Tuning the 7.3 in current times

[psduser1]

When I jumped up to 200/30's from stage 2 split shots i tried Gearhead tuning first...........talk about total dissapointment. There was no power and noisy as heck, very little customer sevice and I was told Tony does not tune 7.3's anymore and a local guy comes in and does it. From there I cut my loses and went to Jelibuilt which ran awesome and had great customer service. I jumped to 238/100's and went with Jelibuilt again the tuning was spot on. This was just my experience and not meant to offend anyone.

Was that on the hydra, or a ts chip?
The tunes are the same, method of delivery matters, sometimes, lol.

I have one truck with a hydra, the other three are still ts chips, with nothing wrong with them. Other than the wrong tunes for the setup I want to run.

 

[INFRNL]

it seems tuning might have been better a good 10 yrs ago give/ take.
a few years back I switched to an SXE turbo and decided to get new tunes and a hydra. Somewhere i still have the old FU chips.

In the past I ran custom tunes from Bill (PHP), Beans, powerstruck, and Pocket (Curtis Frost).
PHP were the best overall with no issues I can recall, everything spot on.
Powerstruck was good but I never got around to having minor revisions done.
Beans, I had a revision but there was something they just couldn't get right and said they couldn't duplicate my issue.

Now I have PHP but it's not the same.
1023 which are good but need revised
Gearhead. Daily tune is what I use and is the best tune I have, although others aren't quite right.
SDK which are good but not quite right, probably need a slight revision.
they all perform slightly differently, even if basically the same class of tune.

I want to try Andrew Arthur or Jelibuilt next as I now have forged rods and do not remember if I got my latest tunes for forged or PMR. I think PMR because the new tunes are what led to a rod finally blowing out the side of my block...another reason my old PHP tunes were the best...

My recent come back to the forums has been to look into a smaller turbo and/ or injectors.

 

[ncollins64]

Call Brian at jelibilt, he has amazing service and tunes. Myself or any customer have never had anything bad from him.

 

[Tiha]

Y'all got me in the mood to try jelibilt. When i get the truck out in the spring maybe I will order some tunes and see.

 

[INFRNL]

good idea. I have plenty of tunes that get me by with my current setup. Maybe when I go to smaller injectors.

Although, I wouldn't mind seeing what the difference might be from my tunes now for PMR's compared to if they were done for factory forged. It wouldn't be apples to apples though as I'm not sure what Jelibuilt tunes are like.

I imagine maybe it would just be slightly stronger on the bottom end, but i'm not necessarily lacking there now that I'm aware of.

 

[dsberman94]

You’d notice a difference between PMR and non PMR tunes.

 

[INFRNL]

thanks.
I tried to contact Andrew Aurthur, had to send an email. I will see if he responds or calls me.
I'll Call Jelibuit tomorrow, it was too late today by the time I was done messing around.

 

[DEEZUZ]

As always, I'm curious what was the driving scenario that was going on when the rod let loose?

 

[INFRNL]

nothing exciting. I don't remember who's tune it was and surprisingly I wasn't driving like a madman or anything. I was leaving my buddies place, gettin onto the 2 lane hwy. made my turn onto hwy and started getting into it a little and bang. wasn't even doing 40.
I had recently been playing with the tunes and getting on it for a a few weeks checking out different aspecs of the different tunes/tuners. My guess is somewhere along the way it cracked a rod and eventually broke at the wrong time.
I was lucky enough to coast onto the next rd and was only like 3 blocks from my friends...so he came and pulled me back to his place

Not a big deal, I had a 7.3 out of a 97. started pulling stuff and swapping my stuff over. got the engine in and went to go home. Didn't make it very far. bad head gaskets, started overheating and found the block was cracked or something...can't quite remember. block was cracked externally.

so I was only left with getting a good core block and having it rebuilt. put a colt cam in, beehive springs, smith bros pushrods and ARP head bolts/studs. was trying to keep cost to a minimum. only had a week to get it done because our big annual 4th of july camping trip was the following weekend.

Guy, I found got it built in a few days, maybe 4...my friend and I pulled the second blown engine and prepped for the rebuild. got everything done the night before the camping trip. I think this was back in 2019 IIRC

some of the info might be slightly off but to the best of my knowledge I got my tunes at the end of nov 2018 along with having to wait on turbo and hydra. So I probably had it installed by January if not earlier. So I guess I had a good 4-5 months playing with tunes..but keep in mind; I only drive 5-6k a yr if that. and, I'm usually on the road all week long. anyway, you get the idea.

I honestly was driving like a normal human being at the time of rod coming apart, so I believe all the other times driving like a madman had cracked it first

 

[DEEZUZ]

That's what's scary is they don't pop under extreme cases. I try liken hell not to lug my engine, that's when they go...

But like you, I've had a 1997 engine sitting on a stand for 12 years now... Ready for back up...

Thankfully I hadn't needed it.. Yet... But I will forever be stock injectors. I can't kill mine, 270k and all original.. I'd probably just have work rebuild them

 

[INFRNL]

If i was smart/ practical, I should have stayed stock-ish. Before I decided I wanted more power and to be faster, I had my truck dialed in perfectly.

