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Powerstroke diesel programmer questions...

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toofastforyou

2FAST4U
Joined
May 25, 2001
Messages
5,785
I've had my '08 Ford F350 6.4 Powerstroke twin turbo diesel truck for more than a year now and even though I'm very happy with it, I'd like to extract a little more power from it by reprogramming the computer, using an aftermarket power programmer. The one I have in mind is the "BD Power Ultra X-Tuner" (pictured below). I've read the instruction manual available on the net and it seems very S-I-M-P-L-E to use, ("simple" being the key word here...:biggrin: ) After having "removed" and stored the original program into the programmer for future use (needed for some work done at the dealer under the warranty period), you can then choose to download one of three different power level programs depending on your needs.
Has anyone here experienced this unit? If yes, I'd like a few comments to help me make a decision...

Thank you,

Claude. :redface:
 
No experience with that particular unit but I have used superchips cortex and right now I'm running a juice with attutiude on my 08 6.4L. The cortex is similar to the above unit and is very simple to use. You shouldn't have any problems.

Rick
 
Thanks "TurboBuRick" for your reply. Anyone else has some experience with this, or similar programmers?

Claude. :wink:
 
Don't take this the wrong way, but DON't DO IT!!! The 6.4's don't like programmers at all, especially their turbo's... They are very problematic when they are stock, but it's a game of Russian roulette once you put a programmer on them... One of the local guys around here replaced his fleet with 08 SuperDuty series trucks and has had nothing but problems with them... He put a SCT box on his personal work truck(08 F-450), he uses it for work, but does run the truck a lot, and with just 10000 miles on it he had to put a motor in it... Ford voided his warranty when he brought it in because they sent the computer out and found some variations in the programming... They are detectable after they are taken off the vehicle... Timing levels, boost spikes, rail pressure, and a few other parameters are saved that when they really go looking they can find... Cummins trucks are the same way, before any warranty work can be done, you have to freeze frame the computer and send it directly to Cummins international so they can look at the data and decide if any tampering has been done... That way you can't have your buddies cover it for you:( If you look around on some power stroke forums you can read about all this for yourself... Good luck with it...
 
Don't take this the wrong way, but DON't DO IT!!! The 6.4's don't like programmers at all, especially their turbo's... They are very problematic when they are stock, but it's a game of Russian roulette once you put a programmer on them... One of the local guys around here replaced his fleet with 08 SuperDuty series trucks and has had nothing but problems with them... He put a SCT box on his personal work truck(08 F-450), he uses it for work, but does run the truck a lot, and with just 10000 miles on it he had to put a motor in it... Ford voided his warranty when he brought it in because they sent the computer out and found some variations in the programming... They are detectable after they are taken off the vehicle... Timing levels, boost spikes, rail pressure, and a few other parameters are saved that when they really go looking they can find... Cummins trucks are the same way, before any warranty work can be done, you have to freeze frame the computer and send it directly to Cummins international so they can look at the data and decide if any tampering has been done... That way you can't have your buddies cover it for you:( If you look around on some power stroke forums you can read about all this for yourself... Good luck with it...

Where did you get your information from?? Totally not true.

Go with a Spartan Dash Daq. Spartan has tunes all the way up to 275HP. I think they might have more now. With the 6.4, replace the DPF and CAT with a straight piece of pipe but you must run a tune that deletes them. Guys that have done the Spartan tune and deleted the CAT and DPF are getting over 20mpg.

Go on Ford Powerstroke Forum for more info.

Billy T.
gnxtc2@aol.com
 
I never said SCT was a great programmer, I just said the 6.4's barley get by being stock, but it's a time bomb once you add any kind of power to it... Prove me wrong if you want, but they are worse than the 6.0's and the head gasket/head bolt problems... My buddy has an 03 F250 with an SCT box, exhaust, and a filter that runs 14.30's so the SCT can't be that bad as far as making power goes... Of course the heads have lifted twice and blown the gaskets, he recently put head studs on it, we'll see how long that lasts... My Cummins is a 97 so it's all mechanical, but I've been playing with diesels for a few years now and have tried a lot of the different programmers on different trucks... BullyDog, SCT, Super Chips, and the other basic boxes that re-program through the OBD II port don't have safety parameters built in, unless you buy EGT/monitors to go with them... If I was buying something for a newer truck that I drove everyday I'd go with Banks, Edge, or something along those lines that have de-fuel during shifts, trans slippage monitoring, trans temp, EGT de-fuel, etc... Banks usually won't make the most power, but it's clean, safe power... My buddy put an Edge on his 08 Ram 2500 and it's great, but the extra fuel causes smoke which clogs the EGR tubes, DPF, cat, and muffler... Doing the DPF delete makes a night and day difference in power and mileage, but it's a $10,000 fine if you do the DPF delete and get caught, and if a dealer sees your truck without it they get fined $50,000 if they don't report you... Trust me, they are cracking down on all of this stuff in Delaware, but I don't know where you are from. DOT is starting to pull over 3/4 and 1 ton trucks to make sure they are registered for the correct weight, not overweight, and now they are learning about the new emissions products with the 08 and up trucks... When you buy a DPF delete you have to sign a waiver that it's for off road use only, they are not responsible for any fines, or warranty issues before they sell it to you...
Good luck either way, like I said, I'm not trying to offend anybody, I'm just putting out what I've seen and know...
 
