So we already have a general modification thread (that everyone should still read if you own a 6.4) and it briefly goes over tuning options. So I would like to cover some delete basics and come up with a place people can ask questions and post tune reviews.
Before I get into it and throw my experiences with 6.4 tuning over the last 2 years, I do need to get something out of the way. Any time you run anything higher than a stock or tow tune hp wise you are no longer doing this for longevity. Yes if you have self control a 150hp tune shouldn't hurt anything, but any performance tuned diesel is operating outside its design parameters... If you take this info and run a 200+hp tune and blow head gaskets or crack a piston please do not blame it on the truck, tuner, tunes, or anyone but yourself. Anywhere you go on the internet you will be told: "Delete it and forget about it". I will be the first (and not the last) to tell you if you forget about your 6.4 it will eat your life savings. These trucks do not take kindly to abuse, so if you don't have the money to rebuild your motor or at the very least a HG job stick to the low hp tunes. And yes unfortunately the only way to get 15+mpg on a 6.4 is going to be running a high hp tune.
Now that we have that out of the way... What are your options for tuning?
Lets start with the cheapest... The Gearbox DPF-r (there are a few different versions) is probably the cheapest flash tuner you can buy for a 6.4. They offer very little in the way of performance or trans tuning. They are great if you are selling your truck and want to hold on to your more expensive tuner. I don't usually recommend them for a few reasons. 1. From what I have seen on the forums their customer service is lacking to nonexistent (anyone with experience feel free chime in). 2. The tunes are lack luster at best and there is nothing in the way of trans tuning. The 5r110w transmission in our trucks can take a lot of abuse, but any time you tune a truck its always advisable to up shift pressures and change shift points. 3. This is the big killer for me... There is NO custom tune support what so ever and they have no plans to ever bring this on board. Anyone who has ever tuned a vehicle before understands the importance of custom tuning. Every truck is different, canned (Tunes that come on a tuner) tunes are generic tunes that will work over a wide range of VIN's. If you have an issue with one of these tunes there is little you can do to have things changed.
Long story short... You get what you pay for.
So, what other options do you have? There are 3 main tuning options out that work well for 6.4s. SCT, Spartan, and H&S.
Lets start with SCT.
There are 2 options if you want to delete/tune with an SCT device. The first and cheapest is the SCT X4. This is actually what I use (I will put a full review along with custom tunes at the bottom of the post) and have had on my truck for 2 years now. This is one of the more popular tuners because it is under $1000 and has custom tune support. It also has the ability to monitor (all be it limited) so you definitely get pretty good value there. One thing to note about the x4 is you must make sure its an "Off Road" tuner. Whenever you order and x4 for delete purposes it will come with custom tunes. And this is where the x4 is worth the extra $$$$$ over a DPF-r. You can fit up to 10 custom tune files onto the tuner. If for whatever reason one of these files doesn't shift the way you like, the throttle response isn't right, or you have any other issue all you have to do is call whoever wrote the tunes and they can revise them. This is HUGE for towing or any DD truck. Even something as simple as shift points can kill your fuel economy and make the truck annoying to drive.
Down sides? Welll........ The biggest for me is getting those delete tunes. You can't just call up Gearhead, Quick Tricks, KEM, PIP, or any of the other big name tuning companies and get delete tunes anymore. And without the deletes written into the tune you are out of luck with the x4. The EPA has kinda screwed us over here. There is hope however, there are vendors here on the .org that sell the x4's with custom tunes already installed. But the x4 is still less flexible than other if you don't have someone who can get you those custom tunes.
Another issue is the monitoring. Before I say anything, if money is tight this is a GREAT tuner because you can still monitor and the whole package is less than $1000... But, it does not allow you to watch things like fuel rail pressure and a lot of the readings seem a bit skewed. Pids like EBP (even when you correct for baro pressure) never quite match the true numbers. But you can still watch ect, eot, egts, map, maf, and a lot of other pids. If funds are there I still recommend getting a true monitor like an EDGE CTS2 Insight. But that's another $350+....