Power was good, zero turbo lag, no egt issues, 14-15 in town driving/ 17-18 hwy. I have an 03 CCLB dually 4x4 auto with 4:10's and was stock tires with this mileage.

Then I went 250/100's with Pius LASB turbo (don't remember specs). mileage tanked, lots of lag. then I went 35's, no difference in fuel mileage.

Or maybe I did it all at the same time. At some point I went back to stock tires/ ride height to see if it helped fuel mileage but didn't.

Then I eventually went back to 35's. I only have a leveling kit on the front basically. I have 4" front brackets with 4.5-5" hanger IIRC and I think I went from stock 2" to 4" rear blocks....my front sits lower than the rear, I didn't want it level because of towing.

anyway, then I went to SXE 369 with new tunes. no difference in fuel mileage but definitely a difference in overall power/ performance. I did check my order and tunes were for PMR's.
I've tried an SXE 366 but it's basically the same as a 369, minimal difference but there is some as one might expect. I have learned how to keep lag to a minimum on take off.

My in town sucks because I'm always under the turbo. tons of lag with either SXE turbo. That's why my GH tunes are currently the best because it doesn't go into OD/ lock up until around 50, so I'm not lugging or running below 1500rpm. All my other tunes, I have to drive with OD off or turn it off if I cone on a slight hill or want to change lanes/ pass someone.

Obviously for this driving, 35's and 4:10 is not a good match.
So my current thinking is to drop down to 200/30 injectors with an SXE 364.5/68. I also thought about going 160/30's with 363/68 but since i've been spoiled with the additional power, I think 200/30's would be a happy medium.

They could essentially be tuned identically, but the 200's would allow for those times I want to be stupid or have fun.
All of the above is empty driving. Luckily I only haul 7-8k 5-6 times a year when I have my slide-in camper and trailer with Polaris RZR 4 seater.
Colorado Mountains going up above 10k' makes for an unpleasant drive, especially when you hit the switchbacks.

I have a combination of improper gearing and injector/ turbo setup. I get stuck between gears. ones too high, other too low while I'm not getting any help from the turbo because it won't do much till close to 2k.

Funny thing is when I ran the LASB and old PHP tunes, I never really had issues pulling a fully loaded 14k dump trailer around town. The LASB is probably smaller than a 366.

anyway...enough of me rambling. stock or 160's is probably all a person needs.

 

[lincolnlocker]

it seems tuning might have been better a good 10 yrs ago give/ take.
a few years back I switched to an SXE turbo and decided to get new tunes and a hydra. Somewhere i still have the old FU chips.

In the past I ran custom tunes from Bill (PHP), Beans, powerstruck, and Pocket (Curtis Frost).
PHP were the best overall with no issues I can recall, everything spot on.
Powerstruck was good but I never got around to having minor revisions done.
Beans, I had a revision but there was something they just couldn't get right and said they couldn't duplicate my issue.

Now I have PHP but it's not the same.
1023 which are good but need revised
Gearhead. Daily tune is what I use and is the best tune I have, although others aren't quite right.
SDK which are good but not quite right, probably need a slight revision.
they all perform slightly differently, even if basically the same class of tune.

I want to try Andrew Arthur or Jelibuilt next as I now have forged rods and do not remember if I got my latest tunes for forged or PMR. I think PMR because the new tunes are what led to a rod finally blowing out the side of my block...another reason my old PHP tunes were the best...

My recent come back to the forums has been to look into a smaller turbo and/ or injectors.

Welcome back man!

 

[INFRNL]

Welcome back man!

Thanks, it's been forever.
Probably temporary. Forums aren't what they once were for whatever reason. or maybe 7.3's are just getting too old and people are moving on to the younger generations.

just thought I'd check in on you guys

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

Thanks, it's been forever.
Probably temporary. Forums aren't what they once were for whatever reason. or maybe 7.3's are just getting too old and people are moving on to the younger generations.

just thought I'd check in on you guys

Facebook happened to the forums. Not to mention life moves on.

 

[INFRNL]

say what? are there groups on facebook or are you talking about something else? I guess they needed something to keep FB alive. I don't like to use FB, but seems it's becoming more popular again

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

Yes, there are let's of groups on FB. some are not bad at all. You just need to pick through the comments. The worst part is there's no database to just go back and look.

Some old names are on there. Like @NyCowboy87
Scott Morris aka @smorris
Joey Omlin from Terminator Engineering.


Just to name some ive seen. I'm sure there's more.

 

[INFRNL]

I just watched Dusty's (1023) podcast thing last night. apparently he's not tuning anymore. I gues tuning is getting very limited

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

Most everything tuning related is getting tighter. There's still good tuners out there.

 

[INFRNL]

I wish i could still talk to Bill and get custom tunes from him.
I plan to try Jelibuilt and possibly AA if he gets back to me. otherwise I'll hit up Gearhead again.

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

There's SDK performance out of Canada.