Where did you get your information from?? Totally not true.

Go with a Spartan Dash Daq. Spartan has tunes all the way up to 275HP. I think they might have more now. With the 6.4, replace the DPF and CAT with a straight piece of pipe but you must run a tune that deletes them. Guys that have done the Spartan tune and deleted the CAT and DPF are getting over 20mpg.

Go on Ford Powerstroke Forum for more info.

Billy T.
gnxtc2@aol.com


Billy, what do you do when you have to take the truck into ford for warranty work? Put the DPF/CAT back on and reflash to stock?

Rick
 
Yep , that's why I am getting another Cummins 5.9 not a 6.7 , I had a 96 12v 335,000 miles and still going strong the only problems I had was the trans.
 
I love my 12valve, but the trans hates it... It makes tons of power, pulls anything, and still gets almost 20mpg if I'm not riding around smoking people out...lol... The trans blew up last week, but it has 210,000 miles on the original trans so I can't complain... The 6.7 is actually a great motor, it's the emissions stuff that kills it... Here's a pic of my smoker...

1220080154.jpg
 
IMO It's the luck of the draw no matter which way you go. My 08 furd has had no problems so far (knock on wood ;) ) Got about 4000 miles on it. Done a bunch of of snow plowing with it and have had the piggy back chip on it for the last 2000 miles. I would love to unlock the beast within but by deleting emission stuff, makes me worry about the warranty. I know I could put the truck back to stock but that would not be practical. Besides, I like breathing clean air. When we get old and are hanging in the nursing home sucking non oxygen bottles, we may then realize the true impact of driving a smoke screen.
On the other side of the coin does a diesel truck that only gets 12 miles to the gallon but has less emission really better for the environment? Got to make you wonder, how is using more fuel better? :confused:


Rick
 
IMO It's the luck of the draw no matter which way you go. My 08 furd has had no problems so far (knock on wood ;) ) Got about 4000 miles on it. I would love to unlock the beast within but by deleting emission stuff, makes me worry about the warranty. I know I could put the truck back to stock but that would not be practical.
...does a diesel truck that only gets 12 miles to the gallon but has less emission really better for the environment? Got to make you wonder, how is using more fuel better? :confused:
Rick
So far, I've never had a problem whatsoever with mine either at approximately 25,000kms on it. But in contrary to what you said, I think it might be practical to have the possibility to reprogram the truck back to stock before going to a dealer for some warranty work...When the dealer's done, you simply reprogram it back again! :wink:
As for using more fuel, I think that most of these programers have an "economy" program in them so that when you're not towing any heavy load, you can expect better fuel economy...
But I dunno what to do anymore!...:redface:

See 'ya,

Claude. :wink:

P.S: Here's a picture of my beast...:D
 
So far, I've never had a problem whatsoever with mine either at approximately 25,000kms on it. But in contrary to what you said, I think it might be practical to have the possibility to reprogram the truck back to stock before going to a dealer for some warranty work...When the dealer's done, you simply reprogram it back again! :wink:
As for using more fuel, I think that most of these programers have an "economy" program in them so that when you're not towing any heavy load, you can expect better fuel economy...
But I dunno what to do anymore!...:redface:

See 'ya,

Claude. :wink:

P.S: Here's a picture of my beast...:D

Nice rig Claude. Did you program it yet? When it comes to bringing the truck in for warranty, I would agree that plugging in the programmer is much more easy than removing the piggy back controller. With the Edge though, I do like the monitor and the cool guy molded dash pod that looks factory. Actual power gains also vary between the two. Edge claims 150 hp with over 200 lbs of torque. I know the Spartan has the best gains followed by SCT. I can see one of these in my future. If for nothing else, to improve mileage.

Rick
 
Nice rig Claude. Did you program it yet? When it comes to bringing the truck in for warranty, I would agree that plugging in the programmer is much more easy than removing the piggy back controller. With the Edge though, I do like the monitor and the cool guy molded dash pod that looks factory. Actual power gains also vary between the two. Edge claims 150 hp with over 200 lbs of torque. I know the Spartan has the best gains followed by SCT. I can see one of these in my future. If for nothing else, to improve mileage.

