Good morning looking at having a programmer installed to increase gas mileage and performance. I did mostly highway driving as I teach on my days off from the fire station yet still want my performance when kayak and get trailer are behind me. Any thoughts?

 

While its a sound idea the problem is the programmers also give you a nice boost in performance. That tends to lead to an even heavier right foot because its even more fun which negates any economy improvements.

That being said you will need to do a good bit to truly get much of a noticeable improvement in economy. Of course the lighter your right foot gets the better the economy gets but thats a given. A tuner itself just loading one of the default tunes will improve the economy a small amount. Maybe .5 to 1.5 mpg. Getting a custom tune done will generally improve that another .5 mpg or so. Other things will also add up like a better freer flowing muffler (or cat back exhaust, or best which would be the entire exhaust system), high flow air filter, then potentially other small things like shedding any unnecessary weight (every bit adds up) like the roof rails, spare tire and mount (if you can reasonably live without - have AAA?), etc.

Do the exhaust and air intake first. Make sure your tires are aired up properly of course (even a little high will help). After you do the air and exhaust run the truck for a few weeks to let the computer learn the new stuff and settle in. Then get a Diablo Sport Intune. Then contact MonteSS (Lew - find him on the Diablo Sport forums) and pay him to do you up a couple of custom tunes. One for towing and one for everyday driving. Running premium fuel will help gain the most performance but of course costs more per gallon but, if you keep your foot out of it, this with the other stuff and you could very well gain a good 3 mpg.

I have an Intune - great little tuner device. I've had Lew do a custom tune for my GMC truck using it and the difference between having the custom tune and stock is very noticeable. The tunes will also greatly improve shifting too. Soon now that I have my H2 I'm going to pay Lew to do me a custom tune up for it. Again though, one of the biggest hurdles to improving the economy is the simple fact that most all of the mods that can improve economy also tend to improve performance which leads to the truck being more fun to drive, ie. a heavier right foot.