OT Duramax performance

What is a good power adder to put on a early 04 duramax? The truck now has a edge juice with attitude and I"ve left it on the first setting. After trying it on the 5th setting im a little dissapointed, it didnt seem to change power at all compared to the 1st setting and gets hotter on the pyrometer, no extra smoke or power. Acts like there was no change between any of the 5 settings. I also plan to do some heavy towing and by the looks of things it will get hot as it can hit 900* now on setting 1 empty.

Run a Cummins and you won't have an exhaust temp problem!

any truck will get hotter with mods. I know all the guys that have a cummins that is turned up around here has had temp problems at one time or another. bigger exhauast and an intercooler will solve most of your problem.

Well I have an early 04 and a friend has a 03 we both hav e edge with attitude. He pulls a 30 foot fifth wheel and I have a 20 20,000 lb flatbed. Neither of us have any problem with pulling these trailers anywhere and we find the tow/haul mode just slows us down--unless that"s what we want to do.
The difference between us is that he has also added a 4 inch exhaust and the Banks air intake. That gives him about 7 mpg over what I"m getting. By his account the big change came when he added the intake change--guess that is what I"ll be doing.

This thing doesnt seem to have any great noticable power increase with this box, its supposed to be putting out +125HP on the 5th setting and it doesnt seem to be doing any more than on setting 1, any duramax/edge owners out there?

dura maximizer, allows you to control boost pressure which will cool the exhaust

Honestly your better off making the engine breathe better before you do anything else. Go with a bigger intake, intercooler, and exhaust, THEN spend the money on a power chip/module. Then you will really see the big difference. The guys that push chips all day at their shops dont know all the secrets. I know that going with bigger intake and exhause is really expensive. And if you want real power buy a semi truck. Have fun with your diesel.

When towing that heavy, what level do you leave the box on? My intake is stock, but I"m running an MBRP 5" exhaust. I agree with the tow/haul mode, it seems they hold gears better than shifting all the time and the downshifting is great on hills because it helps save the brakes a bunch. What are you guys running for fuel mileage? My meter in the dash shows 15-17 but I calculated it the other day running 75mph with a tandem axle skid steer trailer and 10" bushhog on getting 13mpg. Thiis is in a crew cab with 285-16 tires and speedo hasnt been recalibrated.

How does your guys" trucks run empty on level 5?

Larger exhaust on a dmax will lower exhaust temp, that is it no performance gain.
I have no idea what you mean by a bigger intake, anything larger than the pressure port on the turbo will cavitate the air which is a power robber.
I listen to guy tell how they installed a bigger turbo etc all day long, works good when the computer shuts it off at the same boost the stock one did, and a stock turbo has more than enough capacity to lift the heads off, so don't try to unhook the waste gate.
I can dance with 1000 hp on a dyno at the rear wheel with the stock exhaust on it and stock turbo and air charge cooler.

(quoted from post at 15:58:31 01/04/10) What is a good power adder to put on a early 04 duramax? The truck now has a edge juice with attitude and I"ve left it on the first setting. After trying it on the 5th setting im a little dissapointed, it didnt seem to change power at all compared to the 1st setting and gets hotter on the pyrometer, no extra smoke or power. Acts like there was no change between any of the 5 settings. I also plan to do some heavy towing and by the looks of things it will get hot as it can hit 900* now on setting 1 empty.

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I have had Edge/Attitude setup on my 2004.5 LLY Duramax GMC 2500HD Crew Cab since I bought it new and it runs like a scalded dog on level 5. I use it on level 3 daily. The difference between level 1 (stock) and level 5 (race) is night and day. Level 5 has lots of power and black smoke. I don't use it on level 5 much as I've heard of people burning up the Allison tranny hot rodding. The only other performance mods I have are a cold air intake and I blocked the EGR.

The first thing I would do is change the fuel filter, but don't get a WIX or a WIX made filter. They have way to much restriction.

You probably want to check out a PPE or EFI live the EFI live you can totally reprogram your ecm the only downside is that you need to get tunes from someone (a dealer should be able to get some) and you can put it on multiple vehicles and tune any chevy made since 98 they dont recommend self tuning because you can easily destroy your engine but the efi live with the right tunes will give you more power and more possibilities than anything on the market its not a actually programmer it is a tuning system the PPE is also a very good programer probably the best out there I've seen stock duramaxes with both of these pull and run fast times at the track 13-15's in the 1/4 with cold air intakes and exhausts the only thing is the duramaxes like to throw codes when you get really wild but these are both capable of easily erasing them dont be suprised when your truck gets stuck in gear (theres nothing wrong with it you just have to erase the codes)the efi live site also has a forum with a lot of helpful information
http://www.pacificp.com/
http://www.efilive.com/

If you haven't already read around "the diesel place". Tons and tons of Dmax into there.

I thought they were supposed to defuel when they detected transmission slip?

A bigger intercooler will do nothing for your truck. Is your truck a lb7 or lly engine? The Enginge must be up to 165 degrees before the edge will work. Also the adaptive learning of the transmission will take some time to use the extra power when bumping up the power to level 5. Also go into the menu and check the low boost fueling option on the edge. If it is on the low side you will never see smoke. Put it up to 5 in this setting and you will see the off the line performance you are looking for. The 1-5 on the main screen have little effect off idle and the turbo will be spooled enough that you dont see the smoke on level 5. Low boost fueling is the key.

DO NOT let the trans shift into 5th gear when the main power setting is on level 5. There is enough added HP and torque that you will slip your trans almost instantly. Trust me.

The difference in the 03 and 04 getting that big a mileage difference will have more of an impact if the 03 is an lbz and teh 04 an lly. All teh duramaxes seem to get worse mileage at every change from the factory with all teh new government help and regulations.

Spend some time on dieselplace.com and you will have access to more information than you can imagine.