After 150,000 miles, my truck's engine finally gave out. After figuring time and budget and getting some good hints from the forums I decided to go with a reman long block and use a few simple bolt-ons to give her a little extra kick. I then found out that the SCT 9550's were out-of-stock everywhere. According to the rep from SCT that I spoke to today, the X3's won't be available until after the first of the year. I am already committed. Parts are in the garage and the engine will be in tomorrow. I can't afford to wait on fixing the truck. After a lot of searching, I was able to find a source for new, unprogrammed 9550's but then the next problem arose... where to go to get a custom tune. SCT said it would be simple to get a custom tune emailed and loaded into the tuner but it seems like I'm getting a lot of pushback from companies when I ask for the tune but don't buy the tuner from them...even though they don't have one to sell me!

So here's what I have:
2002 Ram 1500 4x4, stock reman longblock, Hughes FI intake manifold, cold air intake, shorty headers and Magnaflow dual catback exhaust. I was also considering swapping the rockers out with the 1.7s. So my concern is that although each of those mods are pretty simple, the collective changes will be too much for the stock tune. Superchips even said they couldn't help because they only tune for stock engines and that their tunes wouldn't do me any good.

So the questions, can anyone tell me whether or not those mods will be too much for the stock tune? If not, wait for the X3? If so, where can I go to get a custom tune without being overcharged for something I could get for $50 if I bought the tuner from them?

Any thoughts or help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Have you contacted hemifever?

 

If they are open I planned on calling them today. I did check their website yesterday and it says they still have them in stock but I saw a post elsewhere on this forum dated for june that said they were out.

Their pricing on the website seemed pretty steep if you don't buy the tuner from them which was part of my frustration yesterday. I'll post the results of the call.

 

I Emailed Sean last night and it is $250 to get the Stage 1 series tunes if you already own your own 9550 tuner. That works out to $550 total price which is $50 more than if you'd bought the tuner from him. I'd say that is a pretty good deal.

 

Okay, spoke to Hemifever. Took a few days of phone tag, but we finally connected. Great guy and very helpful.

That said, the results are thus:

The 1.7 lifter mod, the intake manifold, the exhaust and the cold-air intake will all work with his basic tunes for $150. After I post this message, there will be two 9550's left.

He did point out that it might be worth checking to see what SCTFlash will do for the warranty since there are no more parts for the 9550 available so I'll call them and see what their plan is, but in the meantime, I have a way forward.

Thanks for the help!