arokcrwlr

I have tunes from SSI, 5*, and Unleashed. Here's my experience...yours may be different and I am in no way bashing any tuner.

The SSI tunes are way aggressive for my liking. I got a couple of updates to reduce the aggressive tip-in, but still too much for daily driving for me. If I wanted to race SSI might be my choice, but I convinced myself that it wasn't healthy for my truck to run these tunes daily. They did produce some serious power though and were extremely responsive to the pedal...

The tunes from 5* are good daily driving tunes. They wake up the eco nicely, but don't feel like they're pushing the limit. I had some turbo lag with these tunes - not terrible, but was there if I romped on it from cruising speed. I ran 5* 91Perf for a long time and was happy overall and would not hesitate to put it back on.

I bought tunes from Unleashed a couple of months ago and they are just right to me. A little more responsive than the 5* tunes, great shifting, very little turbo lag. Their 91Perf tune is now my daily driver.

violinguy77

Fastest Tune only trucks in the country. Excellent service. Check out the forum for tech tips and maintenance that needs to be done. Gap your plugs to .028 and clean the MAP sensors. The team is proud and some of them are a bit crass but the proof is i the pudding. This is my third year and I've never had an issue that hasn't been resolved in a timely fashion.

SteveLord

I wouldn't go near SSI. There are tons of people who are unhappy with them for various reasons.

biscuit141

At this point I think I am between 5 Star and Unleashed. Is there any benefit buying rhe 5 Star setup through Stage3 vs direct?

Unleashed is $399 for 1 tune, $450 with 2 tunes an $499 with 3 tunes.

5 Star is $429 for 3 tunes and $10 for additional tunes.

Sirikenewtron

I went straight through 5 Star, I always like to cut out the middle man, just my preference. Stage 3 is great though.

I don't know if it's the same if you buy from Stage 3 but when I bought from 5 Star my X4 was sent to me with my custom tunes already loaded on them, I just let them know my strategy code.

I will say one thing, if you prefer a lot of torque/power in the lower end of the power band 5 Star is the way to go, if you prefer it more in the top end then go with the other tuner.
95% of my driving is in the lower power band so I prefer my 5 Star tunes





I've heard great things about Unleashed too though, I have a few friends that run their tunes, one thing they said is they had to data log the crap out of it to get where they wanted it, with that said I have another friend that only had to data log a few times to get it to the power he wanted.

I've heard Torrie's customer service is top notch and quick also.
I've also had great customer service from 5 star.

MCDavis

iTrader: (1)

One big difference:
Torrie @ Unleashed will have you data log the crap out of the tune. Continuing to fine tune the programming for YOUR truck. Adding or removing more throttle tip in, adding timing, fuel, etc etc.

5 Star will only data log if you ask and if you're having problems.

Torrie's work is more "custom" in that regard but both are good choices.

biscuit141

At this point I probably need to call both and feel them out for myself. I don't think I would go wrong either way but that would probably help me make a final decision.

biscuit141

Ok, I might be blind, where on Unleashed's website does it actually talk about the tunes that are offered?! I'm on my phone viewing it, not sure if that matters but I can't find it!

berty

Why have you removed MPT from your list? Kinda curious, their performance tune is no joke! Plus I think they are cheaper than both 5* and unleashed, I remember them having a special for $55 per tune a while back (that's when I bought)

DavidKR

yep, I was pretty unhappy about the hole I blew in my block when I did the very first pull with my SSI tune. and I'm far from the only one it's happened to.

I did about 10k miles with 5* tunes, mostly the 93 performance/tow, the performance was meh and the fuel economy was horrible. so I tried the other tunes I had, which I believe were 91 performance/tow and 87 tow and I still struggled to get above single digit MPGs.

switched to MPT and went straight to the 93 performance tune, could break loose my 35's from a roll and immediately started seeing 4 or more MPG better than I'd been getting with 5*. I'd been thinking about trying Unleashed just for the hell of it but I've been happy enough with my MPT tunes that I should just leave it.