Wow I called PHP today to discuus a possible gryphon, and wow I was talking with Bill and he answered my questions and then some. They sound like a great bunch of people. I have been on the fence for a while but Bill set me at ease in regards to my purchase. I will be towing a 4300lbs trailer and cant wait for the custom tunes. What do you guys suggest the tunes I should ask for?
The waiting is going to kill me but I am sure it will be worth it. I live in Kelowna BC Canada so it will take a while before I even get to see the tunner with the canned tunes and then another 4 weeks for the custom ones.
The only thing that I have done to my truck is installed a K&N drop in filter and possibly down the road I will change my exhaust to a cat back. I love my truck and have owned it since new and baby it to death, so the last thing I want to do is hurt it in anyway, she only has 30,000khs on her.

 

Glad you're getting aboard, Silver! I think you're going to love it!

My situation is not TOO different from yours - I pull a 3600# trailer and have a 200+ # bed cap. My truck though, is stock - no intake or exhaust mods.

I have a custom towing tune from Bill and it has improved my gas mileage at least 0.71 mpg (and probably more) while towing and I have plenty of power to drive this over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado (or in the desert in Arizona). I was passing all the other RVs on the big uphill climbs on our recent trip.

In addition, I think you are going to love being able to monitor your transmission fluid temperature as well as anything else you want to look at. I also display my charging voltage since I have two batteries in the trailer and we do a lot of "dry" camping - I want to know they are charging properly.

I've just ordered a custom, non-towing, economy tune too. Since I don't think I'll ever use high-test gas, I'll just have those two. My Gryphon was an Edge "upgrade".

Congratulations on your choice!

- Jack

 

Does the non- tow economy tune hurt performance? That would be a good tune to have. I was thinking custom tow tune, performance and something else.

 

I have 87 Performance, 87 Towing and 91 Performance for tunes. (91 is the highest octane in California.) it is a good combination of tunes. PHP customer service and tunes are second to none.
I too am an original custom tuned Evolution (Gryphon Version 1.0) customer. Come to think of it I need to see exactly how early I was. I don't think there was very many that beat me to the punch.

87 economy is mostly shift strategy from my understanding. Give Bill a call or email and he will give you the best answer.

 

You're probably right about the "shift strategy", bangind. But, I think there are other things going on here too. I doubt Bill would be selling me a "custom tune" that did no more than adjust shift points.

And, my from understanding of these things (which is not as wonderful as I'd like) is that you still have power if you really want to floor it.

Regardless, FoMoCo's original, single PCM tune cannot do EVERYTHING well. It has to be a compromise all across the board.

- Jack

 

I sent in my forum to get my custom tunes done from Bill as well, he is a great guy to talk to. I am getting a 87 trans only, a 87 tow tune and a 91 performance tune. I only use my truck for towing so I will never use the 91 tune but want the best performance from 87 octane fuel.

 

King, I started exactly like you. I bought my truck (used) just to haul our trailer when I discovered my Nissan Frontier was having a bit of trouble pulling it over the Colorado mountains (can you imagine 5500 rpm in first gear)?

I thought I'd really only drive the thing when I pulled the trailer. But, I forgot there are times we like to go out on the back roads in Arizona (without the trailer) and, since it is a good "cargo hauler", we use it for that too, around Tucson. And, of course, once we get where we camp, we sometimes drive the truck for short periods "clean".

So, since it is so easy to reset the tune, I decided to get an "economy" 87 octane tune from Bill to go with the towing tune. If nothing else, it gives me something else to "play" with.

- Jack