Thanks for the reply, Mike. I'm giving her some time. It looks like the shifts may be better, but I will have to wait a few more weeks to give you my full report. I have eased my already easy foot to help the situation, and the few thousand miles on her since I reloaded the 93 Performance seem to be working on tha adaptive strategy.

As for the milege, it appears to be improving, as well. I put in a Scan Gauge II, and am in the process of calibrating the fuel adjustments, so I have changed my fueling habits. That may take care of some of the fluctuation as well.

I am a little concerened with the idea that I will have to drive all summer and fall with the 93 octane towing program, though, instead of the performance one. That is when I haul my trailers the most. If it does indeed take that long for a "tuned" PCM to "adjust" than there is no sense switching back and forth between the 93 octane performance tune and the towing tune during the months I tow my camper/trailers frequently. That is about every weekend to every other weekend at best. If it will take that long to "adapt", I'll never even get the PCM to adapt to the performance tune and I'll have to install a towing tune to pull a trailer again. I drive about 1,000 miles per week many weeks, so I guess I'll just have to "suffer" after being teased with the 93 Performance tune. Hopefully, when I get there, the 93 Towing tune will still perform with recognizable gains over the stock so I don't feel like I tuned a truck for three months.

 

well mike will tell you,not that i can speak for him,never,never ( adaptive strat),,takes so many drive cycles,i cant remember the number...5,6?...but with the milage you put on i`m sure it wouldnt take long,*...... milage and drive cycles are not the same....i`m sure if you time it right for when you tow(summer),you can get that tune adapted ..and run it all summer...a few people on here run the tow tune all the time,and switch to 87 for winter(gas) driving..even my self,,87 perform...for winter ..97 tow/perfor...summer....
i know there are some differences tow/performance..mostly dealing with shifting i think...bit not to much?any how mike knows better to tell ya..

 

HI Smokewagon,

Well, usually the way it works in most cases is that when you first install your tunes, you go thru the biggest "swing" in adaptive strategy - meaning the first tune you load up, once it gets enough drive cycles, time *and* miles, the combination of all 3, along with sometimes a bit of change in your driving habits, then once you change tunes, it won't be that big a difference.

Typically the single biggest adjustments are to the shifting characteristics, which will settle in quicker the more time you repeat a given scenario, and then from there, for the fuel mileage it's really just a matter of getting used to using less throttle than you did before.

See, we're making more power all the time, at any throttle position - so if you drive it the same as before, it is possible in some driving conditions to see mileage drop just a bit - it's rare, but once in a while will happen, and that is usually just more a matter of an individuals driving conditions. And in those cases, just ease up a bit on the throttle, and you will find that with less throttle it will still accelerate at the same rate it used to, and get up the the same speed it used to, with less throttle than before, thanks to the combination of the additional power and how we rewrite the ETC (throttle by wire) system to give it better throttle response.

So once you get used to that, I don't see you needing to stay on towing programs all the time - the only time we generally recommend doing that is if you have to tow frequently, as even though thee is no set limit on the number of times you can flash the PCM, it's just not smart to flash the PCM a dozen times a month - you get my drift, I'm sure.

So I think once you get used to the new tuning and the fact that you now have more power at any throttle position, you won't have any issue with fuel mileage - most people's driving conditions are such that they don't' need to make any adjustment, they simply get up to their cruising speed quicker and thus can back off the throttle sooner, and usually they see a small improvement in mpg - there have been, over say, the past year, 2 people I know of who are confident that their mpg has dropped a bit, but in both cases it's just a simple matter of them driving it in a manner that they are using that additional power all the time, and doing that will of course increase fuel consumption with any tuning that actually adds power at any throttle position - most tuning doesn't, so you don't hear much about it - where we do add significant power all the time at any throttle position, so there are some driving conditions where people need to just learn to back off the throttle a bit and drive the vehicle in a manner that gets them the same rate of acceleration as they did before on part-throttle, and then they can see their mpg improve as well.

Just some quick additional info for you, for whatever that may be worth, & good luck!