I am a little mad.
#1
05-01-2005, 06:49 PM
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: INDY BABY!
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I am a little mad.
I was watching TRUCKS today and they had a new tuner on there that had GPS, radio frequency back-up camera, and of course onboard vitals for the truck.
Well of course it is for a diesel.
Why the heck can't I get something like this on a gas engine? Why can't we have a tuner that you can adjust on the fly??
I mean this thing had all the gauges,info, cool crap a guy could ever want, but just for diesel trucks.
Is there a specific reason why only diesel engines get these kind of tuners. At least we could have one that we could change on the fly and had some additional info on (water temp, oil pressure, etc..)
On a side note I will be giving Mike T. a call soon. I have never seen such a product talked about in a positive manner online. Besides the product itself the talk of Mike Troyer is also great. And all the info you give Mike on this forum is trully great.
Well of course it is for a diesel.
Why the heck can't I get something like this on a gas engine? Why can't we have a tuner that you can adjust on the fly??
I mean this thing had all the gauges,info, cool crap a guy could ever want, but just for diesel trucks.
Is there a specific reason why only diesel engines get these kind of tuners. At least we could have one that we could change on the fly and had some additional info on (water temp, oil pressure, etc..)
On a side note I will be giving Mike T. a call soon. I have never seen such a product talked about in a positive manner online. Besides the product itself the talk of Mike Troyer is also great. And all the info you give Mike on this forum is trully great.
#2
05-02-2005, 02:43 PM
Former Sponsor
Hi TR,
Have any idea how much that costs? Try a minimum of 2 to as much as 4 times the cost of a tuner for these trucks!
You see this on diesels and not gas engines in large measure simply because it's far more appropriate on diesels - because they are turbocharged, you can add HUGE power gains (like anywhere from "only" 50 HP to as much as 150+ HP, and do that in increments), on the *stock* engine. That is something you cannot do via tuning alone on a normally aspirated gasoline engine - you'll never get 70, 100, 150 HP & larger gains via tuning alone on a normally aspirated gas motor.
Additionally, as you go up higher & higher in power on turbodiesels, the EGT's (exhaust gas temperatures) climb higher & higher as well - so as you go further and further up in power, you lose more and more towing capacity - and towing big loads is one of the primary reasons people buy those turbodiesels to begin with. So this is one of the primary reasons you see those switch-on-the-fly power levels, because it is appropriate for turbodiesels, because of the type of vehicle platform and how it is generally used.
Add to that the fact that those turbodiesel trucks (like say, a loaded F-350 dually) tend to be significantly more expensive, and used much more for "commercial" purposes, so you have the ability to build a much more expensive product and enough of those owners will buy them - remember, a setup with the features you are talking about can very easily get up into the $1200+ price range (some of them run even more), and virtually no gas engine F-150 owner is going to pay 2-3 times as much for their tuning, where some turbodiesel owners will because of the huge gains that can be made in that platform via tuning alone, and the expensive of the vehicle itself.
So the bottom line is that it's due to a combination of factors that add up to being able to have a FAR more expensive product that has all of those "bells & whistles" (every additional feature costs more & more money), as well as it being simply appropriate for the type of vehicle platform - a turbodiesel that can see power gains approaching upwards of 200 HP via tuning alone - where it's not nearly as applicable (or as salable) for the gasoline engines - and the fact that this is doable with a "simple" inline device that does not actually reprogram the PCM, but instead simply alters a few of the data streams to cause more fuel to be added (which automatically raises power in diesels) and alters the pedal maps, etc., whereas in a tuner for these trucks, we're actually flashing the PCM with a completely different calibration - not just changing a few simple data streams inline.
Another point is that for many years now, multiple-program switch-on-the-fly chips *have* been available for gasoline engines as well - we can provide those for the F-150 up thru the 2003 model year (and the 2004 old body style Heritage models, too) - in other words, the EEC-V PCM vehicles. That cannot be done in the 2004 & up new body style F-150 because the PCM simply doesn't have anywhere to attach that type of chip - so you have to flash the PCM to change the program.
There's a lot more to this technically, but that's just some of the basics.................
The hot tip for tuning the new F-150 is our custom tuning loaded into the Xcalibrator, which, as you probably already know, has room for 3 different custom tunes.
If you'd like to go over any of this in more detail, please feel free to give us a call at our number listed below.
Have any idea how much that costs? Try a minimum of 2 to as much as 4 times the cost of a tuner for these trucks!
You see this on diesels and not gas engines in large measure simply because it's far more appropriate on diesels - because they are turbocharged, you can add HUGE power gains (like anywhere from "only" 50 HP to as much as 150+ HP, and do that in increments), on the *stock* engine. That is something you cannot do via tuning alone on a normally aspirated gasoline engine - you'll never get 70, 100, 150 HP & larger gains via tuning alone on a normally aspirated gas motor.
Additionally, as you go up higher & higher in power on turbodiesels, the EGT's (exhaust gas temperatures) climb higher & higher as well - so as you go further and further up in power, you lose more and more towing capacity - and towing big loads is one of the primary reasons people buy those turbodiesels to begin with. So this is one of the primary reasons you see those switch-on-the-fly power levels, because it is appropriate for turbodiesels, because of the type of vehicle platform and how it is generally used.
Add to that the fact that those turbodiesel trucks (like say, a loaded F-350 dually) tend to be significantly more expensive, and used much more for "commercial" purposes, so you have the ability to build a much more expensive product and enough of those owners will buy them - remember, a setup with the features you are talking about can very easily get up into the $1200+ price range (some of them run even more), and virtually no gas engine F-150 owner is going to pay 2-3 times as much for their tuning, where some turbodiesel owners will because of the huge gains that can be made in that platform via tuning alone, and the expensive of the vehicle itself.
So the bottom line is that it's due to a combination of factors that add up to being able to have a FAR more expensive product that has all of those "bells & whistles" (every additional feature costs more & more money), as well as it being simply appropriate for the type of vehicle platform - a turbodiesel that can see power gains approaching upwards of 200 HP via tuning alone - where it's not nearly as applicable (or as salable) for the gasoline engines - and the fact that this is doable with a "simple" inline device that does not actually reprogram the PCM, but instead simply alters a few of the data streams to cause more fuel to be added (which automatically raises power in diesels) and alters the pedal maps, etc., whereas in a tuner for these trucks, we're actually flashing the PCM with a completely different calibration - not just changing a few simple data streams inline.
Another point is that for many years now, multiple-program switch-on-the-fly chips *have* been available for gasoline engines as well - we can provide those for the F-150 up thru the 2003 model year (and the 2004 old body style Heritage models, too) - in other words, the EEC-V PCM vehicles. That cannot be done in the 2004 & up new body style F-150 because the PCM simply doesn't have anywhere to attach that type of chip - so you have to flash the PCM to change the program.
There's a lot more to this technically, but that's just some of the basics.................
The hot tip for tuning the new F-150 is our custom tuning loaded into the Xcalibrator, which, as you probably already know, has room for 3 different custom tunes.
If you'd like to go over any of this in more detail, please feel free to give us a call at our number listed below.