I had bought the SCT tuner back in December for the $235 and was fairly disappointed with it, since my mpg dropped from 11 to 8.5 with the 87 tune. I also ran the 91 and 93 with pinging at WOT. I decided to say screw it, loaded the stock deathflash back on, and put it back in the box in the closet.

Here's where the fun begins my buddy who has a 1999 5.9, he's like, "Hey let me get that and put the tuner on my truck, I don't mind bad mpg." I'm like, "Eh. Alright should work on your truck, only 2 year difference, and same sub generation." Well turns out according to Sean over at hemifever the computers are different and tuner is unique to each PCM/ECM. My issue is I did not know this! We loaded the 87 tunes onto his truck, with great power increase. Here is the catch though; He got no over drive now and several CELs p0031, p0443, and p1495.

Is this just dumb luck that this would all occur or is it the tuners fault? We figured okay we'll just clear the CELs, put stock tune back on and all will be normal. Well guess what same thing happens... Same CELs are back and still no over drive (The light on the dash still lights up O/D off when pressing button though)? Is the PCM/ECM really screwed up from this tuner, I would have at least figured putting stock tune on would have totally fixed these issues?

My other issue is that my tuner says in the settings menu that "Stock changes left is 0" I only had the tuner attached to my truck 01' Ram (The truck the tuner was originally designated for) and the 99' Ram (That we tried the tuner on with complete failure and issues that are still not resolved). Shouldn't I still have 1 more stock change left? Or is my impression of this all wrong? I thought 3 stock changes meant that 3 vehical VINs would be associated with tuner. How do i get the 1 change back that I should have?

Right now my main issue is that my buddys 99' Ram has 3 CELs that come back right away after clearing and no over drive with his stock tune loaded! How do I go about fixing this? My thoughts is that its related to the PCM/ECM, and a re-flash at the stealership would solve this? I didn't think a tuner could create so much chaos...

 

Did you contact Hemifever about this? If you had, he'd have been more than willing to dial the tune down so that the 91 tune didn't ping. He would have dialed it back slightly, had you try it. If you still pinged, we would have gone a little more. He is more than willing to work with you, if given the chance.

The fact that Sean asked for your PCM part number before he gave you the tunes didn't clue you into this one?

Its entirely possible that his PCM was already faulty, and flashing it simply pushed it over the edge. Its also possible that because you tried to tune a vehicle with tunes not meant for it (wrong PCM), you screwed it up. I would try the dealership, pay them to flash it to stock, see what happens.

You cannot tune 3 vehicles at a time. You can only change vehicles twice. Your Ram = original (tuner counts 1 car). Your buddy's Ram = 1 change (tuner counts 2 cars). If you hooked it back up to your Ram, that's two changes (tuner counts 3 cars). The tuner doesn't record every VIN number it sees and says "Oh, I've done this truck two vehicles ago" and lets you get away with it. It just looks for a change in the VIN. The VIN was changed on it twice, that means three different vehicles in its mind.

 

I did when I messaged him about the messed up 99' Ram and got this:

Quote:

For sea foam, did you suck up 1/2 the can through the brake vacuum line til the engine shut off? Then let it sit an hour? Then crank it up and change the plugs after the smoke cleared? If so, great that's how it does work. For it to ping that bad, there's still some carbon build up on those pistons. I've attached the 87, 91, and 93 octane tunes that came on the tuner. Go ahead and load in the 87 octane tune first and see if it shifts normal. There's no change in the 87 octane shift structure so it should been identical to what you had. However in THIS 87 octane tune I made a change that a lot of the '01 folks have asked for to help with mpg on the 87 tune.

I'm not gonna claim to be the smartest one here. I just figured he just needed it to confirm I was buying the right tuner for the right generation truck, not specific year.

One of the main things I'm confused about though was returning the PCM to stock shouldn't everything be how it was before if the tuner made a save of the stock file, unless something went corrupt somehow? Any ideas on how much the stealership charges to reflash a PCM, it can't take more then 30 mins to do such a task?

