perfect for your 2002 7.3L.

The Predator tuner I have has a "tow" setting, but it's more designed for performance. On the highest level it adds serious power, at the expense of high EGT and rear tire wear :W.

I have an 06 Duramax and tune for towing but I watch temps all the time. 1st is EX gas, 2nd coolant, 3rd transmission. The Allison 6 speed is a pretty good transmission.

The flip side to this story is not eveyone tunes their diesels for more power. Many people are tuning the newer diesels simply to remove the problematic emissions systems (DPF, EGR, DEF). Once could argue these are the most problematic areas on the new diesels and deleting them will yeild a more reliable truck in the long run. Have you seen what EGR can do to a diesel motor? Its not pretty...

John Wood or Brians Truck Shop can do a good job providing a transmission for you.

Brian's Truck Shop

John Wood

You could contact Jody or Diane Tipton (his wife) and likely get a tuner and 1 tune for less than $300.00 off the shelf. He has been doing this stuff for so many years he may not need much more from you than the Make, Model and Year to provide you a good tune that will provide lots of additional HP and Torque, keeping your EGT's in check as well.

DP-Tuners

You should get at least an EGT gauge just to be sure you can watch the temperatures. I have a 2001 (same truck and motor as you) and had a tuner for about 9 years. I wouldnt be without it now. I have the 40/80/120HP tunes and run the 80 HP all the time.

Weakest link is the slush box. Many guys running extreme tunes with no ill effect on the engine itself.
Now the newer DEF engines might be a different story.

Hank57 & Lantly, thanks for the imput. I told DW over a year ago that the Transmission would probably be the first major repair. I'm thinking about spending a day at John Woods' shop on our way from Phoenix to LA to visit family at Christmas time. It seems reasonable to do a rebuild on my time rather than wait for it to go out and then have no choices.

"The weak links in a 7.3 supposedly are the air intake and the exhaust systems which tend to leak and hurt performance. Look for carbon/soot build up at the Y pipe where it attaches and where the bellows are. They supposedly used a brittle donut to seal and it deteriorates with time and the bellows leak. I just saw an ad for a new turbine wheel which is lighter and more efficient for the 7.3 in DP for this month."

I have an appointment with my diesel mechanic Tuesday for some routine work and will discuss this with him, as I have no real idea what all that is about.

Apologies to the OP for HJing his post.