Are they worth the money? I'd like to get a bit more power out of my truck for pulling my enclosed trailer, which weighs about 42-4300lbs when loaded. My truck is rated for 7500lbs, she pulls the loaded enclosed trailer pretty easily but she sucks the gas and i'd like to improve on that if it's possible. Any suggestions besides "get a Cummins or Hemi"?

To get enough hp to really feel the difference get a supercharger.

My buddy has a 2500 chevy that he put on a free flow exhaust and he chipped it to pull his 5th wheel. In his words, yeah, it sounds better but it doesn't pull like a diesel.

I did a CAI on mine and feel the same about it, it sure sounds "throaty" but I didn't see any real power gains or better mpg.

More power and better gas mileage.

That's tough to do.

I get about one mpg better mileage when towing by running premium gas in my P/U but ...

I'm not subjected to buying the winter blend fuel that you have in AK. That resulted in losing one mpg + when I lived there.

Well, I am not trying to get both at the same time. I'd like more power for towing and when i'm not, be able to make adjustments for daily driving. I may just end up buying a used truck for hauling since it appears that I won't get much out of a chip or tuner.

I've not heard any miracle stories from the gas rigs guys as far as performance chips, but I've never done it myself.

On the diesel side, it is a much different story.

Like the others said, I don't think there is much of a gain with just performance chips. Some people change the exhaust, air cleaners and use tuning or the chips. That combination might result in a slight gain, but is it worth it?

I've already done the CAI and have been considering having a dual exhaust installed. I'm probably going to skip on the chips/tuner and buy a second truck for just towing purposes.

A second truck would buy a lot of gas.

I've got a 2001 Silverado that was chipped when I bought it. I don't know what it would do without the chip, but it runs like a striped ass ape with it. It's my favorite pick-up...for now.

I agree, you can buy a heck of a lot of gas for the cost of another truck, license, insurance etc.

I'm more concerned about having more power to tow my trailer than I am about putting gas in it. Plus wear and tear on my daily driver will be cut down too.

OK. It's just that in your OP you said

///she pulls the loaded enclosed trailer pretty easily but she sucks the gas\\\

I figured the money would be better spent on fuel.

Well, she does suck the gas when i'm pulling that trailer, she's good any other time. I can even put my sled or atv in the back of the truck and gas mileage doesn't drop one bit. I got 16mpg on Saturday driving in 4wd to Petersville and back which is pretty damn good for this truck.

I've always wanted a shortbed Ford diesel anyways so I guess I was trying to talk myself out of it, doesn't seem to be working though.

funny, in my old half ton for with the quad in the back I would get 2 mpg better than without. I figured it must change the aerodynamics a considerable amount hauling the quad.

Figured you'd fess up sooner or later!

Guilty as charged!

Outside of forced induction, the best gain I have ever seen is long tube headers. They are spendy but really help in the tq area. I have read that custom tuned chips that take some of the fail safes out of the tranny tuning can do wonders but I have no experience with them.

On my 03 Yukon, long tubes made a very noticeable difference. I didn't dyno the truck before hand and I didn't do it after so I have no number to prove it. But the truck runs better, cruises at a slightly lower rpm and seems to down shift less.

The only way your truck can cruise at a lower rpm is if you're driving slower, or if you've changed the gearing.

Have you looked into propane injection kits?

What kind of truck you got? Does it have stock tires and stock ride height? I recently bought a Diablo ITune for my 2011 Silverado. I been running it for about a week and have seen about a 1 mpg increase mostly rural driving 35-55 mph speeds. I can't say there is a differenc in power but it does feel a little more responsive. Also the trans shifts crisper than before. The unit was 399.00 and it is a plug and play tune. You can chose between a 93,89 and 87 octane tune and a mpg tune. I'm running the 87 octane tune right now for a test. I'm going to try the others soon, I like to run a tune for a week normal driving to see if there are any differences. I ran a Predator on my 07 Dmax and loved it but you do not get the increase in performance with the gas engines like you do with the diesels. I mainly got the tuner because I'm going to put bigger tires and a leveling kit on the truck in a few weeks so I will need to change the tire size in the ECM. My experience has been whem you change the tire size it impacts the performance of the truck alot.

I wish I still had my diesel, once you tow with a diesel you get spoiled. I thought I didn't need it anymore but now I'm buying a camper so things have changed. The camper only weighs 5200lb dry but loaded its about 7500 which my truck is rated for 8900 but a diesel would pull it a lot easier than my 1/2 ton. If you tow a lot then the extra fuel cost and such is worth it. However sometimes you have to do the best with what you got.

I have a Ford 7.3 diesel and love the tuner. Two cautions for all tuner users. Maintain increased airflow to control exhaust temperature, and don't tow with a hot setting. Tow with a tuner set-up for towing. Otherwise you can overheat and potentially blow-up engines. Talk to someone in a shop that works on tow vehicles a lot.

Diablo makes the best tuners for gas engines IMO.

On my 2000 Dodge 1500, I have a SCT tuner from hemifevertuning.com and it really woke my Dodge up. However, I will add this caveat, Dodge severely undertuned the 360s and 318s to deal with the leaky plenum. This is commonly referred to as the "deathflash"


I generally use the economy tune on the SCT and did notice around 2 mpg increase.

Had an edge evolution chip in my 7.3 ford. Helped a lot. that being said - you can get a large gain just by the fuel. #1 doesn't produce as much power as the usld. #2 fuel if your truck will run it makes a noticeable increase in power and fuel economy.

Would you elaborate? How do chips on diesels work? I have seen some that promise better MPG and more power - always thought these were mutually exclusive. How do the chips work for towing?

It is my understanding that chips work better on diesels because diesel engines as a whole are much more efficient than gassers, therefore they can make better use of the added performance given with a chip.
Adding performance without adding airflow causes EGTs (Exhaust Gas Temps) to go through the roof and ruins engines, towing also increases EGT's so you get the picture. As someone else said to run a tow tune on your chip not one of the high HP tunes. Most guys I know that run chips have a pyrometer and guages to keep a close eye on whats going on with their engines and transmissions.
ETA: The only reason I would chip would be if I ran a delete kit (EGR, DPF or Urea) to keep the dummy light off. I know they make crazy power but I would stick to the milder ones if I did it with the delete and straight pipes for better MPG and lower EGTs...

The reason they work for diesels is that diesel ECM's are programmed to produce low NOx. Remove that requirement, and the engine is much more efficient. FWIW, Dutch.

Chips and tuners work, but they extra air flow so that the engines don't overheat. I got about 100 hp on my Ford 7.3. If you want to tow with it just make sure you are in tow mode, not performance. Truck shops are full of blown engines because people try to hot rod heavy trailers.

With the newer gas engines the computer keeps updating itself to run at optimal performance, every time you change grade of fuel and even brand of fuel you change the equation.
My explorer was rated to run on E85, I would on occasions put E85 and the fuel mileage would drop dramatically the the computer light would eventually go on, back to the dealer I would go. The tech would tell me either go E85 100% or regular gas 100% since the computer would go nuts causing error codes to go off. Went back to strictly gas and never had a problem.

If you have screwed around with the gas, they told me disconnect the battery for a couple hours and reconnect, all the old variables will be erased and go to factory default setting. This way the computer will start anew