Rick

Rick, no I didn't program it yet...In fact, I haven't even bought the programmer yet!:biggrin: This is why I was asking for some opinions before I buy it!. Tell me, what exactly are you referring to when you talk about a "piggyback" controller?..Is it the "Edge", the "Spartan", the "SCT"? I must say that I find thia a little confusing...:confused: but evidently the one that retained my attention is the one I mentioned in my initial post, the "BD Power Ultra-X Tuner"...What I like about it is that it seems very simple to operate ( a big plus for me! :biggrin: ) and once the programming is done, there's no visual clue letting know that it's been done.:wink: I also find that it's a nice little unit that does not take up much space and you can either leave it in your console, or leave it at home when not in use.

Thanks,

Claude. :)
 
The programmers that plug into the OBD port leave traces behind if they look for them... It saves the stock program and installs BD's, SCT's, BullyDog's "custom tune"... If anything happens to the truck, you can put it back to stock and take it in, but the drive counter will show one drive cycle... If something happens where the motor blows up, you won't even be able to get the one drive cycle which will be hard to explain to the dealer... Diesel trucks used to fly under the dealer's radar before they got popular, but now they know all the tips and tricks when it comes down to it... The "pressure boxes" like the MP-8's are supposed to be untraceable. The MP8's increase the line/injector pressure which they will find if the dealer starts looking... The edge is somewhat undetectable, but you have to take it out every time you go to the dealer, and you have to explain why you would need an EGT probe with no "programmer"... Every programmer or power box has its issues, good and bad, but if I had a brand new truck I honestly wouldn't do it... I rented an F-250 with a 6.0 Diesel for a weekend, put a Bully/Tripple Dog on it, and blew a headgasket by Sunday... It only had 40,000 miles on it, but they always had problems once you increased the power at all, it lifted the head, and to do headgaskets on those trucks you have to take the cab off the chassis... That's not somthing you want to have to pay for if it "should" be covered under warranty... I've learned the hard way, you don't want reliability issues with something you drive every day, and owe money on...lol...
 
Hey I know this post is last replied to in january but I bought a 08 6.4 Ford f-250 with 3k miles, I know I got a steal someone bought it and returned it lol. But I was up to 19k miles and I bought the EDGE JUICE w/ ATTITUDE. at 24k miles I got bad turbos( both intake and exhaust turbo) a clogged DPF and a bad high pressure fuel pump. They had to pull the high pressure fuel pump and to do that the cab had to come off. Now Keep in mind when I took it in I had removed the EDGE perfectly.

Anyway my truck broke down 3 MONTHS AGO. First dealership wanted to see oil change records so I took it from them. The next dealer just fixed my radiator cause it had a leak and said your good to go. Well I wasn't still was blowing white smoke and going no where. Then they called me 3days later and said a Ford engineer looked at it and said your warranty was void from noticing too high of fuel curves, and a stamp left internally on the computer that wasn't stock.

I have fought and fought and fought until I was blue in the face. Thank god I bought it used at a non ford dealership because I went back to them and told them I was going to sue them for selling me a truck that already had this chip on it. Then didn't argue they sent it to their sister shop which just happend to be a ford dealership thank god and the guys there said they arent the warranty police and should have it done in 2 weeks. Now keep in mind I actually had to tow my truck to 4 diffrent FORD dealers first trying to overturn the warranty and none of them would. Funny thing is the first service writer asked me if it had been chiped and I said no and he told me if I would of admited it to him he would of just pushed me through under the radar.

SO BEFORE YOU JUST DROP YOUR TRUCK OFF AT ANYSHOP, YOU BETTER TAKE IT TO A FRIEND WHO CAN ERASE AND REPROGRAM THE
"STAY ALIVE MEMORY". THEY TOLD ME THATS WHERE THE STAMP FOR THE CHIP WAS FOUND. BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL BE SCREWED. TRUST ME I THOUGHT I WOULD BE FINE AND IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO ME. THOSE ASS HOLES AT THE PERFORMACE SHOP GUARANTEED ME I WOULD BE OKAY AND THEY SAID EDGE HAS LAWYERS THAT WILL BACK YOU UP IF FORD DENIES YOUR WARRANTY. WELL I CALLED THOSE IDIOTS AND THEY "WILL NOT HELP YOU"! SO DON'T BE FOOLED. MY TOTAL BILL FOR MY TRUCK IS $9000 AND WHEN THEY ARE DONE THEY STILL NEED TO RUN IT TO MAKE SURE THE MOTOR ISN'T TOAST THEY THINK ITS OKAY. IT WAS A RUN AWAY MOTOR so when you started it the RPMs just pegged out like the motor was gonna blow

Ford also told me an aftermarket intake will get you voided, shoot if your lift is big enough it will void your warranty. When i looked at the engineers report he had put in my 6" lift and 37" tires as another reason not to do warranty work. BE CAREFULL, people will tell you its okay but I would never do it again. I'm getting very lucky to have it fixed.
 
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