Which programmer would be the best bang for my buck? Just trying to piece everything out right now

 

Personlly I use the SCT SF3 with Mike Butler's tunes from 5Star tuning. I run the 93 performance / tow tune as a DD. Others are available as well. VMP & Troyer are also used quite a bit on this forum. You can even get modest improvments with just the 87 octane performance / tow tune as well. You will loose the drive by wire lag problem and you will see huge improvements in transmission shifting along with a small gain in HP & torque. I have a '10 XLT and i have ran both tunes listed above with no problems. I also run the stock air box as well.

 

Ditto.

Use the search function. This has been beat to death the last 6 months and there is an immense amount of info already on here, no need to regurgitate it all again.

I use 5star and VMP.

 

Roger that. I guess custom tuning has finally really catching on. That and with the price of gas people are wanting to get the most out of it MPG wise. I really do not understand the second one if that is the case. We are driving around in 5500 lb. pigs. I don't mind answering a question though. For a newbie it is a lot to wade through.