I know many of you may have seen my posts trying to locate a Mopar Performance PCM, and additional posts trying to determine if a used PCM could be transferred to another vehicle, dealer flash or not. Well, I was able to purchase a Mopar Performance PCM. It was used, and had already been flashed by the dealer, and came from a truck like mine that did not have the security feature. I hooked it up and it works great, no dash lights, no cutout, no limp mode. The purpose of trying the PCM was to decide for myself once and for all if the Mopar PCM was really any better then the hand held Hypertech programmer I have. Hypertech was telling me that their programmer is only designed for stock vehicles and would not work well with the type of mods I have done/plan to do. Magnum engine performance experts like John at Southeast, Dan the Fastman, B&G, KRC, and others told me that the Mopar PCM and custom flashes are definetly better due to more aggressive timing advance, fuel curves, and less PCM controlled torque management. So that left me with the option of getting a Mopar Perforemance PCM, or a custom flash from B&G to see for myself. Due to cost and some other concerning downsides of the B&G flash, I opted to try the Mopar PCM first.

The results are: Much better performance gains compared to the Hypertech programmer I had. Best way to describe it is that I can do with mid to 3/4 throttle what I used to use full throttle for. I like to test my mods on my usual drive to work because I know exactly how my truck responds on each part of that drive. I was pleasently suprised this morning when I was able to climb this one moderatly steep hill without ever coming out of OD. That is the first time ever for that. The next hill, which is very very steep, I was able to accelerate on it better then I have ever been able to in the past (not in OD though, but I would not ever expect to make that hill in OD, too steep). Off the line acceleration is slightly better, not as much improvement as I would have liked, but still better then it was with the Hypertech. I seem to still have a dead spot about mid way through 1st gear, but once I hit second, the torque is noticably improved. I would have to say that the most gains seem to be at mid rpms's (i don't have a tach, so I can't give you a specific rpm range).

I still need to do a tuneup which I have planned in a couple of weeks. That should help things a little, and I plan to install my 1.7RR's that same weekend if time permits. I'll keep you all posted.

 

Let us know what happens with your mpg. I have a mopar performance pcm also,but due to a 1.5 [average hiway] mpg loss when installed , I am not using it presently. I have the hypertech piggyback module on the stock pcm right now and have noticed not quite the performance that the mopar performance pcm gave me,but I lost no mileage and maybe gained a bit with the hypertech.