First off, please don't dog me for purchacing a crappy Duramileage tuner. I bought into their BS claim of mileage before I was a member here and read up on it. I hate myself everyday for it. Moving on. What I want to ask is: Do all tuners deliver power so harshly above 2000 RPM. What I mean by that is, I tow an 8000 LB trailer intermittenly, year round. In the snow, this is difficult due to how the power comes on. I use the "tow/haul" mode which, as we know, causes the trans to hang in the gears longer and shift later which used to be just fine. But with my new mods, including my crappy new tuner (60 hp economy tune loaded) I will be trying to accelerate from a stop in 2wd, in mildly snowy conditions, and as soon as i reach 2000rpm the power comes on strong enough to break the tires loose and cause an upshift, which causes the tires to stop spinning, but also drops engine rpms low enough to sometimes cause a downshift back to the gear i was just in. Very aggrivating to have to drive with such a light touch on the throttle. I have driven this truck since it was brand new with this trailer behind it, in all sorts of weather conditions, but now it has become a hassle. Do all tuners, or tuning programs act this way or...? I would pretty much be better off running stock tuning if thats the case, but then I wouldn't get the HUGE mileage increase I was promised with this tuner:mad:. Any input would be great.

Oh, and I'm done with cheap, garbage tuners. If I invest in anything else it will probably be EFI Live. Steve Shelly should be ashamed of himself.

No, not all act that way. In fact, very few are NOT smooth. EFI from a good tuner can be smooth as silk even at high HP levels. Predator and PPE are very popular with VERY few complains, if any at all.

i know alot of people bad mounth banks, but i have the six gun and tow on level 2 i pull a 9,000 tt and i can set the cruze at 65 and it stays no up shiftting or down shitting , i have a friend that has the economind turnner and loves his . you can get then at a price and i picked up fuel mileag to boot good luck

No, not all act that way. In fact, very few are NOT smooth. EFI from a good tuner can be smooth as silk even at high HP levels. Predator and PPE are very popular with VERY few complains, if any at all.
You say "EFI from a good tuner". How do I know who a "good tuner" is. I'm sure there are some great ones on this board, but as you can tell from my post count, I haven't put many miles on this forum yet.

As far as PPE, I did entertain that as well, but it seems like they are a performance programmer more than fuel economy. I really am satisfied with the factory power output of my truck, I'm just looking for better fuel economy. I guess I am afraid that I will sacrifice reliability with if I start making too much power (is there such a thing as too much power:D). My trans is stock, and I tow pretty frequently, so I'm not looking to blow the tires off the thing, just to pick up some MPG.

Speaking of my stock trans, can I do anything to help it out without making it shift extremely hard. I don't feel like putting a hard shock through my drivetrain with a trans that shifts real hard. Like I said, I tow frequently and need reliability. I just don't know if programming is enough in this area, or if some valve body mods are needed.

Are there other tune settings that you could try, that are less aggressive?
Try a 40 hp tune setting if it is available. Trany will last longer toooo.

I don't have a problem with trying different tunes, it has a 40, and 50 hp setting as well. Thing that sucks is relearning the trans every time I change the tune. I know I ran the 40 hp tune back before we got any snow here to see if I would pick up any milage, and didn't. The place that sold me the Duramilage recomended the 60 hp tune for the best milage for my application. I could try 40 and 50 again, but I hate to relearn the trans cause the shifts flair up so much I'm afraid I will blow the clutches out of my poor trans. And I DO take it easy during the relearn, but still don't like the feel.

Dropping from 60 to 40 hp, shouldn't be too much of a trany learn process. Take it for a drive, up thru the gears at little throttle, down thru the gears, then up thru the gears at medium throttle, and down, finally full throttle up thru the gears, and snub it down with the brakes and few gears.
Turn to home and repeat in T/H mode. Five miles out, and five back.

Even after all this, be gentle when you hook to a trailer. I've found that generally the shifts are pretty good, unless you make wild changes to the power.

Does this tune you have, de-fuel during shifts? That smooths the shifts a bunch.

The only time I seem to get mileage with a tuner, is the ecomony tune running empty at Interstate speeds. Otherwise I use the power, and buy the fuel.

That sounds like a nice simple relearn procedure that I will have to try. And I will pay attention still to the shifts when I hook the trailer to it. I'm always aware of how thats going before I put decent amounts of power to it.

It does de-fuel between shifts. This is actually what causes some of the goofy issues with the upshift/downshift in the snow. Since it flairs up, then goes to shift and of course de-fuels as it shifts, which causes the tires to stop spinning, which causes a drop in vehicle speed reading, which then causes a downshift:mad:.

