I do have it but don't know if it will work for a 2010. We should ask Scott about that.

Scott
Will a 3825 flashpaq work on a 2010 Charger?

I'm asking $165.00

 

Hi. Pardon the naive intrusion please, but I've spent a couple of hours diligently surfing the topics including this thread, trying to find out a few concrete facts about the Superchip, without much success. This thread, large as it is, seems to be a good discussion place for people who are already familiar with the device but for someone coming into it fresh, maybe not so much.

I've been trying to find out a few basics about the item and what it can do for my pickup (05 Ram Hemi 1500) and trying to read into the posts. I have looked for a FAQ but there doesn't seem to be one, or I can't find it.

The advice/opinions seem to be all over the map, from 'It's the best stand alone mod you can do' to 'It won't do anything without a CAI and cat back exhaust'.
The best one was, "It didn't do anything for me but give me better mileage. (!) (You don't say? Exactly what I want!)

So for a fumbling newbie, can someone help me out by either answering or pointing out where I might look for the answers, to...

- What exactly does it do? And how much?
- How and where does it mount / hook up?
- Is it plug and play or does one need to load maps or adjust it for ones particular application?
- It alters shift parameters... in what way?

I ain't worried about street racing, or track racing for that matter.
What I'm looking for is making my pickup truck as suitable despite what it is, for towing my 7000 lb. loaded equalizer hitch equipped toy hauler.

Yes I know and I know, I'm hanging my head in shame and the future will see a Cummins TD 2500 or 3500 in my driveway and no mistake about it. I WILL have that Cummins! In the meantime I has what I has.

It's a 2005 Ram Hemi 4x4 1500 QC auto with stock tires, airbags, and double tranny coolers (25 tubes) with an auxiliary electric tranny fan and gauge. It has 3.55 gears.

As it is, the tranny tends to hunt on hill climbs and it's hard to get it to find a happy gear to keep. I hate that.
If a Superchip can help and can give me a bit better mileage as well then it might be a worthwhile stopgap measure.
What say?
Thanks in advance.

 

I've been looking at getting the 3865 for a while now. I have a coupon for 10% off of an ebay auto accessory so I figured I might as well take advantage and buy it now. But I was surfing around on this thread today and it raised a couple more questions. I was reading a thread that discussed how the flashpaq will extend the range of the MDS for the economy mode so that you operate on 4 cylinders for a longer time to help with gas mileage.

This concerns me because I live in kind of a hilly area and I always drive around town in Tow/Haul mode due to the fact that the MDS causes my exhaust to drone whenever it kicks in. So if I were to operate in economy mode, would I have to leave the MDS enabled and listen to a constant drone? I have two reasons for wanting the flashpaq - to help with gas mileage and to help towing performance. But if the gas mileage help is going to force me to listen to an annoying drone I might have to rethink buying it. Can you disable MDS and still improve gas mileage with it?

I do tow a 5000 lb travel trailer when we go camping and I don't like the way the engine screams and revs like crazy when going up hills while pulling it. Would the flashpaq help this enough to make it a worthwhile purchase?

 

Hmm. Interesting (and disappointing). I know some guys around here that use E85 in place of racing fuel, hence the reason I asked. Thank you Scott for the research and response!

 

I have been wondering about this for some time myself. I have also switched back to 87 from 91 tune. But I recall I was seeing about a 1.5 mpg improvement in informal testing with the 91 tune. This made me wonder what the real price difference was. With my old 91 Jetta, I ran 91 octane and ran another 4 degrees ignition timing and got another 2 mpg...
So, that got me thinking and here goes. I put some numbers into an MS Excel spreadsheet. Premium here costs another 24 cents/gallon for 92 octane (E10 flavor). I used the following:

87 TUNE 91 TUNE
x miles $/gal mpg $/mile $ for x miles || $/gal mpg $/mile $ for x miles
400 3.30 17 0.194 $77.60 || 3.54 18.5 0.191 $76.54

To compute $/mile, divide $/gal by mpg. When I tried with $3 and $3.24, the numbers were a little closer (only 50 cents). If we are consistently seeing another 1.5mpg with the 91 tune, that is the way to go. With another 1.5mpg (which is a 8.83% increase), in 20 gallons that's another 30 miles per tank. Nearly another 2 gallon's worth if your base mpg is 17 and we are seeing the 1.5 mpg increase. It is harder to keep the right foot out of the engine bay on 91 though. If I punch in 1.25 mpg increase (or 7.35% increase), the costs per mile are a wash at 17mpg (87 tune), 18.25mpg (91 tune). Anything less than a 7.35% gain (a 1.25 mpg increase) above 17mpg, premium costs you more per mile. However, this is one of the few mods that can potentially pay you back... I plan to do some back-to-back testing after our inspection is done at work (give me a few weeks)...to see what the difference actually is.

