SquireSCA

Active Fuel Management is the older style, where it toggles between 4 and 8 cylinder mode. Dynamic Fuel Management is the newer system where any number of cylinders can shit down to save fuel.

Well sumbich....

I have to ask the obvious... If you want it quiet, why install an exhaust at all? Leave it stock. Unless you couple a catback exhaust with a CAI and preferably a tune, you really are not gaining any performance... The intake and exhaust either needs to be less restrictive to make a little more power, or it can be quiet... It's kinda hard to pick up any significant power and also have it stay quiet. It's one or the other, and you need to pick ONE and call it a day, IMHO.

I just don't like steps... They take away all the clearance that we bought lifted 4x4 trucks for...

What needs to happen is someone to make a piggy-back system for these trucks. Been doing it with EFI motorcycles forever... Bazzaz, Power Commander, etc... Small box with harnesses to plug inline with the injectors, and if you get the ignition module, the coils as well. Plugs into a laptop, and you remap the fuel and timing tables as needed, but altering the width of the pulses that the ECM is sending to the injectors... You tune it by throttle position and in 250rpm increments and you can take whatever the ECM is sending to the injectors, and add or remove fuel from that "cell" on the mapping tables. It's easy, doesn't write anything to the ECM that would show up in a dealer scan, etc... Only thing would be the need to disable any lambda sensors so that the ECM doesn't see the exhaust as "rich" and try to lean it back out and undo your tuning changes... That is usually done with resistors to send a steady signal to the ECM so it doesn't see any changes... I know many of you know this stuff, but some might not. It's how most motorcycles have been tuned for the past 15 years. For a bike, the box is $350 and us plug and play, and you can download and run canned maps, or take it to a shop with a dyno and the software and have them custom tune your truck. If you have to to take the truck to the dealer for warranty work, unplug everything and put it back to stock, and then plug it all back in when you get it back home... I feel like that may be the only real way to tune these trucks going forward...

In some ways, piggy back systems are better in that they don't touch the ECU and so diagnostically there isn't anything written that would show up as "tampered with" on a dealer scan... now, you might want to remove it prior to a trip to the dealer, but I have never had a motorcycle dealer give me a hard time with having one installed. Now, if my tune did something, like I ran it so lean or I stupidly gave it 40 degrees of ignition advance and blew up the motor, yeah, I would see that claim denied...

I have both a 2018 and a 2019 and I like the new body style better. Especially the LT Trail Boss in red, with the blacked out front. If you prefer the 15 year old look, get the Ford. It's a great truck, nothing wrong with it. Looks are completely subjective...

Yeah, I think they will, to a point. I wouldn't want to rest the entire weight of the truck on them but I think that with them not quite hanging down as far as the frame, they won't get hung up on stuff and will take minor dents and scrapes just fine.

2019 LT Trail Boss with Lund Rock Rails

1.25" hub spacers Installed. I did have to break out the Dremel and trim a bit if the inside of the mud flap and some of the wheel well insert, but nothing is rubbing at full lock now...

The most weight I am likely to tow, is an ATV in the bed of the truck, and another ATV and maybe a dirtbike is a small trailer behind me... Maybe 3,000lbs all in...

Yeah, but let's say it was effective on the truck... 4% is 4%... It would scale a bit... But I agree, the chances of it making a 30hp difference are probably small... Although, American Trucks has posted videos of before and after dyno runs of some of the products, like tunes or Airaid MIT's and if legit, the gains are there, and they seem significant... I would imagine that with all the crap the gubment demands of truck makers for noise and emissions, there is a lot of restrictions on these things... That intake up above the radiator, while nice and high and out of the way, does seem kinda small... Hence why I thought maybe opening it up might help...

What about inline tuners? Like a Power Commander that bikes use, but for trucks? Box that intercepts the signal from the ECM to the injectors, same with the coils... Takes whatever the stock signal is, and changes the pulse to the injectors to add or remove fuel... It is transparent to the ECU so long as it also interrupts the lambda sensor... ECU tuning us usually preferable, but when ECM's can't be tampered with, having an inline tuner and tossing the vehicle on the dyno and just mapping the entire rev range at each throttle input... Is there such an option?

Talked to the guys at Flat Out Auto, a local shop most of the dealer use and I have used in the past... They are installing a set of 1.25" spacers tomorrow, will post pics when they are done.

Mine is on the driver side, and the intake tube is up top, above the radiator like yours... I like where it is because it keeps it out of the water, but in looking at that hole, it does look restrictive, and it is, for noise control...