For the record the tunes on this programmer are as follows: 40 HP Economy, 50 HP Economy, 60 HP Economy, 70 HP Economy, 80 HP Power, 90 HP Power, 100 HP Extreme.

I was told by the salesman to use the 60 HP Economy tune because they have had the best mileage on LLYs with that tune. Thats why I chose to run it.

The hypertech i ran on my LB7 was like that also but i switched to a Predator and it delivers the power evenly through the rpms no big jumps or sudden gains of power its nice and smooth on my LB7 and i would think it should be similar for you LLY

my old mans LLY picked up an average of 2-3mpg over stock with the Bullydog GT running the performance setting

The hypertech i ran on my LB7 was like that also but i switched to a Predator and it delivers the power evenly through the rpms no big jumps or sudden gains of power its nice and smooth on my LB7 and i would think it should be similar for you LLY
That's good to know! I've read planty of posts on here that mention the Predator tuner, but they were pretty vague, and just said that it was a "good, budget priced tuner", in so many words. I would really hate to have a collection of tuners that I don't like hangin out in my garage.

my old mans LLY picked up an average of 2-3mpg over stock with the Bullydog GT running the performance setting
Does your father tow much? If so how much weight, and what kind of driving (city/highway)? Just curious. I know the peanut sized fuel tank in these trucks make it seem like they just drink the fuel, but while towing I was usually good for 10.5 MPG stock. And I haven't seen much, if any improvement with all the mods. Now that we're in February and the truck idles alot, and rarely sees full running temp, I don't even bother to check it.

I see you are running a PPE in your truck? How do you like it? I know they have different tuners for different situations, but overall, how is the product?

I'm still following this thread.
On re-reading your first post, I noticed your running in two wheel drive. I tend to lock up, 4X, on slippery roads, at any speed. Espesially when pulling up to speed, or when pulling a hill with the trailer on. Seems to avoid the spin - shift up- lug-shift down situation you may be having. I even do this with class 8 truck/trailer combos. May wear the gear train a bit, but I think that is better than slamming the trany.

Also, the relearn of the trany changing power settings a bit, is not likely any worse than pulling the trailer for a week, then dropping the trailer and watching the trany do some funny shifts until it learns the trailer is not there.

The predator is kinda smokey though even on the 45hp tune it smoked a little if i would get on it when loaded even a pretty light load

I'm still following this thread.
On re-reading your first post, I noticed your running in two wheel drive. I tend to lock up, 4X, on slippery roads, at any speed. Espesially when pulling up to speed, or when pulling a hill with the trailer on. Seems to avoid the spin - shift up- lug-shift down situation you may be having. I even do this with class 8 truck/trailer combos. May wear the gear train a bit, but I think that is better than slamming the trany.

Also, the relearn of the trany changing power settings a bit, is not likely any worse than pulling the trailer for a week, then dropping the trailer and watching the trany do some funny shifts until it learns the trailer is not there.
I'm simply comparing to the smoothness of the truck in stock form. I have driven this truck since new, with and without a trailer in tow, in all weather conditions. I just think under light load (throttle) conditions, the power shouldn't spike up so abruptly. To me it's simply a matter of throttle position. A low throttle input shouldn't (in my opinion) deliver harsh spikes in power.

I don't have a problem towing while locked in, in straight line. The problem is that I am often times winding through subdivisions, and urban areas and if there are some patches of hard packed snow, and slush along with wet or dry pavement I don't prefer to be locked in.

I understand this is a "learning" transmission, but If I can't simply drop my trailer, click off of T/H mode and drive off without some goofy shifting going on while the trans relearns how to shift, that's ignorance on the part of the engineering department at GM. I've never experienced any real strange shifting while going from towing, to not towing. I would hope that the trans recognizes that the T/H mode has been turned off and that the trailer should no longer be hitched up.

I'm just kicking myself for not doing some research before I bought this programmer. The exhaust and intake mods are great! But I just made a bad tuner choice. I almost feel like I shouldn't have even messed with the truck, and just left it stock. I am a gearhead, and love speed and power, but this truck is my workhorse, my bread and butter. I don't race or sled pull with this truck, and don't ever plan to.

Whatever. I'll stop being a bitch now. So anyway, Turnpike, I see you have a Titan fuel tank, which I REALLY like. Did you install a lift pump or anything when you installed the new tank? I know that the GMs don't have lift pumps and that can be kinda hard on the injection pump. So I was just wondering if you installed a FASS system or something similar. And also, If you installed the tank, did if install nicely, or was it a challenge:(?? I would love to have the extra capacity for trips out of town.