Hi Guys,

I have been doing alot work to my truck lately and I am seriously debating getting a tuner of some kind. The problem is i have no idea which one will best suit my needs. I am clueless when it comes to these things, so I will do what I always do come here and ask for advice.

So here is what i have,

2005 F150 FX4 3v
33inch tires
Corsa sport catback SISO
Magnaflow Hi-flow cats 94106
Soon to be Gotts Mod Intake

Not sure if i should go canned or custom. Or if there are tuners with both in case i decide to go custom when I become more knowledgable. One tuner that I like the Look off is I guess the Edge because of the way it mounts on the dash. I was thinking the Gryphon Edge from PHP? Will this display fuel economy in MPG? This would be nice since my truck doesn't have gas mileage display.
I really only use 87 octane, and I rarely Tow. Granted those tunes will be nice to have. i'm just trying to get the best performance out of my truck.


Anyways any advice or suggestion would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I would say SCT for a tuner but then again, I may be just slightly biased. :-)

 

I have an sct x3 with custom tunes from vmp and 5 star. I LOVE it. It gives my little 4.6 some much needed low end torque, it can climb a hill without downshifting now lol. I like that there is nothing sitting on the dash all the time. If you want the gauges and are ok with a device on your dash all the time, look into a gryphon from php

 

Had an Edge for 31,000 miles then PHP custom tunes for about 70,000 miles. I was totally dependent on the gauges with my 2005. The custom tunes are definitly worth it, too. I monitored engine temp, tranny temp, voltage and digital speed. The only way I would go with a 2005.

 

Edge , Gryphon , and SCT will all be good for you , but if you ever decided to get custom tunes get ready for a long frustrating wait no matter where you order the tunes from.

 

With regards to “Chips” and “Tuners”, years ago it was the best that most could do to enhance the ignition timing, fuel curve, transmission shift points, etc. It was (and still is) very important that a person verifies that the “Tuner” is ASE certified in both ECM and Transmission programming and IMHO be have current certification by the OEM whose vehicle you want to modify. There are plenty of persons who advertise their programs to be the best and even offer custom tunes, but in all reality, very few actually have credentials in these areas- but that’s not to say that some of these “geniuses” haven’t really caused damage to a few vehicles- just jump over to flatratetech.com and read just some of the comments from the MSE techs!. Perhaps what is equally important is the parameters that can be adjusted are set by the OEM vehicle software…so there is really no “magic” in what they are doing anyway. IMHO, if you live near any major city there are excellent tuning specialists with dynos who for the same price (if not less) will tune your vehicle taking into consideration your specific needs including environmental conditions, for your specific vehicle. IMHO, the best bang for the buck!

If you are comfortable and understand how to tune a vehicle, you can also do this yourself. There are several software programs available, that “Speak Common English” that will allow you to tune your vehicles ECM. One company is HP Tuners, they have a website….they offer two core programs, one for those who are doing dyno tuning and one for the home-garage mechanic (which is priced at about the same as most of the “canned tunes on the market) …this version limits the span of adjustments as a safeguard against doing something outside of the oem scope……basically, keeps you from doing something “too stupid by accident” (grin).