Tuner for someone who doesn't race
 

I need to do something new to my truck and I want it to be performance related this time. I have more than enough lights and gadgets so I want to do a tuner and enjoy some new kick and mileage. I've been reading about them on here but I wanted a fresh look at my specific situation.

I don't race. I don't exceed 75mph and the only time over 3,000rpm is accelerating, not while cruising. I don't race or drag. I don't have any other performance mods. I don't have bigger tires or a lift or different gears. Its just a stock 4.0L auto. I want better mileage, better acceleration, better shifting and all my improvements to be in the 1500-3500 range. Improvements that would help me goin 110mph at 5500rpm are useless to me.

Looking at Bama vs Underdog's Rogue, I'm not sure which would be my best bet. Rogue seems to have more what I need. The three I seem to think would be fitting are 87 mileage, 91 mileage, and 91 performance. Bama doesn't have anything for 87 mileage, but they let you pick low end vs high end improvements for 91+ (torque vs performance).

What ever am I to do? Also, are these tunes still available with the xCal 2 since I don't need all the extra fluff of the xcal 3? Also, these things that say "user adjustable" implies that I can go in and adjust them anytime I want? So if I want to change my idle or something, I can?

Basically the idea for tuning is to get as much safe advance as you can, without really knocking any more than you would stock (or maybe just a lil bit more)

Most OEMS also have WAY rich Open loop AFR's, you can lean these out some without sacrificing reliability due to knock.

Your speaking a foreign language to me. I don't know what an AFR is nor do I have a clue about properly advancing timing :crazy: Thats why I want a tuner... someone else is thinking of it and knows what they are doing. I just want the results! :biggthump

Matt if you spend most of your time in the lower rpm's I would go with a torque tune over a performance tune. Most perf. tunes really don't do anything until you are over 4000rpm's, were as the torque tune you will notice a difference as soon as you hit the gas.

That's exactly what I want!

Interesting. How do the mileage tunes work?

bump

What are you guys talking about??? "torque tune" "performance tune"...

This is too funny, from sitting in my position as someone who does "tuning" for part of a living.

It is all about Fuel and Spark. How much Fuel goes with how much Air, and when does the spark fire.

Well instead of laughing about how much more you know than the rest of us, how about providing some useful advice? And yes there is more to it than fuel and spark. There is a transmission in there somewhere too. The torque and performance tunes are the pre-tuned packages you can get from various dealers with the xCAL2 or xCAL3.

I am just surprised he(JP7) didn't try and sell something.

They are talking about how Bama sells tunes... You either get performance or torque tunes for a certain octane. Maybe know what you are talking about before bashing people?

supercharge it. lots of low end grunt that way.

Matt, if you've got 93 octane available to you, get a tune in there for that instead of 2 91's. I've got an 87 and 2 91's in mine, I just end up keeping the 87 performance tune, because it's so close to what I get out of the 91... and mainly because I never want to spend the extra money on gas for practically the same experience.

bumpity. I'm interested too.





Havning a difficult time navigating Rogue's site for what I'm needing. 3 tunes and a vin change. My understanding is that it's all done via the interweb and SCT software to transfer.

I would like to find tunes that just give it a lil more pep and mileage around town. 99% of my driving in the truck is in town or heading up the mtns to go camping.

best bet is to contact them... they will give you exactly what you want.

i prefer the 93 performance tunes myself. I get/got the best mpg and the best performance.

its not about racing its about driving. the performance tune improves the shifts and also adds hp/tq. its not all a matter or wide open performance.


ive had all the tunes for these guys. i have had bama, then rouge, then bama and back again.

I think they both do a great job. I do however feel the rouge tune was better for my truck at the setup I had. But Doug at bama has been doing it forever and his tunes work great too.

I would expect to see 2 mpg increase using 91 or 93 which is an equal trade off for the higher price plus you get performance.

there is no down fall to either guy, ive been running tunes for almost 100K miles now.

Thanks Beard.


I shot both an email... last year I got a reply three weeks later from Fred...no reply from Doug... so we'll see how this goes this time around. lol.