I can agree with Cleatus's comment about trying to make my truck better, but I have actually thrown money away.

Cleatus, I'm am curious what your truck is and have you done anything to it?

If I started over, I would probably do gauges, php tunes, exhaust, and something to cure turbo surge. Oh, I would also do a Tamar style air filter or AIS. Everything else I have done, probably wasn't worth the money, with the exception of my BTS tranny. I better quit now:rofl:

Good thread for those of us that aren't drag racers. I hate to say the word but I have made some solid upgrades to my truck that I highly recommend.

The Ford AIS air intake system is a huge improvement in quality and filtration over the stock system that is known to fail.

The auxiliary transmission cooler allows me to use the truck as Ford intended. Even at stock power levels the stock trans fluid cooler is so small that the trans will overheat in normal conditions.

Neither of these added power but they were upgrades for reliability and dependability. I think it is too much to say that all changes from OEM are downgrades. I do understand your point though, that some mods are best left undone.

I have been waiting for a thread like this for awhile , though I thought
Cleatus would say "with tunes we can do anything!" Now that my
reality has been shattered what do you think about larger injectors just
to maximize the tunes you have. I know with my stock sticks I am only
getting 60 out of 80 on my daily driver. I was just thinking of stage 1
Injectors to help pull my trailer on a daily basis. My trailer is only 4I in weight.

If a truck's transmission fluid is overheating (stock or otherwise), one needs to rethink the way they're using the truck.

An automatic transmission's fluid gets hot because of two things:
1: The torque converter clutch is never commanded to be applied. Fluid coupling creates a ton of heat in the fluid. Low speed (typically under 45 MPH) will cause the torque converter clutch to remain disengaged (depending on tuning). That's the main reason transmission temperatures soar in around-town driving.

2: There is friction material not holding against the steel plates. "Slippage" is a major cause of heat and the transmission will not live long under these circumstances. Whether the transmission is just old or there is too much power input, slippage is death to a transmission; and it will NEVER get better. Once the frictions are glazed and the steels begin to get hot spots, the transmission needs a rebuild.

It does not matter one bit about whether the truck is stock or not but whether the transmission is healthy and can withstand additional power input. An additional cooler (or a larger one) is always a good idea and I won't knock anyone for adding one. Just know that masking problems isn't a good practice.

Huh? I'll be the first to tell anyone that nobody's tunes are perfect and that nobody can overcome physical hardware limitations regardless of what is promised by a tuning company.

I'm too damn honest to be a salesperson. That's why I keep my PHP job as a cubicle jockey.


I will start by saying that if your EGT is high now (or hard to keep below 1200 degrees), then don't even consider "larger" injectors for towing. If you want more power, we can certainly do that. Just don't expect to tow anything with more RWHP than what you are making now. The additional power can be used for short bursts on a 1995-1997 truck, but you'll find that EGT climbs like a mad chief when more fuel is introduced. Heck, last week I had one heck of a time with my 1995 while towing 6500 lbs. in 95 degree heat on a tune that is marginally more powerful than stock; I'd venture to guess 40-50 HP, but it's a new tune and I haven't put the truck on a dyno with that tune yet.

I'm thinking of sending in the AA injectors in the 1995 to have some 80% nozzles put on them. EGT is the reason. It's perfectly logical to expect a slight EGT reduction with larger nozzles (to a point) since I don't plan on doing anything else to the stock truck.

Oh don't get me wrong, I know tunes can't do everything.
I can tell you with the few mods that I have and with
your tunes I can live with what I have if I have to.
I am worried about what you stated about towing under 45
because that is 80% of my towing. I think I need to look
into a good Trans cooler.
I appreciate your total and honest opinion.

If you're running a stock transmission cooler on a 1995-1997 truck, by all means get a larger cooler. The stock transmission cooler on an older Powerstroke is barely large enough to function as a power steering cooler. Come to think of it, the stock transmission cooler on an old Powerstroke looks just like the power steering coolers Ford used on the 70's boat cars (my ex-wife's Torino had one).

I have three coolers on my 1995 that are connected in parallel. It stays nice and cool. However, I don't worry about temperatures below 240 degrees.

Synthetic oil also makes a noticeable difference in the transmission.