Chips and Tuners

[TexasTechsan]

Your guys opinions on chipping trucks or using tuners on them? This is a topic that gets guys heated up on the Ford forums and I was wondering what you guys think. I'll reserve my opinons until someone else gets this going.

[magnumpi]

Other than it invalidates your warranty, helps you burn that $3.50/gal gas faster and proves nothing, I think it's a great idea. I'd be tinkering with my car when I was your age and my Father would say something to the effect of "those engineers have forgotten more than you'll ever know about automotive design !! Leave it alone". I pass on this sage wisdom to you knowing it will fall on the same deaf ears. Craig

[Lurker Carl]

Unless you're primarly interested in the bling and brag factors, these are your trade offs. Most aftermarket performance products are for show only. Claims to improve this-or-that do so at the expense of performance or durability or make the vehicle no longer street legal. Some products only work under very specific circumstances and require other vehicle modifications to reap full benefit. The products that improve overall performance and durability without legal issues tend to be far too expensive to justify their purchase by most people. Find the resale price of the component, that will give you a good idea if it's actual value.

[jostev]

I would say it's a matter of what you want to do with the truck, ifn your into pulling trailers with it and stuff, it might be worth it to buy something to give you that extra HP, but personally ifn your just gonna drive it around, and do a little hauling here and there, probably isn't worth it... we were thinking of doing something like that on our Chevy, it's a 96, but we just put some glasspacks on, and that gave it a bunch more HP, and we're gonna work over the intake side a little bit everntually...

Johnny

[Bob McCarty]

I talked to a cousin of mine who owns a trucking company in Idaho. He runs a Ford diesel. He changed out his intake and exhaust pipes (behind the muffler) to increase air flow. He also put in an Edge chip because he hauls a big horse trailer quite a bit. With the chip and air modifications he did (around $1000.00) his fuel mileage went up about 5-6 MPG. BUT, he drives at normal speeds and doesn't punch it. So if you chip it to run faster, fuel mileage will take it in the shorts. Most chips have 3 or 4 programs so you can optimize the output for what you need the engine to do.

Bob

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

A lot of it depends on what you have. The diesels cna gain a good bit of HP, but it invalidates the warranty, and as anytime you modify an engine to get more HP, it does put more stress on the engine. On a gas engine, the main thing it does is change the shift points, though it can increase the HP some.

I do have a tuner for my Ranger, that has 3 programs in it. an 87 octane performance, 87 torque, and 93 torque, for trailer towing. I can tell the difference in power for the 93 octane program, but it does require premium fuel when running it.

[kinelbor]

If they could make a chip that would cut my HP in half in exchange for double the mileage I would buy one. I use my truck most of the time as a daily driver and I don't need the power for that, but I do pull a trailer and haul stuff so it would be nice to set it for power while doing that.

[spiveyman]

My uncle put chip in his 05 F250. He does ALOT of towing, big loads at that. It has helped with his towing and all, but the fuel milage is probably not much better since he tows so much weight and plays with . Its next to impossible to keep it in two lanes when you punch the throttle Like they said, it depends on what you're really gonna do.

[Jackman]

I am also a diesel owner also , a 97 F-250 PSD and 95 F-350 PSD. Both of my trucks are bone stock and no plans for a chip just because I am not in to the hi performance aspect of the PSD, however i do want to at sometime put in a remote idle control because the PSD is totally controled by the computer and I want a lower idle speed, thats as far as I will go on changeing the factory tuning.