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ASD Dad

Bully Dog?

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Anyone have a BD tuner on their 5.6?  I thought I read somebody had one but cant seem to find a thread now.  I know some Titan owners swear by them.  On my Tundra they were hit or miss with way more misses unless you had a TRD supercharger or longtube headers.  Then the BD made a nice difference.  

 

If you do have a BD, which model and what tune are you using?  Any changes with performance, mileage, etc?

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I've been wrench twisting as a ase master for about 40 years now ...And I can speak from experience That unless you get wide band sensors and a programmable ECU  , most so called plug and play chips are BS ... And dyno time ain't cheap ... But one of my spec miata motor's did set a lap record at robling road a few years back , that still stands for a 1.6 .... About 75 hrs into tune time on a "stock motor "with a "factory" ecu" ... Don't ask ... :) Suspension helps ..., You've got to understand that most folks won't say their chip did nothing ... but take their money .

The factory ecu's are generally the best compromise between performance and emissions , And as a rule are pretty hard to improve on for a daily driver . The ecu will only function within  a fairly narrow band of inputs / outputs . or it limps ... Most "chips" on the market these days confuse temp readings the ecu see's aka intake air temp is 20 F and coolant temp is 195 f , so the ecu fattens the mixture just a tad and tries to get the fuel trim within it's parameters.....

Sometimes tech sucks , gimme a 440 sixpack anyday ....

Glenn 

Edited by axulsuv

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Nice to have a ASE Master around.  I've been wrenching a long time but I am definitely not certified.  Nice to see you build cars as well, I was a cone dodger for about two decades and did quite a few track events when I lived up north.  Mid-O, Nelson and the old BeaveRun were all local tracks.  I never ran actual IT or NASA wheel to wheel events, just track days and time attack events.  I do know about the "stock motor/ecu" combos being run in "spec" cars.  Remember the Neon ACR days?  Buddy was a Dodge tech and they did quite a bit of tweaking!

 

Anyways - I am not sure if you have used or seen  the Bully Dog units but the BD actually flashes the ECU which is one reason why it is so easy to brick your ECU.  It is not a simple piggyback, you can actually flash and then remove the unit entirely although you gain a nice gauge tool leaving it in.  I have run piggybacks in the Tundra and my old cars and with modern cars many ECU's will simply learn around the piggybacked tuner.  You may see a short term gain but as the ECU adjusts you can lose down the line.  It is certainly no AEM or Haltech standalone but it is supposed to be one of the better flashing options over something like a Unichip or Hypertech.  I know diesel guys swear by them and my neighbor has one on his F350 that saw huge gains.  I also know the Tundra supercharged guys saw huge gains.  The NA Tundra guys it was very hit or miss.  

 

I do know that if you need to reflash to stock if you bring your vehicle in for service.  Not so much for warranty issues but if there is some TSB or recall out that you dont know about and they try and flash the ECU overtop the BD tune it can brick it.  You then have an expensive fix!  

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