Another down side to the x4 is there is no shift on the fly. It takes a good 20-30 min to retune the truck. This doesn't bother me, but there are a lot of people that can't stand it. Also every time you retune the trans will need to go through a relearn. This means you will have a period where the trans can seem a bit confused while it relearns your driving habits. Its actually good to do this every now and then because not all trans tuning will disable the adaptive learn function within the tcm. Its another way to keep shifts nice and sharp.
The other SCT option is the Livewire. I don't have much experience with this except for the fact that its a bit easier to get custom tunes. The tuner itself will prompt you to disable the egr and dpf meaning that the custom tunes don't have to outright write the deletes into the tunes. (someone please correct me if I am wrong) Beyond this it can act as a monitor but again it reads the same as an x4 just with a bigger screen that is touch activated. I will let someone write a review of this that has more experience than me and just add it in here. The down side to the Livewire to me is the cost... You are right at or around $1000 and you don't really get a whole lot more than with the x4. You get some convenience wit custom tuning but aside from a slightly more attractive display you don't really gain much for the extra money. BUT you still do have custom tune options and those tunes are a bit easier to come across...
Now for Spartan... I have mixed emotions about the Phanalnx platform. Spartan has always had by far and away the best canned tunes on the market. The Phalanx does not allow for custom tunes, but Spartan has gone out of their way to deliver the best canned tunes that you could ever load onto a 6.4. They have also done a very good job with trans tuning. However, if you want performance and do not have traction bars your truck will feel like your rear axle is having a light sabre battle with your driveshaft... Any hot tunes with decent trans tuning will require trac bars on a 6.4 (our trucks have really bad axle wrap) but the Spartan trans tuning takes that to a whole new level. There isn't much more to say about the tunes... They are overall very solid and VERY clean (except for the race tunes) and well written.
Now.......... For one of my favorite aspects of going with Spartan. Not only do you have a great tuner but you get one of the best monitors on the market. There are people who switch from Spartan to H&S or SCT for custom tunes but keep the Phalanx just for its ability to monitor... And again I can't stress this enough, just like a 6.0 you REALLY do want to monitor your 6.4. Many times you can catch small issues before they spiral out of control into you needing a new motor. Seriously... Monitor your truck above all else.
The other thing I will say about Spartan is they have done a very very good job of standing by their product and their customers. Their tunes are also very well proven to make the power that they claim... Ohhh yah, the team from Spartan has been pretty good about staying active here on the forums as well.
Time to jump onto a long time favorite of everyone involved with 6.4s and tuning... And also one of the biggest reasons we all hate the EPA and wish they would die in a fire. H&S for a long time provide the best software/tuning platforms on the market. For a lot of people their products are still the end all be all of the tuning world. Unfortunately the software development wing of H&S does not exist anymore. There is absolutely no support from H&S regarding their tuners anymore.
That does not mean you can't acquire them from various vendors though.
Sooooo... Why are there so many die hard H&S fans out there? I mean after all the tuners are even more expensive than Spartan. Welllll... Lets start with canned tunes. First thing is first, SHIFT ON TEH FLY! This means that you don't need to wait 30 min for the tuner to flash the pcm with a new tune. You pull over, and you can jump from tow to race in a matter of seconds... Makes life a bit easier if you want to go from a street tune for fuel economy down to a tow tune because you need to move your horses across the country. Or because you have an idiot for a friend that needs to be pulled out of a ditch and you don't want to wait to retune from a 300+hp tune (No stuck friend is worth a $7000 HG job...).
The other great part about H&S is just the sheer number of canned tunes and power levels available. The trans tuning is on par as well... Just the same as any hot tunes make sure you have trac bars. Axle wrap can ruin a good ride, the race against your friend in his duracrap, or trying to get on the freeway with 18000lbs behind you...
