I sent mine friday night had a response sat morning. Hes always been real good to me

 

these tuners aren't a magic bullet.. they aren't going to turn these caster'ed cinder blocks into spaceships, and they aren't going to outrun or outlast a solar powered car across the outback and on just a quarter tank of gas.. but they certainly DO help- unless you've got other issues.. If you've got issues, the tuner may in fact put a great big exclamation point beside them, and seriously HARM performance..

Sean aka HemiFever has been doing this a good while, and is likely the most respected name in the business. He is active on most every board to-do with Dodge.. He understands how to program, and bottles tunes that generally work across the board- and unless something else is wrong with your truck, you should have noticed at least:

1-Shift point where o/d is concerned..
2-'apparent' delay of Torque Converter Lock-up.. (this is NOT actually altering the lock up, but actually the removal/altering of Torque Management on your PCM, you get more bite for longer which pretty much eliminates dropping into a higher gear and causing teh engine to lug/bog)
3- advanced timing in open loop (either before op temp achieved, or during WOT)

other places are managed too- but these I think everyone would agree are universally improved.. On those three items,

1- is negated if your tranny isn't sending accurate information to your PCM.. the sensors in other words.. OR, there is actually something in the tranny NOT right, and the sensors are telling the truth to the PCM but it is still within OE parameters (pending code)

2- is negated if your T/C is jacked up, or your bands are slipping, or you're running some sort of shift kit that you failed to inform him about.

3- is negated by MANY different things, from fuel pressure to faulty o2's, IAT's, CKPS's, CPS's, IAC's, MAP's, what have you.. faulty injectors could do it, faulty ignition wires, aging or improperly gapped plugs, failure to swap to a 180* stat, worn rotor button, worn dizzy, worn dizzy cap, bad fuel sync, improperly timed cam.. dang.. just about anything other than a 'well tuned engine', and you're not going to see the gains everyone raves about..

I've clowned about this, but it is actually something that bothers me a touch: these dang engine's will suck gas and under-produce power, but they will also run for floggin' ever with very little complaining in terms of codes.. there are a host of sensors that will bumble about sending bad info to the PCM and never set off an alarm/code.. It's good because (outside of the plenum gasket issue) are pretty dang solid and reliable motors, but it's bad because it is sometimes hard to get a pulse from them to tell you where you have issues..

hell man, you could have a simple vacuum leak haunting you that is robbing you of any gains..

I don't know you man, and I hate to be presumptuous, but if your current PCM is healthy, I'd guess something on your truck isn't.. It isn't Sean's job to map out the information on your ride, and find solutions- it's his to provide a good canned tune on an engine he takes for granted is well tuned and in good health..

 

i should over with the current posts. my 01 ram runs great before i touched it, no issues and no problems. i currently have a 31 foot go fast that i tow with my dodge, towed wonderful and again no issues. i wanted to find more power since iam towing a pretty large boat so i spent the money on the Hughes Airgap intake kit. after the Airgap install the truck ran like a different truck, very nice gain... i towed the boat about 3 weeks later with just the airgap install, i noticed a difference towing for the plus... truck had more power and ran great, no issues or problems. i then went with the hemifever to find more power on top of the airgap. the programmer has no effect less the wide open shifts under full throttle. after running other posts i see they are getting gains just from the programmer. truck has the same power towing with or without the programmer. iam after the gain side of the programmer, that's all. hope this clears things up on why i started this post.

 

drew, i read your post more. good points made and yes and u don't know me or my dodge. iam not here to bash anyone for starters, just looking for input to help find my issue if my truck has one? pretty simple....

 

I'm just trying to help too dude.. I don't mean to come off as arrogant (god knows I'm a baby in the woods here, especially compared to the board elders).. and I don't mean to sound as if I'm bustin' your rack either.. I just say it how I think it.. I don't mean to be aggressive..

question: is Sean aware that you run an FI? The FI runs cooler than the keg, and the placement of the IAT sensor is pretty dang important (it was buried in the keg, now it is likely in your air-hat, right?)

After reading a lot about folks having issues after swapping manifolds, I'm going to take the position to buy a new IAT all together.. I know folks are getting tired of hearing me talk about this, but that critter likes to play with your timing..

I'm looking for other creatures on your truck that could be in disagreement with the tuner as well.. do you by chance run iridium plugs? Iridium plugs and these engines have some sort of disagreement that nobody cares to explain.. the copper champs seem to be the way to go.

What brand of o2's do you run?

I'm at a loss to tell you what it could be- but man, you should have felt at least a slight bump.

 

truck ran great before i touched it and it ran even better after the Airgap install, i should of stopped there... i run Autolite plugs which are new and ran autolites before. Sean wanted to run some Seaform thru the motor which i did before i did the tuner. the truck ran great before and after the seafoam treatment. i did the tuner with the old spark plugs and about a week later i installed new autolites, ran the same before and after. i was very very clear with Sean that my truck has the Airgap Intake and it's a CA emissions truck ( i have more factory cat's then needed ). i asked Sean first about doing a tune for me with my upgrades and when i finally ordered the tuner about 4 weeks later it listed again. iam stumped, your right. i should fell something in the truck and my gas mileage should not drop. when i drive the truck ( without towing ) i try to save fuel... i don't hot rod around town... i drive it easy.

 

Ok, just to ask the obvious here.... but..... you aren't getting any errors when you load the tunes are you?

You SHOULD be feeling some difference... I really don't understand why you do not. We gotta be missing a trick here somewhere. (but I have no clue what that would be....)

Challenger you have is a boat, is it not?

 

Hey Bmergner, I noticed you said that you have a Cali emissions rig. So do I. I also have canned tunes buy hemi and the air gap installed. I emailed hemi to see if I needed a special tune for it and he said that the canned tunes were fine for me. I'm having temp issue's though so I'm not getting great mpg's either. Before I had the air gap, I had just tunes on the rig and I felt the difference. It's still there with the air gap installed, but the mpg's aren't spectacular. I just noticed that the past couple of days. I think it has to do with my temp issue. Are you running canned tunes or custom tunes?

 

Challenger is my boat in the pic, V10 Viper motor..... the tuner loads perfectly, no issues at all. iam not sure of " tune " Sean loaded but i tell him what i had when i placed the order. i have been wating to hear back from Sean from my friday email to review my specs but not heard back yet. and iam stumped on my issues as well.

no cooling issues thank god... my gas mileage went down with the tuner, the airgap did not change my gas mileage at all, it stayed the same with more power so iam grateful there.

 

Bmergner, I have 3 caned tunes for cali rigs. If you want, I can send them to you to see if that makes a difference. I told him my mods and he said the caned tunes would be just fine.Just trying to help out the best I can because I'm going threw similar crap right now.