What you should consider in a 2nd Gen Juice/Attitude
 

Fellas, if you're considering the Edge Juice/Attitude for the 2nd gens, I offer you some points to consider.

1) Sure, we all want to think that Edge reliability will go up due to the MSD acquisition, but there's NO EVIDENCE of ANY kind that MSD will change Edge business practice. We've all know that Edge is known for good customer service and a willingness to replace modules with no harassment. But they also have a track record of modules failing at a pretty regular rate. Isn't it reasonable to assume that Edge may not be as eager to replace an $800 juice/attitude as they were to replace that EZ?

2) So the gauges are integrated... Nice. How accurate are they? Who's making the parts? And (related to #1), WHEN (not if) then unit craps out, are you prepared to have NO GUAGES AT ALL?? Do you want to have "all your eggs in one basket" so to speak-- when that basket is Edge's less-than-stellar reliability?

3) Edge as a company is growing at an amazing rate as the diesel segment booms. How much longer before the small-biz mentality is gone, and the large-corporation (screw the customer) mentality sets in?


Now, my PERSONAL experiences with Edge have been mostly good. I had an EZ go bad and they replaced it promptly. I have to give their customer service an A+ grade. But I'm bothered that it had to be replaced at all. After all, these are very simple electronics packages, and making them last is not that difficult.

Then there's the possibility that it costs Edge maybe $20 to make a module in Malaysia, then they ship it back here, mark it up 2500%, and call it good. Of course, that's pretty much the diesel market as a whole now.

Long live the small diesel business...

I have no prior experience with EDGE stuff on my own truck, but my buddies have not had problems.

I love the Juice w/Attitude. So much better then my old setup. I was running VanAaken with Autometer gauges.

I don't have the pump wire tapped and it pulls harder off the bottom and way harder on top then my VA. Can't wait till my warranty is up in July and I can tap the pump wire.

The features it has are awesome. Which I think I work great with other mods. Like EGT backdown. Shows correct speed. Not to mention is has just about every gauge you can get, like tach, fuel pressure, RPM, oil pressure, boost, intake air temp, fuel temp, tranny temp, coolant temp, ecm volts, module temp, load %, throttle %, etc. Plus a turbo timer. Anything you need to know, it will tell you.

Also, the cost is cheap IMO. I paid $700 for mine.

I personally hated my pillar mount gauges. What the heck was autometer thinking with their pillar mount. There is no good way to mount it other then a screw or bolt. The plastic is cheap quality and fit is so so. Its prone to squeak and rattle. I had a boost gauge go bad in less then a year. Usuing a mechanical fuel pressure gauge was not great. The attitude is just as easy to read and has way more features. I put mine on the steering column and its perfect.

A set of gauges cost about $350 with a mechanical fuel pressure gauge with an isolator. $450 if you want an electric fuel pressure gauge. $500 for tranny temp, boost, egt and fuel pressure.

Basically, you are getting a 120 hp box for $200-350.

I've never really heard of a problem with the Juice on the Fords or Chevys. My buddys have had zero problems on multiple Duramaxes. I think EDGE's biggest problem was with the COMPs and especially Drag Comps. I will be interested to see how well mine holds up.

This being said, I could not go back to analog gauges. I ran my analogs at the same time as the Juice and found EGTs and boost to be very close. I'm running 28 PSI on the Juice. Was running 30 on my mechanical. EGTs are within 50 deg but not sure how much different the Juice is in comparo to the VA(couldn't run both EGTs at the same time).

I also thought about getting a Smarty, but heck, $650 for that vs $700 for a Juice? If it was $400 I would probably have got it.

Just my 2 cents.

I think Hohn summed it up in one phrase for me
"So the gauges are integrated... Nice. How accurate are they? Who's making the parts? And (related to #1), WHEN (not if) then unit craps out, are you prepared to have NO GUAGES AT ALL?? Do you want to have "all your eggs in one basket" so to speak-- when that basket is Edge's less-than-stellar reliability?"
Who hasent had some sort of electronic gizmo work 100%
Electronics suck in a automotive enviroment and they all fail eventually.

Good counterpoint, Glenn. I can see how someone could see all that the J/A offers and consider it a screaming bargain.

I prefer the redundancy of separate gauges. For example, my FP gauge failed, and I was able to keep my pyro and egt working just fine.

They really DID load that J/A up on the features!

I have the J/A in my '01 and my dad has Don M Mach1's and autometer Pyro and fuel pressure on the pillar. Although I really like the way the pillar setup looks, just looks totally hotrodish, it isn't as user friendly as the attitude. The attitude is also easier to read IMHO, and you can display 4 seperate guages in a 2"x3" screen. When was the last time you saw a quad pod on the market for our trucks? Not to mention you would have to look up and down the a pillar like it was a hot women in a bikini on the beach just to read all 4 inputs.