So what makes the price tag worth it? I mean there isn't much else here that other tuners don't offer... Well, you are gonna have to spend a bit more but the MCC unlock allows you to pretty much tune your truck your way. It gives you the options of custom tuning from Gearhead, Kem, and others... AAANNNDDDD It allows you to pretty much change any parameter within your tunes. H&S has delivered one of the most flexible and customizable tuners that the diesel market has ever seen. It has also been the cause of more blown motors than anyone could ever imagine... They aren't actually the fault of H&S though. Both the MiniMaxx and XRT Pro make it easy to run hot tunes. And because of the way its written you can be running the HD300 tunes but think you are in a tow tune. That means that the timing tables loaded into the pcm are advanced the the point that you can add 300+hp given enough fuel and air. So you may select the tow tune and it will restrict some of that fuel and air... But the timing is still there adding massive amounts of stress to the motor. So if you choose to go H&S PLEASE pay attention and understand what you are doing. Don't be afraid to as questions and find out what different options are really doing.
The MiniMaxx also has the ability to monitor the truck as well. It isn't the greatest monitor but I would still put it a few steps above the X4.
The biggest downfall aside from price though is going to be the lack of support. And its a shame because it is still the most capable tuning platform available for our trucks. You can still get unlock codes and some limited support from vendors though. And until Spartan releases a tuner capable of custom tunes H&S is still probably the most versatile tuner because unlike Spartan if you decide you want to build the truck you can have tunes written specifically for your mods. -----EDIT------ One thing I forgot to note about H&S... Part of why so many people love them is their built in safety feature. The tuner will automatically defuel the motor if certain parameters are met. For example, if egts get too hot the tuner/pcm will acknowledge that and lower the power of the truck so you don't damage anything. You can of course set all of these yourself (including trans temp for towing) to whatever you like. Personally this is one of my favorite aspects of H&S.
I'm going to add this in from Toren as well:
I am sure there is more that I am missing, this is just for people trying to decide what they want to have a place to start. By all means, anyone with extended experience please please please feel free to chime in.
Now that we have the different platforms out of the way lets talk tuning a little and what to expect.
I pretty much use my truck as a DD. She doesn't tow anymore nor does she get driven hard. My truck has turned into a hobby and I don't race either. I personally do not have the money to deal with a cracked piston right now. That means I will not be giving any reviews on the race tunes from River City Diesel or Gearhead. I am sure Toren and others will chime in with their experiences.
Currently I am running an X4 with both River City Diesel tunes and 2 sets of tuning from Gearhead. One was written by Lars and the other Matt.
I will start with the RCD tunes. They came with my x4 so I got quite a bit of experience with them right away.
The 70 hp tow tune... Where do I start with this train wreck of a tune. I was expecting roughly stock power with a little added turbo spool and some trans tuning. What I got was quite a bit different though. Obviously with a tow tune you can't expect any kind of performance but the truck felt down on power. I found myself wishing that the truck was still stock. Once I started watching rail pressure I understood why. Until I had my foot on the floor rail pressure wouldn't build over 10k psi... I am still convinced something was amiss with the tune itself but needless to say there was no support from RCD. Compounding the boost and power issues were the trans tuning problems. Any time I would turn and try to accelerate the trans would act like it wanted to down shift from 3rd to 2nd and then just get stuck in neutral then rev slam back into 3rd. It was never bad enough to cause much issue with the tow tune because the motor was creating almost no power. I learned to catch it and keep it from happening. The trans itself isn't showing any signs of abnormal wear. I have had the pan off, no metal and the fluid is fine... RCD has told me that their trans tuning changes shift points and shift pressure. From what I can tell I call bs on this...
Long story short, I can't really recommend this tune even for towing. The truck doesn't seem to be able to get out of its own way much less get a trailer moving. I would also worry about the trans a bit with a heavy load back there. Ohhhhh yah and 9 mpg...
The other RCD tune I have run (and its been on my truck the longest) is the 215hp performance tune. The tune itself runs great... Very controllable egts and little to no smoke. I also can get a solid 17-18 mpg on a long road trip. The only gripe I have is again... The limp trans tuning. Only with 215hp added the trans really doesn't know what to do with that power. If you are in 3rd slowing for a light and go to take off the trans pretty much says nope... It will slam into third and throw a hissy fit. The throttle response is so damn sensitive that you hit a bump in a turn and you risk a drift any time its raining. And again, getting them to adjust a tune is damn near impossible.
I also got the feeling that most of the hp was from timing... This within itself isn't bad, but it doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about my pistons. I would have expected egts to be a bit higher with a 215 tune but it actually ran comparable to the tow tune egt wise.
