**Copy-and-pasted from regular discussion thread**
Just got my ECU back and re-installed about 15 minutes ago.
Let me first say, as we do here in south Louisiana. . . YES INDEED!! After hooking everything back up, I went for a little ride. Even from when I first put it into gear, I noticed a difference. The sound is very much like the sound of the engine with ORM, more "dieselly," but much smoother at the same time. Even pulling out of the driveway and accelerating up the street, it was just more responsive, more eager.
Then I took it around the corner to a highway and turned 'er loose. I mashed the go-pedal and the tach pegged over to redline and blip-shifted to second right about the time I looked down at it. Now she's not a drag racer now, but much improved. I did a U-Turn, came to a complete stop, and did it again - same result. Very good initial seat-of-the-pants impression. I'm not saying that it's like the difference between a small 4-cylinder gasser and a Viper, but the difference is noticeable. Definitely not only comparable to the ORM. Plus it's nice to not have the CEL on.
One other thing I noticed is that shifts and power delivery through the transmission seems more smooth, less intrusive. At slow speeds, my trans seemed to not know whether to stay in first or upshift to second before, now, it was seamless going down the street. Also, since the highway is 55 mph limited, when I hit 60 I backed off all the way from WOT. Before, it was as though the truck immediately slowed after lifting off the accelerator, whereas now it actually seemed to coast. Keep in mind that this is brand new to me, so take what I say with a grain of salt for sure.
I will post again with mileage figures. Before the tune (and disconnecting my battery erased the EVIC) I was getting about 26.5 by the EVIC, 23.5 calculated by hand. I will have a pretty fair idea of new mileage by Friday, then I am taking a 400-mile trip which will give a really good idea. I do a lot of highway driving, so my numbers will be overall mpg.
Last, but DEFINITELY not least, if you are going to do this tune or any tune that requires removal of your ECU, UNBOLT THE BRACKET, NOT THE ECU. That one tip made the 2-hour removal into a 10-minute re-install. Two 10 mm nuts with ample ratchet-head space are much better than 4 8mm nuts without. Untold thanks, bugnout.
**MILEAGE EDIT 6/25/09 @ 6:45 am CST**
EVIC showed 32.9 mpg on the Interstate this morning during my 50-mile commute to work. I drive 80 mph (via GPS, not the speedo) when I can, and I also stopped at a store to get a breakfast sandwich and left it idling for ~4 min while I went in. After exiting the Interstate, I spent 15 minutes in slow-speed, stop-and-go traffic trying to get into the plant and my EVIC readout only went down to 32.7 mpg. That's roughly a 6 mpg increase via EVIC, which should translate to 5.5 or 6 mpg increase when calculated by hand. I am running Shell ULSD and I add 6oz of PowerService (silver bottle) and 6 oz of TC-W3 Quicksilver 2-stroke oil every time I fill up.
Very impressed. I will have to wait till I fill up to hand-calculate mpg, and will post after I do.
**From follow-up post in general discussion**
I had some concerns about how the tune would affect my EGT's, boost, and rail pressure, so I fired off an email to GDE and received an immediate response. Text is below.
Darren asked:
"Did you install any gauges on your test mules to check EGT’s, Rail Pressure, and Boost Pressure? I am a little concerned that the new performance and higher boost could raise these to potentially harmful levels. I would like to verify what, if any, change that you experienced in your testing."
GDE responded:
"We had our vehicles fully instrumented for the development and validation testing. This included turbo speed sensors, EGT, boost, rail and just about everything else. We limited the peak boost based on keeping the turbo speeds within the safety margin and rail pressure is limited based on the hardware limitation. The EGTs are actually lower at peak power than with the production configuration as we advanced the timing of injection. This sends more heat to the coolant and less out the exhaust. In trailer tow situations with ambient temps above 100 F when the coolant approaches the limits, we back off on the timing advance to reduce coolant heat rejection and also reduce peak fueling levels to limit EGT.
In normal cruising you can notice the turbo more as the boost is higher, the speeds went from around 120,000rpm to 140,000rpm and about 155,000rpm in high altitude. The turbo will never go over 200,000 in any condition and those peaks are only at WOT conditions. The validation, development trips along with 5 engineers working full time on this were the main reason our product costs more as we need to begin to cover the overall costs. I hope this puts you at ease. Just to note, we have accumulated over 50,000 miles on two KJs with the tune and have had not issues to date."
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. On the highway I drive 70-75. My libby has the same response and driveability improvements already stated throughout the board.