so i ordered a Hypertech programmer for my truck and it should be here in the next couple of days. and of course along with the programmer i am going to put a 180 degree thermo in. but my problem is that i live in an apartment due to being in college and we r not aloud to do maintnance on our vehicles in the parking lot, which means i have to go home this weekend to put the thermo in. can i use the programmer b4 i put in the thermostat without hurting anything? we r talking 3 days at the most without the thermostat. ur advice would be much appreciated

 

I don't have a programmer yet, but I don't see where it would cause you any real problems. It's not going to destroy your engine, if worst came to worst you could just remove the program and set your truck back to stock. The reason they suggest a 180 is to keep the engine cooler, allowing you to run more advanced timing without octane knock (pinging). So if your motor didn't like the programmers settings with your stock T-stat it would probably just cause a ping.

 

If you find your engine pings you could probably get away with running the lower 87 octane setting with higher octane gas. You may find you need to do that even with the 180 t-stat.

Running the hypertech on the stock t-stat is fine. Just keep an eye or I guess an ear out for pinging and then try different settings and/or fuel until there's no pinging.

I've never had any pinging no matter what setting I use with my Superchips programmer, but every truck/fuel/weather is a little different and how you set it up differs a little between vehicles.

 

thanks guys....i am just impatient and can't wait to see what my truck will do after i get this thing put in....but i didn't want to jeopardize my motor by doing so........

 

i know what you mean,, when i was in the military it wasnt allowed to work or do maintence in the parking lot of our barracks.. but didnt really stop me.. me and a buddy pulled his 5.9L out of his 01 ram and wheeld the engine stnad into my barracks room.. broke it down and sent everything off to be bored..

you should be fine with just the programer..