Now for Gearhead...
So if you have read any of my posts about tunes you will know that for a long time I was not happy with their tuning. The street tune that I ran the most really felt lacking on power and the shift points were god awful. She wouldn't shift until about 2100 rpm and I was literally getting somewhere in the realm of 8 mpg... 8!!! Lars rewrote the tune once for me and it helped a little but the shifts still weren't right. After talking to various people I was hearing the same things from them. I pretty much gave up hope and switched back to RCD.
Fast forward and I managed to get an updated set of tunes... As of right now I can tell you that they are different in every way. I have run the Tow tune the most at this point and love it. Fuel economy isn't great, but for a 70hp file what can you expect. This tank of fuel has been about 14mpg... That is acceptable to me... The truck drives exactly like it did stock with the exceptions of trans tuning. The shift points have been adjusted and they are a lot firmer than any of the rcd tunes. The adaptive learn has also been limited fixing my rev slamming... It does run a bit hotter egt wise than I would like for a tow file, but for my purposes it is perfect. I attribute the egts to added fuel instead of timing. And that's perfectly fine... Added fuel is better than timing in my book. As of right now I am having a hard time trying to find a negative to this tow tune.
---EDIT---
Been running Matt's tow tune for roughly a week now and so far it is still shifting exactly how I want. The ONLY down side I have found is fuel economy. I am averaging about 11-12. I have only put 2 tanks worth of drive time in and those numbers are done by pen and paper. My cts is telling me 12.5 so it isn't far off.
As I run the other tunes I will throw reviews up on here as well. but all of mine are geared toward a DD truck that is just that... A truck. I don't care to go fast and nor do I care about fuel economy. Its purely about keeping the truck happy and how well it drives.
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I invite anyone and everyone to throw their 2 cents in here about their tunes and tuners. As we start getting more and more reviews feel free to link this to posts from newcomers so they have a place to as their questions.
I do ask that we keep this on topic so relevant information is as accessible to members as possible. If you have general modification questions please refer to this post as I will be deleting any non tune related question. http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/general-6-4l-discussion/281380-general-6-4-modifications.html
Before I get into it and throw my experiences with 6.4 tuning over the last 2 years, I do need to get something out of the way. Any time you run anything higher than a stock or tow tune hp wise you are no longer doing this for longevity. Yes if you have self control a 150hp tune shouldn't hurt anything, but any performance tuned diesel is operating outside its design parameters... If you take this info and run a 200+hp tune and blow head gaskets or crack a piston please do not blame it on the truck, tuner, tunes, or anyone but yourself. Anywhere you go on the internet you will be told: "Delete it and forget about it". I will be the first (and not the last) to tell you if you forget about your 6.4 it will eat your life savings. These trucks do not take kindly to abuse, so if you don't have the money to rebuild your motor or at the very least a HG job stick to the low hp tunes. And yes unfortunately the only way to get 15+mpg on a 6.4 is going to be running a high hp tune.
Now that we have that out of the way... What are your options for tuning?
Lets start with the cheapest... The Gearbox DPF-r (there are a few different versions) is probably the cheapest flash tuner you can buy for a 6.4. They offer very little in the way of performance or trans tuning. They are great if you are selling your truck and want to hold on to your more expensive tuner. I don't usually recommend them for a few reasons. 1. From what I have seen on the forums their customer service is lacking to nonexistent (anyone with experience feel free chime in). 2. The tunes are lack luster at best and there is nothing in the way of trans tuning. The 5r110w transmission in our trucks can take a lot of abuse, but any time you tune a truck its always advisable to up shift pressures and change shift points. 3. This is the big killer for me... There is NO custom tune support what so ever and they have no plans to ever bring this on board. Anyone who has ever tuned a vehicle before understands the importance of custom tuning. Every truck is different, canned (Tunes that come on a tuner) tunes are generic tunes that will work over a wide range of VIN's. If you have an issue with one of these tunes there is little you can do to have things changed.
Long story short... You get what you pay for.
So, what other options do you have? There are 3 main tuning options out that work well for 6.4s. SCT, Spartan, and H&S.
