Upgrading Without Damaging Your Diesel

While aftermarket upgrades are cool, they do make your diesel engine more temperamental. In addition to making sure that maintenance is properly scheduled, it is wise to add some features that will help accommodate the changes that you have made to your truck.

A tuner is a must-have item for anyone upgrading their diesel truck. This part overrides the stock computer and allows you to make adjustments on timing, fuel injection and injection pressure. Some programmers can even be adjusted while you are out driving, while others require that you turn off the engine and then switch programs. Either way, being able to adjust your engine settings is a great way to compensate for a number of driving situations. There are tons of tuners, programmers and chips out there to consider, from Smarty tuners, Edge performance chips and much more.

When you add items such as a tuner, aftermarket exhaust, cold air intake and other upgrades, this improves performance, but it must be monitored. To help make monitoring the truck parts easier, it is highly recommended that you install some helpful gauges or a monitor that displays important information. While this won't solve all of your problems and items can certainly still break, proper gauges can keep you from causing catastrophic injury to your truck. Remember the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and those gauges can prevent having to replace your engine or transmission.

Adding weight to your truck means the engine has to work harder, and reducing weight is a way to improve performance and make life a bit easier for your truck engine. If you don't plan on a bunch of off-roading, skip plus-sizing the tires and wheels, remove the winch and ditch the grille guard. This can make the load a bit lighter and prolong the life of your engine, your transmission and even your brakes and tires.

There are so many great upgrades that allow you get better mileage and increased torque and horsepower, as well as improve the whole drive experience. But they do take their toll on your factory transmission. The good news is that you can certainly upgrade to a better automatic transmission, and while it's pricey, it's definitely a way to better accommodate all of these great new upgrades you have installed or are planning to install.

In the final analysis, it's all about vigilance. If you keep the engine clean and monitor the parts, you are far less likely to have any problems. Be sure to regularly schedule maintenance and remember that factory maintenance guidelines only apply to a stock vehicle driving under ideal conditions. If you drive a lot or have modified the vehicle, you will need to adjust your schedule.