I bought my 2014 SRW 2500 CTD Quadcab Tradesman 4x4 (White) new and it is my first diesel. I want to learn about tuners and whether they'll do what I think I want them to do.
The truck is mechanically bone stock (and want to keep it that way as long as I can). Less than 40,000 miles.
Its
not my daily driver. I pull an 8000lb gooseneck trailer full of dogs, almost every saturday for 100 to 400 miles round trip. every other week, I might take the truck to town for dinner or errands (50-75 miles round trip), or on a overnight business trip into city traffic (150 mile both ways, and 50 "city" miles.) Except in the city, the roads I travel have speed limits of 55 to 75, often winding hilly 2-way county highways. There are occasions in volunteer firefighting I may have to light the truck up cold, drive swiftly 10 miles, shut down, lock up, and run to get on other equipment. Oh, and environment is hot humid rural east texas. Also, I use 4HI maybe a mile per week on sand and loose gravel, 4L almost never. My dash hours indicate that nearly 20% of my runtime is idling (most during the saturday trailer pulls, some in stupid city traffic, and some of it just doing light timber work around the property.
So, here's what I
want from a tuner (RacemeUltra, bulldog, mm3, something else) from most important to least important; you tell me whats the best tuner for that, what I might regret, and whats impossible.
- No "rolling coal"
- ability to restore factory programming
- Improved fuel efficiency when towing
- Improved longevity of major components (turbo, motor, trans, drive train)
- a bit more improved throttle response (I'm not trying to smoke tires, just want to enter roadways more briskly for traffic)
- More instrumentation for monitoring system parameters (I have the OEM 3" lcd show 4 lines)
- More turbo whine and generally louder volume from the booster
- not have to buy another gallon of DEF
- Make exhaust brake default "ON" with every key start (I turn it on more then off)
- Put Tow/Haul setting "ON" with every key start (I turn it on more then off)
- a bit more grunt for entering a highway on an uphill ramp with my trailer
- Turbo Timer (?) --- if turbo is too hot when I key off, the motor runs long enough to let the turbo cool (I can roll up to the firehouse, jump out with my keys, lock the doors and head off in a firetruck, confident that my truck will shut off after a few minutes of cool down.)
- Other cool sound modes to make the truck sound more dieselly (and maybe just a little louder). "12v" mode? "lope" mode?
Is all of this possible without a ton of hacking? Running some wires, and getting an EGT installed seems no big deal.
What on my desires list are incompatible with others? What am I missing that I haven't even considered?
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