Hello I was thinking about advancing my timing my truck has 355 gears with 285/75/16 so it lost some pep . Can I just advance it at the distributor like a older truck or is it all set by the pcm ?

 

you cannot twist the distributor to advance timing.

 

I would imagine that a hand held programmer can advance the timing for 93 octane.

 

What would be the cheapest way to get a little more power

 

crank sensor mod

 

I scan tool cannot advance the timing past the stock settings.
A hypertech or sct can "reprogram" or "flash" the pcm for more aggressive advance curve but the consensus here is by its self a flash doesn't add huge power.

Lower gears would probably be a better option.

 

Of all the modifications I have done to my truck, the superchips made the most noticable improvement.

I have tried advancing the valve timing 4 degrees but it felt like it would flatten out on power too quickly (moves the powerband lower). I changed it to 2 degrees advanced and the powerband is better. Some people will retard the valve timing to get more top end, but where my truck is a heavy 4x4, I like the power to be a little lower in the RPM range.

 

+1 With the larger tires gears would be the best option, but it is expensive!

(Sorry about this double post, I should have used the edit button on the previous post!)

 

Consensus?
If a flash doesn't add huge power then what does? And how much more huge is the nonflash mod?

 

larger gaps in the 0.050 to 0.065 inch range,
cutback ground strap,
indexed plugs with ground strap next to wall
irridium sharp tips
..... all give faster burn
which is equivalent to ignition advance gains,

based on the Jeep programming for 92 octane in their versions of the 5.2/5.9 V8s
there is about 12 degrees of retard
in the stock Ram truck PCM programming set up for 87 octane use