In process of picking a tuner

[Josh99]

Well I guess I'll start off by saying I am 17 years old and I have owned my 03 7.3 PSD for about 5 months now. I have the zoodad mod, foil delete, factory straight pipe with size exit, blah blah all of the cheap stuff since I only work during summer. The truck is an auto and has about 137k on it. From all the research I have done PHP is the tuner I want. I've narrowed it down to the Phoenix chip. I *think* I want 1. stock 2. 40/heavy tow 3. 80/light tow 4. 80DD 5. 120 race and 6. smoke show. I tow a +/-6000 boat depending on what were doing about once a week. I will tow bigger loads every once in a while. This truck is my daily driver to school. I do not trash my truck, I want it to last for a long time, so obviously I'm not gonna roll up to every stop light and put it in 4 hi and on the 120 tune and take off all the time. What kind of MPG improvement will I see with the 80 DD? Any suggestions for me? Is this tuner just a knob you turn for each tune? does it plug in or what? What are the downsides to having this tuner? I can't wait to roll up to all the other kids who think they are bad with their civics and coffee can mufflers and smoke them out when they think they're bad. Thanks for any info.

[88Racing]

Looks like you know what you want.
Most see increases in mpgs.
I don't use this product but I've read great reviews of it on here.

[Robert6401]

I just got my Pheonix recently. I have been through one tank of fuel with it and I can say that my mileage was the same as without it, BUT I was running the truck a lot harder than usual because I was playing with the chip. SO, I would think that I would be able to get an increase of some sort if I can go back to driving like normal, but that's hard to do with the extra power.

One thing I will add, especially since I understand that money is tight at 17, is that it would really be smart for you to get gauges FIRST. Trust me, if you get the chip and run it without gauges you have no idea what your truck is doing, and you could EASILY end up having to spend a lot more money to fix a broken motor or transmission. I can easily get EGTs upwards of 1400 degrees in 100 Perf and I would never know that without my gauges. I am leaving tonight for my first tow with the chip and am looking forward to seeing how much the tow tunes help out, but again, would NOT do it without gauges.

Good luck.

[Josh99]

Gauges will be part of my chip purchase, I'm not gonna put it on without them. How high can my EGTs go before I need to worry about anything? Also is the Phoenix just a plug in tuner or what?

[Robert6401]

Your gauge will most likely have a yellow and red line for reference, but you don't want prolonged operation above 1250 degrees.

The pheonix chip plugs into the back of your pcm after you clean the contacts on the pcm. Then there is a cord that runs from the chip to a 6 position rotary knob switch which you drill a hole for in the dash and mount. Not bad at all to mount the chip. There are intructions on the main php page Power Hungry Performance - Feed your hunger for POWER! Check out our Gryphon Programmer for Ford vehicles!