Okay, I've now tried all 3 of these things, and much to my surprise, my impressions of them don't necessarily coincide with what other people are saying about them. A personal thing or perhaps different vehicles react differently, I don't know. My truck is a 6-speed, that could have something to do with it. The moral of the story though is that what's working for one person isn't necessarily what works for you.
Predator
- Some problems downloading, it'll stop sometimes with a "Script Interpreter Error" and a couple of times it has just frozen up in the middle of a download. When it gets an error, the truck won't start. The unit will say missing VIN, but it'll then offer to restore the stock tune. It's always recovered for me, thank god.
- Big surge in power as the motor crosses 1800 rpm, evident in all tunes. Clumsy at first but I subconsciously learned to compensate and smooth it out with my right foot position and shift points. Now I like it. Truck is VERY responsive even in the lower tunes.
- EGT's are somewhat warm. Easy to get into trouble when you're on the higher hp tunes, even empty. Not really a problem at 40hp and 65hp empty. Towing, 40hp tune is manageable.
- Smokes like a chimney in upper tunes. Not bad at all in 40hp and 65hp.
- Mileage improved an honest 1-2mpg. Broke 20mpg for the first time in my truck's 42K mile life.
- Recently developed an intermittent issue where the truck loses power back to something akin to stock level until tune is reloaded. Seems to be associated with colder weather, and possibly the use of the block heater. Diablosport unresponsive, James at Runninwiththedevil has been great, has committed to helping me work it out. Step 1 was to send it back to Diablosport for updating to V1.10, we'll work from there.
Quadzilla Stealth
- First unit was essentially unusable, constant lock-ups during the dialogue. Sent it back.
- Bought a second unit after Quad reported an issue found and fixed that may have caused download problems. Worked much better, but in 5 downloads, it failed once, the screen just said "ERROR - 00" and it was locked. Truck was dead. Fortunately, after re-plugging it in, it detected the issue and let me reload the stock tune.
- Knocks noticeably louder than stock, particularly in the first quarter inch or so of throttle pedal travel.
- Mild surge of power in that same quarter inch of travel. Surge would happen when passing through that throttle position both depressing and letting off the throttle, the latter of which was really disconcerting. When I'm letting off the throttle, I expect the truck to slow down, it bothers the hell out of me to feel it pull forward slightly. Reminded me strongly of how my old Ford would feel when I let one tank run dry before switching to the other. You'd know the first tank was out of diesel before the engine quit because as it went lean the truck would start knocking louder and at the same time it'd pull forward on you (switch tanks fast before the engine dies!). That's exactly how the Quad felt in that first little bit of throttle pedal movement.
- Cool EGT's and little smoke, on any setting.
- Used in for 1 day and returned it, I just couldn't live with the louder knocking and especially the throttle position dependent surge.
Edge Juice with Attitude
- Installed easily, no issues.
- My first impression was "is this thing on?". I just wasn't feeling the power. Perhaps my expectations were so high from hearing people sing it's praises. I expected it to be much more responsive than it is.
- That low boost fueling control is the key to responsiveness. But, in conjunction with the power level selected, it's also what makes it smokey. There's no free lunch.
- After a whole lot of fiddling (damn it's nice to be able to change things on the fly), decide
Predator
- Some problems downloading, it'll stop sometimes with a "Script Interpreter Error" and a couple of times it has just frozen up in the middle of a download. When it gets an error, the truck won't start. The unit will say missing VIN, but it'll then offer to restore the stock tune. It's always recovered for me, thank god.
- Big surge in power as the motor crosses 1800 rpm, evident in all tunes. Clumsy at first but I subconsciously learned to compensate and smooth it out with my right foot position and shift points. Now I like it. Truck is VERY responsive even in the lower tunes.
- EGT's are somewhat warm. Easy to get into trouble when you're on the higher hp tunes, even empty. Not really a problem at 40hp and 65hp empty. Towing, 40hp tune is manageable.
- Smokes like a chimney in upper tunes. Not bad at all in 40hp and 65hp.
- Mileage improved an honest 1-2mpg. Broke 20mpg for the first time in my truck's 42K mile life.
- Recently developed an intermittent issue where the truck loses power back to something akin to stock level until tune is reloaded. Seems to be associated with colder weather, and possibly the use of the block heater. Diablosport unresponsive, James at Runninwiththedevil has been great, has committed to helping me work it out. Step 1 was to send it back to Diablosport for updating to V1.10, we'll work from there.
Quadzilla Stealth
- First unit was essentially unusable, constant lock-ups during the dialogue. Sent it back.
- Bought a second unit after Quad reported an issue found and fixed that may have caused download problems. Worked much better, but in 5 downloads, it failed once, the screen just said "ERROR - 00" and it was locked. Truck was dead. Fortunately, after re-plugging it in, it detected the issue and let me reload the stock tune.
- Knocks noticeably louder than stock, particularly in the first quarter inch or so of throttle pedal travel.
- Mild surge of power in that same quarter inch of travel. Surge would happen when passing through that throttle position both depressing and letting off the throttle, the latter of which was really disconcerting. When I'm letting off the throttle, I expect the truck to slow down, it bothers the hell out of me to feel it pull forward slightly. Reminded me strongly of how my old Ford would feel when I let one tank run dry before switching to the other. You'd know the first tank was out of diesel before the engine quit because as it went lean the truck would start knocking louder and at the same time it'd pull forward on you (switch tanks fast before the engine dies!). That's exactly how the Quad felt in that first little bit of throttle pedal movement.
- Cool EGT's and little smoke, on any setting.
- Used in for 1 day and returned it, I just couldn't live with the louder knocking and especially the throttle position dependent surge.
Edge Juice with Attitude
- Installed easily, no issues.
- My first impression was "is this thing on?". I just wasn't feeling the power. Perhaps my expectations were so high from hearing people sing it's praises. I expected it to be much more responsive than it is.
- That low boost fueling control is the key to responsiveness. But, in conjunction with the power level selected, it's also what makes it smokey. There's no free lunch.
- After a whole lot of fiddling (damn it's nice to be able to change things on the fly), decide
