Trucks & Trailers - Truck decision is made AND question about diesel programmer

Decided to try to kill two birds with one stone here and save some space on the forum.

Part 1:
A few months ago I asked some questions about the new diesel trucks and made the decision to go with Dodge. Well, that didn't happen. Our Ram 3500 utility truck broke a front sway bar (I think) so we took it in to the dealership to have it repaired/replaced. I'm still not sure what the issue was, but to make a long story short, they decided to not honor the warranty. Seems like a small price to pay for a sale of a 50k+ truck IMO. Needless to say, Dodge lost our business and we won't be buying another one for the fleet. After bad experience with GM trucks, Ford is the way to go. Ordering a new F350, SRW crewcab 4x4 with an 8' utility body. We ran the numbers and based on our milage, towing factors, and availibility of other trucks in the fleet, we will be going with the 6.2 gas engine. Most of our towing loads are under 10,000 pounds and for the heavy stuff, we have more than a few 1 ton plus diesels that can be used. I'm pretty excited about this one. It should be a solid truck.

Part 2:
I recently installed a Hypertech programmer in our 2008 E350 van (6.0L Powerstroke). I wanted to have some fun with it so I took her straight up to stage 3. The truck ended up losing about 2mpg and on cold days, the transmission will not shift until 4k rpm. I will be dropping it down to stage 1 or 2 as soon as I have an a chance which I am assuming will solve the issue but my question is in regard to the stage three (or whatever have you) on diesel trucks. Is it an issue not having an aftermarket exhaust or air intake while running a higher level such as this? My assumption was that the engine cannot beath properly with the high tune and thus is costing us those extra MPG. As soon as my schedule dies down a bit I am going to design and custom fabricate an exhaust system for the van application but will doing this help at all when running stage 3 on the programmer?

I do not think you will benefit much tuning a gasser. I have an 08 6.4 and major difference with a mild tune

Not tuning the new gasser. The 6.2 should be more than sufficient for what we need in stock form. The programmer/exhaust/intake issue is for an out of warranty 6.0L Powerstroke diesel in an E350 van

could very well be intake and/or exhaust. Most tuners require those mods with the higher HP levels. Check and see if hypertech has any updates on their website for your tuner. If I remember correctly the 6.0L transmissions also require some user tuning after flashing the computer. Its something like, from a dead stop accelerate to 45mph at medium throttle twice and then from a deap stop accelerate to 60mph at full throttle. Google around, may find the actual sequence on powerstroke forums.

I would avoid a programmer in a 6.0...the cylinder head bolts are flawed...too few of them, too small of a diameter, too long because of the design. If you have done well with it as is, I'd stay that way.

Thanks for the replies. Hopefully its simply an exhaust/intake issue. Stock, the truck was getting 18mpg, with the tune, its down to 16. Really hoping to see 20 out of it. It does seem like theres something going on with the transmission with the stage 3 installed. Hopefully there is a simple recalibration that will address it, I will see what I can find online. On the van application, the engine is detuned to the like of approximately 235hp/440tq. The stage 3 brings me to around (if not slightly more than) the pickup truck applications. Anyone know if the transmission was also altered in the vans? This could also present another possible explaination.