Lets start with SCT.
There are 2 options if you want to delete/tune with an SCT device. The first and cheapest is the SCT X4. This is actually what I use (I will put a full review along with custom tunes at the bottom of the post) and have had on my truck for 2 years now. This is one of the more popular tuners because it is under $1000 and has custom tune support. It also has the ability to monitor (all be it limited) so you definitely get pretty good value there. One thing to note about the x4 is you must make sure its an "Off Road" tuner. Whenever you order and x4 for delete purposes it will come with custom tunes. And this is where the x4 is worth the extra $$$$$ over a DPF-r. You can fit up to 10 custom tune files onto the tuner. If for whatever reason one of these files doesn't shift the way you like, the throttle response isn't right, or you have any other issue all you have to do is call whoever wrote the tunes and they can revise them. This is HUGE for towing or any DD truck. Even something as simple as shift points can kill your fuel economy and make the truck annoying to drive.
Down sides? Welll........ The biggest for me is getting those delete tunes. You can't just call up Gearhead, Quick Tricks, KEM, PIP, or any of the other big name tuning companies and get delete tunes anymore. And without the deletes written into the tune you are out of luck with the x4. The EPA has kinda screwed us over here. There is hope however, there are vendors here on the .org that sell the x4's with custom tunes already installed. But the x4 is still less flexible than other if you don't have someone who can get you those custom tunes.
Another issue is the monitoring. Before I say anything, if money is tight this is a GREAT tuner because you can still monitor and the whole package is less than $1000... But, it does not allow you to watch things like fuel rail pressure and a lot of the readings seem a bit skewed. Pids like EBP (even when you correct for baro pressure) never quite match the true numbers. But you can still watch ect, eot, egts, map, maf, and a lot of other pids. If funds are there I still recommend getting a true monitor like an EDGE CTS2 Insight. But that's another $350+....
Another down side to the x4 is there is no shift on the fly. It takes a good 20-30 min to retune the truck. This doesn't bother me, but there are a lot of people that can't stand it. Also every time you retune the trans will need to go through a relearn. This means you will have a period where the trans can seem a bit confused while it relearns your driving habits. Its actually good to do this every now and then because not all trans tuning will disable the adaptive learn function within the tcm. Its another way to keep shifts nice and sharp.
The other SCT option is the Livewire. I don't have much experience with this except for the fact that its a bit easier to get custom tunes. The tuner itself will prompt you to disable the egr and dpf meaning that the custom tunes don't have to outright write the deletes into the tunes. (someone please correct me if I am wrong) Beyond this it can act as a monitor but again it reads the same as an x4 just with a bigger screen that is touch activated. I will let someone write a review of this that has more experience than me and just add it in here. The down side to the Livewire to me is the cost... You are right at or around $1000 and you don't really get a whole lot more than with the x4. You get some convenience wit custom tuning but aside from a slightly more attractive display you don't really gain much for the extra money. BUT you still do have custom tune options and those tunes are a bit easier to come across...
Now for Spartan... I have mixed emotions about the Phanalnx platform. Spartan has always had by far and away the best canned tunes on the market. The Phalanx does not allow for custom tunes, but Spartan has gone out of their way to deliver the best canned tunes that you could ever load onto a 6.4. They have also done a very good job with trans tuning. However, if you want performance and do not have traction bars your truck will feel like your rear axle is having a light sabre battle with your driveshaft... Any hot tunes with decent trans tuning will require trac bars on a 6.4 (our trucks have really bad axle wrap) but the Spartan trans tuning takes that to a whole new level. There isn't much more to say about the tunes... They are overall very solid and VERY clean (except for the race tunes) and well written.
Now.......... For one of my favorite aspects of going with Spartan. Not only do you have a great tuner but you get one of the best monitors on the market. There are people who switch from Spartan to H&S or SCT for custom tunes but keep the Phalanx just for its ability to monitor... And again I can't stress this enough, just like a 6.0 you REALLY do want to monitor your 6.4. Many times you can catch small issues before they spiral out of control into you needing a new motor. Seriously... Monitor your truck above all else.