You state, "how do you know that the J/A guages are accurate?"

My question for you is how do you know they AREN'T? [coffee]

I have always heard that stock '01-02 autos run 22lbs of boost max in stock form. My turbo is still stock, not even a J hook. My Attitude lists 22lbs and stays there when I'm heavy on the pedal. I'd call that accurate. Fuel pressure.... brand new lift pump. 16-17psi at idle, 6-7psi at WOT. I'd call that accurate.

Edge spent a long time on this unit, I have a hard time believing that it is going to flop.

As far if something goes wrong and you loose all your guages with it..... whats it matter if you have to send it in for replacement and you are out the guages....the Juice is out of the truck and you are back at stock power levels, where you don't need guages. (ok, FP but you know the LP will be fine if you have good PSI and you will be getting your Juice back in 1-3 weeks, it won't die that quick.)

Dont say it wont, say you hope it dont.

I don't remember anyone saying the J/A is going to flop or forecasting any kind of market sales performance:confused:

The points I make are few:

-- When you send it in, you lose all your gauges at once. What if you have big injectors like I do?
-- Edge has a rep for boxes that break regularly
-- no one said the gauges were off. I just said that we don't know if they are accurate, or who makes them. It sounds like they are spot on, based on your experience.


It's funny how when you raise legitimate questions about a product someone has bought (or likes) they act like you called their kid ugly or something:confused:

You'll notice I never said the Juice was bad or not to buy one or that the gauges are off. I just asked some questions and encouraged people to think about certain possibilities.


All I can say is this BETTER be a good unit, as it took them forever to bring it to market.....

I'll get in on this a little here... just on the gauges part

I have just installed in the Juice and I left my old Dynafact Guages (boost and EGT) installed just for this reason... To my surprise and content, they read pretty much identical along the entire range.

So, with that, I'll give a second opinion that the guages are pretty acurate...

Sounds like someone needs to lose their edge on edge! [laugh]

Its great having them all in one package, but they are alot more difficult to monitor that way...

ive never been a huge fan of "all in ones" myself either... although they do keep installation simple :cool:

My biggest question is do all EDGE boxes have problems or is it really only the Comps and the occasional EZ?

Because people I know with Powerstrokes and Duramaxes have had zero problems.

The only problems I've heard have been on here, and it seems like the DRAG Comps have an especially high failure rate.

Also, gotta think percentage wise. EDGE is probably the best selling box. Obviously your going to hear more problems about them then others that don't sell near as many.

I'm not saying that stuff doesn't happen and their bulletproff, because its proven they aren't. But maybe its a little better then most think?

Very well could be.

On one hand, there are a lot of Edge boxes sold, so you're more likely to hear of a problem in general.

On the other hand, I only bought ONE and it failed in less than 18 months. Hardly a scientific sampling, but based on my PERSONAL experience I'll wait to hear more good reports before they become an option for me again.

For example, we are hearing food reports on the accuracy of the gauges. That makes me inclined to believe that the gauges are, in fact, quite accurate. Good. One concern addressed, just a couple more to go.


The downsides of an all-in one are self-apparent, as are the benefits, so I think we can consider that one handled.

jh

The J/A combo doesn't really do anything for me at all for one reason - the gauges. I just don't like the Attitude. I'll stick with my analogue gauges, thanks....I much prefer them for accuracey, servicability, asthetics and ergonomics...AND I don't mind the triple pillar at all. Since the Juice itself doesn't offer anymore power gains or tunability over the Comp, I will stick with my Comp.

Glad I'm not the only one with an Attitude Problem....


ba-dum CHING

Nope. I've had a set of digital gauges and while they were cool, they were completely unreliable. I went through 3 fuel pressure senders and a boost sender before chunking them and going back to pure mechanical. Not to mention that when I'm going WOT the last thing I want to have to do is squint and try to read my EGT's, boost, and fuel pressure on a 2"x3" screen. What about glare? Can you read the gauges when the sun is glaring down on them? I know I couldn't read my old digitals and we've got a lot of sun down here. I've had my comp box for 2 years now and it's been going good. The last one I had had a little hiccup in it and I sent it back and edge sent me a new one no questions asked and it worked flawlessly. No thanks. I'll stick to my old archaic Comp.

I also wonder about the readability ( is that a word) of digital gauges. The analogues are easy to monitor at a glance where I don't know if the digitals would be. In other words if you know your truck and know where your EGT needle should be when pulling a hill, all it takes is a split second glance to confirm all is well. Where with digitals I think I would have to actually read the gauge (if I could read)

Let me ask a stupid question... Does the J/A use user mounted sensors to read the different parameters or does it pull this infomation from the ECM? If it pulls from the ECM, I would think this would be better since even if it was off a little bit, this is what the ECM and the J/A is using to make changes to your timing and fueling.


