Towing with Superchips tuner ?

[kellem]

I have an older truck " 2004 Ram 2500 " that I'd like to get one more year out it before I get into the newer stuff....maybe 6.4 Hemi, maybe 7.3 gas, who knows.

Opened my truck up with headers, high flow exhaust and intake then installed Superchips 91 octane tune and was very surprised to see it wake up, mainly timing advance I'm sure.

What harm could I possibly do if I'm watching tranny temps and engine temps while towing.

The 5.7 Hemi runs better than ever currently.

[mkirsch]

I've never seen a tuner that made any usable power. It's all at the top of the RPM range. You don't tow at 4500-5400RPMs.

[carringb]

kellem wrote:


That's a ridiculous bunch of miles you got out of the Hemi.

Mine's a Ford V10, but I wouldn't not consider 140k to be high miles in any half-modern truck.

[kellem]

carringb wrote:

kellem wrote:

drsteve wrote:
How many miles on your truck? It may not take kindly to the extra stress at its advanced age.

It's got 144K.
I'm not dogging it my any means, it's just a tow vehicle.

I wouldn't worry about those miles one bit. I had 456,00 when I burned up that valve seat. And if I hadn't let the fuel filter go long (90,000 miles :e) and didn't let my storage compartment flood the same weekend, nothing would have happened. And, I drove another 4,000+ miles with just 9-cylinders before I had time to drop it off for service.

BTW - one more special service note: Make sure you regularly clean your MAF if you're running an oiled air filter. The oil can coat the MAF wire and also cause a lean condition.

Yep, I run that kind of filter and yes, clean the MAF sensor wires often. Good point.

That's a ridiculous bunch of miles you got out of the Hemi.

[carringb]

kellem wrote:

drsteve wrote:
How many miles on your truck? It may not take kindly to the extra stress at its advanced age.

It's got 144K.
I'm not dogging it my any means, it's just a tow vehicle.

I wouldn't worry about those miles one bit. I had 456,00 when I burned up that valve seat. And if I hadn't let the fuel filter go long (90,000 miles :e) and didn't let my storage compartment flood the same weekend, nothing would have happened. And, I drove another 4,000+ miles with just 9-cylinders before I had time to drop it off for service.

BTW - one more special service note: Make sure you regularly clean your MAF if you're running an oiled air filter. The oil can coat the MAF wire and also cause a lean condition.

[kellem]

drsteve wrote:
How many miles on your truck? It may not take kindly to the extra stress at its advanced age.

It's got 144K.
I'm not dogging it my any means, it's just a tow vehicle.

Wife wanted another trailer and wasn't quite ready for a truck yet.

Additional weight of new trailer was whipping the truck before I modified it but I'm still in spec.

[drsteve]

How many miles on your truck? It may not take kindly to the extra stress at its advanced age.

[ppine]

Use a conservative tune. I have an SCT on my Ford 7.3 liter diesel. It has 3 choices. I only tow with the towing tune in place. Heat is definitely the enemy. Watching your gauges and exhaust temp is important, but not the whole story.

[Lwiddis]

Hoping it “holds” and retuning for performance seem opposed.

[kellem]

Thanks for the replies.

I do tow in the mtns quite a bit, 8-11 % grades, 7500 lb trailer, we shall see.

I did replace my plugs to Iridium and opened the gap slightly.
And yes, valve seats are a concern.

Hope it holds for 1 year.

[Ductape]

I’m not impressed with Superchips canned tunes. I tried them and after the novelty wore off, it was obviously not kind to the transmission and driveline. I went back to stock.

I have also used 5-star on a 6.8 under severe service. No issues, and I’d trust their work.

[Lwiddis]

Did you disconnect any emissions equipment?

[TurnThePage]

I added a superchips tuner to an old '97 F150 4.6L V8. I ended up burning a valve while climbing a pass, towing a smallish travel trailer. Mileage was well over 100k by then though.

[carringb]

Under normal conditions, you'll be fine, although I saw accelerated spark plug wear and had to move to Iridium plugs to maintain scheduled intervals. When I scoped my original engine at 460,000 miles cross hashing still looked good. Had a compression check done around 415,000 when an injector failed, and that was all within factory spec.

The big problem is that some safeties are removed. Turning off torque management is really hard on the driveline (I snapped my pinion gear shaft during a WOT 3-to-1 downshift) and can remove engine safeties too. In my case, I tried to limp north with a plugged fuel filter to stay on schedule. Unfortunately the same weekend, my tuner took a bath so I couldn't go back to stock. The low fuel pressure combined with hot weather, a heavy load, and steep hills caused a valve seat to melt. This wouldn't have happened if I could have returned to stock.

That all said... My first tuner was street-oriented not towing oriented. Now I'm running tunes from 5-star, made for towing. I'm not concerned about either breakdown happening again.

EDIT: One more caution... Don't run lower octane than your tune is made for. Unlike the stock programming, it may not adequately compensate for the lower octane. I carry the tuner with me, just in case anything happens on the road that might necessitate going back to stock.