[joe8120]

I am currently running an older Superchips Microtuner in our Excursion on the "towsafe" program which is 60hp. I tow a 7500# travel trailer occasionally during the year on local trips and to WA. I am satisfied with the power but I noticed that the EGT's would exceed 1250F up hills if I kept my foot into it. Since then, I have replaced the muffler with a Walker BTM and added a DIY Tymar intake. I have not towed since adding these 2 items so I don't know yet what effect it will have on the EGT's.

I have read throughout this forum that you guys like the DP tuner. I like the ability to change programs on the fly as well. Do you think it would be worth upgrading to the DP tuner at this point? I would probably go with the 40 & 60 tow for towing and the 80 economy for driving without the trailer. Thanks for the advice.

 

[blueknight7]

I run the DP Tuner, with the programs in my signature. Alot of times, I have to pull heavy, real heavy. I have pretty close the the same modifications you do. South Central Kansas has some real serious hills. I lived in central Colorado for 10 years, so I do know something about mountains, too. With the DP Tuner, I have never ran out of engine, transmission, or upped the EGT's to an unacceptable level, yet. I like it. It puts the G, in GUTS.

 

[joe8120]

BlueKnight thanks for the reply. You do have almost the same mods as is on my Ex. With the dptuner, how are your EGT's towing the heavy loads? I find that up hills I have to back way off the throttle currently to keep them under control. I'm hoping with the muffler and intake the temps will be lower. How does switching programs work?

 

[westvandude]

The F5 has a little digital display the size of your Ford keyfob. There's two little buttons below the display, one goes up one goes down. So if you're on stock tune and want to go to next up hit the up button once. Changes tunes in less than a second.

I haven't used the tow tune much. If it's a relatively light tow I just leave it in 80e. No probs yet.

I run 80e most of the time unloaded. Occasional 140hp drag race off the lights. Tow tune shifts higher rpm than 80e or 140. I use stock tune to start it and run that till temp comes up. Basically all you need is one tow tune, 80econo, and something for racing.

I still drive by the gauges, but haven't towed heavy since the DP came into my life except for my boat & trailer but that's about 7000lbs.... pretty light and I tow very short distance from the marina. Can't say on egt's for that.

Walker BTM makes a huge difference over stock garbage can. Got 4" magnaflow now, slightly more noisy. Haven't monitored egt's yet.

 

[blueknight7]

I would hate to publish the weigh slips on here. Lets just say, REAL heavy. No, no EGT problems at all. Even at slow speeds. I do drive by the EGT gauge, and I have hit 1100 degrees, and constant. That was as high as it went. That I really have never needed to do much shifting on the fly. 20 HP tow, in the two tracks, which are no roads at all. And 40 Hp. on the highway. Up and down the hills. No EGT problems. Just power, right where you need it. Changing programing is just a push button, away, if you think necessary.

 

[westvandude]

Watched the egt gauge this evening.... 1250deg on 140hp setting on a 0-60 mph run @ 60 mph or so. Temp goes up fast on that setting. That's with the new 4" turbo-back exhaust. Tow settings will be a LOT less. :no:

 

[boertje]

I too have the Excursion. I had a Superchips 60hp tune and upgraded it to the DP Tuner. I have done what you are thinking of doing. I have the stock tune, the tow tune and the 80 econ tune. I make long hiway trips and NEVER get under 18.5 anymore running at 75 mph on the 80 econ tune. If I can keep it around 65 (gosh thats hard to do these days) then I can manage 21mpg. This thing helped my economy by 1.5 mpg. And if you want a little smoke, just put your foot into it.

 

[joe8120]

thanks guys, good info. Boertje, what is the hp of your tow tune and when you use it, approx. how much weight are you towing? I am leaning toward including stock and the 80 econo but I need a tow tune when I tow the trailer. Long grades up I-5 in CA and OR and steeper grades into the Sierras.

 

[achowell]

Now that my F5 is installed, im going to go ahead and tell you that i highly reccommend it. After a hard fought installation battle (my fault, didnt clean the pcm connectors well the first time) i finished my install at about 1:30 in the morning and immeidately went for a test drive, i only ran the 80e, but had so much power, for some reason, i couldn even bring myself to punch it very hard worried i was gonna break it loose on the wet roads. The DP truly does live up to all that is said about it.

 

[SmokeyWren]

I tow a 7500# travel trailer occasionally ...I would probably go with the 40 & 60 tow for towing and the 80 economy for driving without the trailer.

My trailer grosses about 8,000 pounds. I have Jody's 40-tow, 60-tow, and 80-economy.

The 40-tow is only for when you are towing enough trailer to overload your tow vehicle over the 20k GCWR of your tow vehicle. For your 7,500 pound trailer, the 60-tow is probably perfect, but if you get the shift-on-the-fly chip, then you might want 60-tow and 80-tow instead of 60-tow and 40-tow. You'll never need 40-tow with trailers that gross less than 10,000 pounds. But you might prefer 80-tow when not climbing steep grades.

Although I have 80-economy available, I usually just leave mine in 60-tow all the time. 60-tow feels good whether towing or not. I don't have any improvement in unloaded MPG when I switch from 60-tow to 80-economy, so why bother switching?

 

[joe8120]

Thanks for your comments. Smokey, I think I will go with your recommendations: 60 tow, 80 tow and 80 econ. I just got back from a short fishing trip to the Sierra foothills. Not much to challenge the Ex but I did notice that the EGT's appear to be lower than before I had the new muffler and intake. The real test will be during my next trip to WA. Hopefully I can swing the DP tuner before then.

 

[jetskier]

I have the 40, 60 and 80 tow tunes. I tow my 12000# trailer up the Sierras and I can maintain 55mph on a 6% grade using any of the tow tunes. I start in the 80T tune and if I'm running up a grade and the EGT's are nearing 1250, I'll back off the throttle or drop to the 60T or 40T tune for the duration of the grade. On the downgrade I drop into the decel tune to hold back. On Labor Day I climb up Conway (near Mono Lake) in the 60T with 1250°F and maintained 55mph (grossed around 20k).

on edit: I also can do the same on the nasty grade on I-5 near the CA/OR border. I was heading south and just weighed on one of the OR weigh stations at 20.7k (5k front, 5.5k rear, 10.3k trailer).