Just adding another curve to this discussion...... [coffee]

Joe

Fuel Pressure, EGT, and Transmission temp are all off their own senders...

Turbo boost, fuel temp and what ever else it reads are ecm numbers

Just installed one today on a 99. The fuel pressure and trans temp are external sensors. The other really neat extra, was the turbo cool down timer.

Overall, the unit worked great, and was a breeze to install.

So much for stirring the pot :confused:



It is still interesting how it uses alot of infomation from the ECM. Too bad I have new gauges installed on my truck...

Joe

The human mind adapts to what it sees regularly, and can quickly distinguish any changes. You are all used to looking at your analog needle guages.
Someone like me who hasn't gotten used to that view will quickly get used to looking at their Attitude. (If it ever gets delivered!!:cool: ) While questioning the digital gauges accuracy, how accurate are mechanical gauges? Are you sure? Is it possible the digitals are actually more accurate?

I bought a juice for a few reasons; numerous gauges, FP guage, price, changing on the fly, ability to tap or not, serious power if desired, all for $600. You cannot duplicate all of these functions with analog gauges for the same money. Some of us aren't quite that serious about jacking our trucks up to run sub 14 second quarter miles. I'm seriously considering not tapping my VP, as I just want some more power to pull my boat and my cabover camper up the pass without creating a huge traffic jam behind me, and being able to see all of the "guages" while doing so. And besides, digital stuff is very cool!![laugh] [laugh]

About tapping the VP44, Im looking at getting a J/A and am wondering anyones past experiences with the VP44 going out. Just looking for the likelihood of it actually happening, im a poor college student and dont want to start accruing more bills that I wont be able to pay. Any other "unknown concerns" about the J/A that would be helpful to a warry consumer? Thanks everyone

My 2 cents.
 

I have a lot of experience with most brands of trucks and most brands of aftermarket performance parts. I have more experience with 24 valve Dodge, than anything else. In my opinion The Juice w/ Att for these trucks is the best single performance mod/best value avaliable for any diesel pickup on the market. Figure up how much it would cost (plus install labor time) to get as many gauges as what the Juice w/att offers, then add in a turbo timer, then add a box that adds 5 levels of hp on the fly, and backs down at your presets. You just spent a hell of a lot more money and have a lot more stuff to go wrong than one little box and one little monitor. I do wish it was US made. As far as killing VP44's, hogwash, they die when they are ready, I have replaced over 100 vp44's on bone stock trucks. My 2001 has had comp or juice on it for over 120k miles and the stock vp is still fine, but I have an extra reman in the toolbox for the day it quits.

Dude everything you just said I was already prepared for when I bought my Juice with att.

The control screen says all over hey 1980's technology all over it.

I think thats obvious.
With that said I knew what I was getting into when I bought my edge.

I you ask me, all of the programmers on the market are all just junk and look like 1980's material.
I went with the Edge because I believe they are the most reputable ones out there. What I mean by that is I believe they would be willing to replace something if it were to fail.
To me that matters alot.

I spent a little over 600$ for mine on ebay. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
If it breaks i'll buy another.
I just like having it all in one package w/o a bunch of gauges everywhere...and the power is awesome.

A buddy has the banks w/ cold air, exhaust, and intake on his 06 ford. Let just say he won...but barley.
Oh and it cost him over 3000$ for all the mods.
J/A is definately worth it for me.

here you go read this.https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...t=vp44+failure

Not that it is a huge deal but, I would like to hear some opinions and solutions about why people think the attitude or something similar looks 1980's?

Is it because it is digital? Is it because it is a display screen? It the color? Is it the pastic designs?

Secondly, I would like to hear some soultions. Touch Screen? There is a lot of pros and cons. Color? Also a lot of pros and cons?

To me 2 1/16" gauges look 1980's or 70's for that matter. Sure they changed the dial colors some and stuck an orange needle on them but, analog gauges are about as retro as you could possibly get.

So I am very curious as to what would not be 80's and still be able to get the same results.

You can set audible alarms to warn you if your not paying attention to your gagues.

Good point Dazeys.

I hope they stick with black/white screens. They can be read without any backlighting in daylight. Ever notice that color screen cell phones have to use a backlight even in the daytime? I'll try to avoid a cell phone rant, but they should go back to black/white screens.

My opinion on the analog vs. digital debate is that analog is more fun to watch but digital is more feature rich. They probably have a similar level of accuracy and durability. A well designed digital device that is not abused should last longer than anything with moving parts though. Best value for the dollar has to go to the JWA, otherwise I would be getting a smarty and gauges.