Educate me on tuners

[DFark]

Have not looked into tuners lately, because my transmission needed rebuilt. With that in the near future I need educated on tuners for towing and performance. Just want to bring the old girl to life. Mine is a 2001 24 valve, 47re. Bone stock except for raptor pump and pressure gauge. 150,000 miles total. Used as a farm truck towing trailers and chasing parts…Thank you in advance

 

[petersonj]

Since nobody has responded yet, I will mention what I am using, which is a Smarty S03. This tuner is not about making a lot of horsepower at high rpm's; it is about adding a lot of torque at lower rpm's. In fact, it only adds about 60 horsepower.

My truck has a 6 spd manual transmission, so torque at low rpm's is a must for towing for me. The Smarty S03 accomplishes that. Most of my driving (including towing up to 20,000 lbs combined) is in the 1300 to 2000 rpm range, mostly around 1700 to 1900 rpm.

I have 115,000 miles and six years on the Smarty S03. Current odometer reading is at 365,000 miles. I run the Smarty on a mild tune with a stock clutch. For my application, the Smarty S03 satisfies all my wants.

The Smarty S03 also can read and reset diagnostic codes and can adjust the speedometer for any diameter size of tire.

- John

 

[Diesel Gunner]

Unless you are having the trans built up for more power from what I have read you are probably well advised to keep it pretty mild. Stock autos aren’t known to handle larger power gains well. Hopefully some of the more experienced auto guys will chime in here soon.

 

[BarryG]

On my 01 I started with a an Edge EZ, then added rv 275 injectors on the stock transmission. It (the trans) was still going good at 100k miles. I then upgraded the trans with a nice DTT unit. Then I added the smarty s03 and then changed out the ez for edge attitude with juice and then added a cam. Each iteration I thought was an excellent driving and towing experience I did have to change the turbo from the oem hy to a hybrid hx35 when I changed out he ex to the attitude towing I could generate ab it too much heat.
Ez with rv275s was very nice and worked on my stock trans for 80k miles when I rebuilt the trans at 100k though it was still not failing at that point just wanted to add more power and figured it would be better to to do it before hand than later after it crapped out..

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

I will also suggest the Smarty. I’ve had two of them, one for a ‘99 and one for an ‘06. I was very happy with both of them.