Avanteone
Well-Known Member
So, as many of you know, I get bored somewhat easily, and can't leave stuff well alone. I've owned my '05 Duramax for almost 3 years now. It stayed stock for about a week after purchasing it. I added a cold air intake kit, 4" exhaust, and an Edge programmer, levelling kit, and some other stuff. Later I also added the Kodiak mouthpiece to the intake which allows it to flow more air. While this setup has been satisfactory for a while, my curiosity got the best of me and I began shopping around the "next step" for mods to my truck. What I noticed with the Edge was that while top end power was great, it didn't have the low end "grunt" or torque that my 12v Cummins had. When pulling long or steep hills, it would have to downshift and get into the 2200-2300rpm range before it started pulling really good, and then it would want to drop back into 5th gear, and sometimes would hunt back and forth. It got to the point where any incline at all, I'd just lock it out of 5th and pull the hill in 4th gear. SO, my research let me to EFI Live. This is a custom scan and tune software, that allows you to tune, tweak and adjust basically any parameter in the computer you want. I quickly decided that decoding all the terminology and possibilities was beyond what I wanted to experiment with. I'm more of an instant gratification kinda guy, rather than a "tune it and tweak a little and experiment and see what it does" kinda guy. hahaha I also didn't want to mess with things that could cause me to hurt the engine, transmission, or other components. This led me to Nick at Duramaxtuner.com. Nick is well known on all the Duramax forums as having some of the best tunes out there. I bought one of his PCM's loaded with 5 different "tunes", all switchable on the fly with a keyed DSP5 switch. I have a stock/economy tune, a <10k tow tune, a >10k tow tune, a fun/performance/daily driver tune, and a HOT tune. All of these are optimized to my truck with my mods, tire size, stock transmission, etc. With Jason and Eli's help, we got this installed Monday. Since I lost my EGT and BOOST gauges with the edge, I added autometer gauges to a pillar pod to keep tabs on things. Let me just say, first impressions are VERY impressive. Have driven it a bit to let things adjust and settle in, and allow the transmission to relearn a little. Even on the lowest power setting, this is IMPRESSIVE. More power, smoother power, no lag, hesitation, etc. Before it would kinda of bog off the line until it got up in the RPM's, then the turbo would spool up and it would take off. Not anymore, power is there instantly. One hill near my shop has a 45mph speed limit. If I tried before to keep it at 45, it would bog in OD, I would have to downshift, get it up to 2200-2300 RPM's, then it would pull the hill. Of course, then it would try to shift into 5th, and it would bog again, then I'd lock it out of OD and run up the hill in fourth. Yesterday, pulled it at 45mph, 1900rpms, and just cruised right up the hill. The truck is more powerful, but more importantly, more driveable. It really is smoother and just works better all around. I can't wait to tow with it. Headed to NV with my enclosed next weekend, and I'll report back. Check out Nick's products at www.duramaxtuner.com, or inquire with me... as I'm now a dealer!
If anybody's interested, swing by and I'll take you for a ride or let you drive my truck.
John
If anybody's interested, swing by and I'll take you for a ride or let you drive my truck.
John
spoil all the fun
