Finally Bought SCT

[smuesse]

Finally after having the truck for 2 years and working the kinks out of it I finally got an SCT X3. I should have it in today or tomorrow. I bought it used so there are no tunes on it. Now is where i need some advice. I see many threads suggesting to use innovative or power hungry for the custom tuning. I am wondering who would be the best bet to deal with and what tunes to get. I do not have studs but i do have exhaust, gauges, and intake. I want it to be able to run like a SOB with out blowing the heads. I also want the normal towing and economy and maybe even a little smoke. Any advice.

[Rubenk]

I believe Cale with BTS(brians truck shop) has the cheapest tunes around, 35$ last I heard, and is right on par with performance, reliability, and shifting.

There are several others that can tune too, but they are around 80$ per tune.

[smuesse]

Thanks, I have heard of people talking about Cale's tunes but i did not know where they came from. I am not really conserned with price, i just want the most for my money.

[Goose350]

Innovative all the way

[smuesse]

I called Innovative and they were very nice and told me what i needed to do. I was impressed with their willingness to answer questions even though i did not buy the programmer from them. Im very big on customer service.

[Goose350]

I am running Erics extreme street on stock bolts with no problems.

[smuesse]

I went with Innovative Tunes and got them today. I got Extreme Street, Street and Tow. I loaded the Extreme Street and took it easy for about 5 miles then I got on it just a little, wow what a differance. I did notice my Boost runs up aboug 30 to 32 and im not near on it all the way, i also noticed my EGT climb up around 1100, not for long but they get there. Well after driving it around for about 30 minutes i noticed a coolant smell, opened the hood and antifreeze was all around my degas bottle. Now im wondering if its got blown head gaskets, i never had any coolant loss before? Any input on whats going on would be great, im a little scared now.

[Goose350]

Ouch. Have you recently had any work done to the truck or a coolant flush or anything?

[smuesse]

No nothing. I was thinking about taking it in for a coolant flush but havnt yet.

[!!!PainTrain!!!]

That's the life a non-studded and programmed truck lives bud. Pretty much 99% of guys that are tuned have coolant loss.

It might be a good investment to grab up the AE software to monitor your coolant temp and Oil temp as well as datalog all sorts of goodies.

Mine was tuned for 60,000 miles before FORD replaced my head gaskets.