Okay that helps me out a little. So let me get this straight, my buddy flashed his 99' to the 87 tune(limit 2), goes back to stock, then put the 91 tune(limit 3) on that's the third one and tuner is done? Since there is 0 PCM left Its pretty much a paperweight $235 then like those TB Spacers? Do I really need to pay money to have the tuner reprogrammable, when I was under the wrong impression of the 3 vehicle limit?

Sean helped me a little bit, but I need more specific details on help on how to fix the 99' besides just:

 

I ran into a similar issue when I purchased a used SCT 9550 tuner a year or so back. Original owner had it for a 2001 Ram 2500 5.9 magnum. I used that tuner to try to flash my '96 Ram 2500 5.9 magnum PCM. When going through the SCT flash process, it backed up my original tune, applied the SCT 87 octane tune and stated that then flash process was successful. I removed the tuner and tried to start the truck - the starter would turn, but the truck would not start. I tried to recover my old tune by plugging in the SCT tuner and recovering it, however, the SCT tuner displayed a OBD related error message. I contacted HemiFever and he stated that the differences between model/year was significant and this process wouldn't work. Only options left were to tow the truck to my local stealership and have them re-flash my PCM or purchase a used PCM and install it on the truck. I chose the used PCM option - found one on eBay for $45 delivered - installed in on the truck in less than 10 minutes and truck was back in service again. At some point down the road, I will likely drive my truck to the stealership, pay them about $90-$120 and have them re-flash both of my PCMs to factory settings. Once that's done, I may also contact HemiFever to purchase the tunes that support my year/model truck. My experience with this was very educational to me - just interesting that Dodge is so proprietary with their PCM info (Jtec and Jtec+) that there are pretty much no open source options to allow enthusiasts to make mods to the PCM.

 

You and I AtomicDog were in the same boat, except my buddy was lucky and his truck is still drivable, but definitely limping with no OD and CELs. I called up the stealership and they charge 92$ for a reflash, so that problem is solved, and now to figure out how to get my tuner functional again. I'm just still confused on how I don't have anymore programmable vehicles left; when I did it on mine, took it off and did it on his took it off. I should have one left, I believe. To put it back on my truck

 

If you didn't hook it back up to yours yet, yes, you should have one left I believe. Mention this to Sean (hemifever).

With a different PCM part number, the tuner probably wasn't able to back up the stock program properly, hence why it didn't fix your buddy's issue to return to stock. This may have also caused the PCM to think two different trucks were hooked up, when in fact it was still your buddy's truck.

I see you've done a lot of work to your truck, so I have what is probably a dumb question... have you fixed your plenum gasket? And don't tell me yours isn't leaking. People say that a lot by taking one glance down the TB and talk themselves into thinking they don't have a problem. 99% of all 5.2L V8s and 5.9L V8s have this issue. I couldn't see hardly any oil in mine until I pulled it apart and got almost half a quart of oil out of the manifold.

 

It amazes me that when someone buys "used" software without paying for the license, they are unhappy that something does not work. A tune such as SCT is a software package. Selling the product is how they make a living. I was unaware of
up to three times" but if I owned 2 Rams, I would also have 2 SCT Tuners...

Buying any used tuner for any vehicle used is asking for problems.

 

That problem does not exist with a SuperChips, as long as the PO returns it to stock, it can be used multiple time's on multiple vehicles. (as long as it is returned to stock each time). Hypertech simply won't work on any other vehicle unless it has the same exact vin #. The SCT at least give's you 3 strikes.

 

Yeah only Mine once and his once, which is why I'm mad that I have 0 left.

Waterpump died on the 99', so once that's replaced he is taking it to dealer for a reflash for $80.

Haven't had a chance to get around to doing it yet, its next on the to do list. I was putting it off for the longest time in hopes of getting a diesel. I figured why spend the money, but now I'm having second thoughts. Wondering if I should just get a 2nd vehicle that's a cummins to play around with and keep the Gasser too, like Wombat did.

 

Why spend the money to fix the plenum when you can spend twice the money on an SCT and make your truck run worse
If you don't fix the problems you already have with your truck, a tuner will just make it worse. Bad MPG is because of the tuner you say? No, your pis blown. Pinging on 91/93 tune? Because your plenum is blown.