The other thing I will say about Spartan is they have done a very very good job of standing by their product and their customers. Their tunes are also very well proven to make the power that they claim... Ohhh yah, the team from Spartan has been pretty good about staying active here on the forums as well.
Time to jump onto a long time favorite of everyone involved with 6.4s and tuning... And also one of the biggest reasons we all hate the EPA and wish they would die in a fire. H&S for a long time provide the best software/tuning platforms on the market. For a lot of people their products are still the end all be all of the tuning world. Unfortunately the software development wing of H&S does not exist anymore. There is absolutely no support from H&S regarding their tuners anymore.
That does not mean you can't acquire them from various vendors though.
Sooooo... Why are there so many die hard H&S fans out there? I mean after all the tuners are even more expensive than Spartan. Welllll... Lets start with canned tunes. First thing is first, SHIFT ON TEH FLY! This means that you don't need to wait 30 min for the tuner to flash the pcm with a new tune. You pull over, and you can jump from tow to race in a matter of seconds... Makes life a bit easier if you want to go from a street tune for fuel economy down to a tow tune because you need to move your horses across the country. Or because you have an idiot for a friend that needs to be pulled out of a ditch and you don't want to wait to retune from a 300+hp tune (No stuck friend is worth a $7000 HG job...).
The other great part about H&S is just the sheer number of canned tunes and power levels available. The trans tuning is on par as well... Just the same as any hot tunes make sure you have trac bars. Axle wrap can ruin a good ride, the race against your friend in his duracrap, or trying to get on the freeway with 18000lbs behind you...
So what makes the price tag worth it? I mean there isn't much else here that other tuners don't offer... Well, you are gonna have to spend a bit more but the MCC unlock allows you to pretty much tune your truck your way. It gives you the options of custom tuning from Gearhead, Kem, and others... AAANNNDDDD It allows you to pretty much change any parameter within your tunes. H&S has delivered one of the most flexible and customizable tuners that the diesel market has ever seen. It has also been the cause of more blown motors than anyone could ever imagine... They aren't actually the fault of H&S though. Both the MiniMaxx and XRT Pro make it easy to run hot tunes. And because of the way its written you can be running the HD300 tunes but think you are in a tow tune. That means that the timing tables loaded into the pcm are advanced the the point that you can add 300+hp given enough fuel and air. So you may select the tow tune and it will restrict some of that fuel and air... But the timing is still there adding massive amounts of stress to the motor. So if you choose to go H&S PLEASE pay attention and understand what you are doing. Don't be afraid to as questions and find out what different options are really doing.
The MiniMaxx also has the ability to monitor the truck as well. It isn't the greatest monitor but I would still put it a few steps above the X4.
The biggest downfall aside from price though is going to be the lack of support. And its a shame because it is still the most capable tuning platform available for our trucks. You can still get unlock codes and some limited support from vendors though. And until Spartan releases a tuner capable of custom tunes H&S is still probably the most versatile tuner because unlike Spartan if you decide you want to build the truck you can have tunes written specifically for your mods. -----EDIT------ One thing I forgot to note about H&S... Part of why so many people love them is their built in safety feature. The tuner will automatically defuel the motor if certain parameters are met. For example, if egts get too hot the tuner/pcm will acknowledge that and lower the power of the truck so you don't damage anything. You can of course set all of these yourself (including trans temp for towing) to whatever you like. Personally this is one of my favorite aspects of H&S.
I'm going to add this in from Toren as well:
I am sure there is more that I am missing, this is just for people trying to decide what they want to have a place to start. By all means, anyone with extended experience please please please feel free to chime in.
Now that we have the different platforms out of the way lets talk tuning a little and what to expect.
I pretty much use my truck as a DD. She doesn't tow anymore nor does she get driven hard. My truck has turned into a hobby and I don't race either. I personally do not have the money to deal with a cracked piston right now. That means I will not be giving any reviews on the race tunes from River City Diesel or Gearhead. I am sure Toren and others will chime in with their experiences.
Currently I am running an X4 with both River City Diesel tunes and 2 sets of tuning from Gearhead. One was written by Lars and the other Matt.
I will start with the RCD tunes. They came with my x4 so I got quite a bit of experience with them right away.
The 70 hp tow tune... Where do I start with this train wreck of a tune. I was expecting roughly stock power with a little added turbo spool and some trans tuning. What I got was quite a bit different though. Obviously with a tow tune you can't expect any kind of performance but the truck felt down on power. I found myself wishing that the truck was still stock. Once I started watching rail pressure I understood why. Until I had my foot on the floor rail pressure wouldn't build over 10k psi... I am still convinced something was amiss with the tune itself but needless to say there was no support from RCD. Compounding the boost and power issues were the trans tuning problems. Any time I would turn and try to accelerate the trans would act like it wanted to down shift from 3rd to 2nd and then just get stuck in neutral then rev slam back into 3rd. It was never bad enough to cause much issue with the tow tune because the motor was creating almost no power. I learned to catch it and keep it from happening. The trans itself isn't showing any signs of abnormal wear. I have had the pan off, no metal and the fluid is fine... RCD has told me that their trans tuning changes shift points and shift pressure. From what I can tell I call bs on this...
Long story short, I can't really recommend this tune even for towing. The truck doesn't seem to be able to get out of its own way much less get a trailer moving. I would also worry about the trans a bit with a heavy load back there. Ohhhhh yah and 9 mpg...
The other RCD tune I have run (and its been on my truck the longest) is the 215hp performance tune. The tune itself runs great... Very controllable egts and little to no smoke. I also can get a solid 17-18 mpg on a long road trip. The only gripe I have is again... The limp trans tuning. Only with 215hp added the trans really doesn't know what to do with that power. If you are in 3rd slowing for a light and go to take off the trans pretty much says nope... It will slam into third and throw a hissy fit. The throttle response is so damn sensitive that you hit a bump in a turn and you risk a drift any time its raining. And again, getting them to adjust a tune is damn near impossible.
I also got the feeling that most of the hp was from timing... This within itself isn't bad, but it doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about my pistons. I would have expected egts to be a bit higher with a 215 tune but it actually ran comparable to the tow tune egt wise.
Now for Gearhead...
So if you have read any of my posts about tunes you will know that for a long time I was not happy with their tuning. The street tune that I ran the most really felt lacking on power and the shift points were god awful. She wouldn't shift until about 2100 rpm and I was literally getting somewhere in the realm of 8 mpg... 8!!! Lars rewrote the tune once for me and it helped a little but the shifts still weren't right. After talking to various people I was hearing the same things from them. I pretty much gave up hope and switched back to RCD.
Fast forward and I managed to get an updated set of tunes... As of right now I can tell you that they are different in every way. I have run the Tow tune the most at this point and love it. Fuel economy isn't great, but for a 70hp file what can you expect. This tank of fuel has been about 14mpg... That is acceptable to me... The truck drives exactly like it did stock with the exceptions of trans tuning. The shift points have been adjusted and they are a lot firmer than any of the rcd tunes. The adaptive learn has also been limited fixing my rev slamming... It does run a bit hotter egt wise than I would like for a tow file, but for my purposes it is perfect. I attribute the egts to added fuel instead of timing. And that's perfectly fine... Added fuel is better than timing in my book. As of right now I am having a hard time trying to find a negative to this tow tune.
---EDIT---
Been running Matt's tow tune for roughly a week now and so far it is still shifting exactly how I want. The ONLY down side I have found is fuel economy. I am averaging about 11-12. I have only put 2 tanks worth of drive time in and those numbers are done by pen and paper. My cts is telling me 12.5 so it isn't far off.
As I run the other tunes I will throw reviews up on here as well. but all of mine are geared toward a DD truck that is just that... A truck. I don't care to go fast and nor do I care about fuel economy. Its purely about keeping the truck happy and how well it drives.
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I invite anyone and everyone to throw their 2 cents in here about their tunes and tuners. As we start getting more and more reviews feel free to link this to posts from newcomers so they have a place to as their questions.
I do ask that we keep this on topic so relevant information is as accessible to members as possible. If you have general modification questions please refer to this post as I will be deleting any non tune related question. http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/general-6-4l-discussion/281380-general-6-4-modifications.html