 

I also have the same question as glenlivet. In fact the only difference is that I want to know what I could expect if I bought one for my '02 5.9L gasser. I too have a 7000 lb. travel trailer and the truck has 3.55's, which I wish it didn't. I only dream of the Cummins cause I don't think I could really get the wife on board with that one.

 

Answers inline.

Keep in mind, if you want to alter the shift schedule to your liking upgrading to the advanced trans tuning is the way to go.

The base tuning is already great, but the advance trans options give you so much more control of the transmission shift schedule and torque management.


Sil

 

Thank you SilsHemi. Actually by 'how much', I meant how much does it do.

I have gathered since that it is as you say 'hand held' and doesn't attach permanently to the vehicle but rather is connected long enough to flash the resident software of the vehicles own 'brain' to new parameters.

What I have had trouble with though, is understanding the notion that the device can extract more power and/or greater fuel economy from an engine on the condition that higher octane gasoline is used.

My understanding (admittedly far from complete) is that there is no more heat energy in high octane gasoline than in lower octane, only that the burn rate for the former is slower. This was needed by engines that carried very high cylinder pressures so that they did not knock themselves to pieces from detonation. The World War 2 airplane engines such as the Curtis Wright R-3350 for instance needed 130+ and even 150 octane fuel in their strongest configurations. This is not to say that the power was in the gasoline but that gasoline of that burn rate was needed in engines that made so much power per displacement.

Same with the muscle cars of the 60's that needed high octane pump gas, not because there was more energy in the gas but rather it was the high cylinder pressures resulting from those highly tuned engines cam timing and port sizing that made cylinder filling very efficient at certain RPM's that made the greater power, not the gas. The gas simply had the right burn rate for the application, so that it suppressed detonation.
Can't jam that much in a cylinder without using slow burning fuel, and lighting it on fire sooner in the power stroke.

Given that concept, how does the SuperChip extract more performance out of premium grade gasoline that doesn't have any more 'bang' in it than regular? The chip cannot alter cam timing, gas flow capacities, or any other engine parameters than spark timing and fuel delivery after all.
How would it get 'more' out of gas that doesn't have more in it? Are there comparative dyno studies?

I'm not denying the point, I'm just trying to understand the operating theory behind getting more power from the same engine with high octane gas, without changing any physical properties like cam timing and cylinder pressure/charge volume.

How does it work?

 

Changes are made to a/f ratio, spark timing, fuel maps, etc, etc., so you can run higher octane and create more hp/tq. Example; 2009+ they were able to get another 40 hp and 38 ft/lb of torque on the performance tune. They tune the truck, but don't do things that will affect durability and reliability. I've run their tuning since it first was released. First my 04 and now my 08. Very reliable.


Sil

 

But this does not explain why the changes in spark timing and fuel maps necessary to properly burn the high octane gas, should be capable of creating any more power from running it, since unlike diesel fuel there is no more energy to be released from burning high octane pump gas than there is from burning lower octane regular grade gas.

Any number of information sources accessed through an internet search using prompts such as 'gasoline' and 'octane', repeat the same information: that higher octane gasoline simply burns at a slower rate and is less prone to knock than lower octane rated gasoline. It isn't 'better' or more powerful gas. Admittedly the high octane gas contains more proprietary additives than they put in their regular grade of gas, the nature and amount depending on the petroleum company marketing it. (The gas companies put these additives into the gasoline after it has been refined and once it has been earmarked for sale in their particular branded outlets. The additives certainly don't add any power producing capability to the gas.)

Whether spark and fuel tables are optimized for 87 or optimized for 94, the motors output should be pretty much equal. Optimized is optimized and the hardware (cam timing, valve sizes, exhaust and intake port sizes...) is unchanged.

So I still have to ask: How does the SuperChip extract more power from the same engine that is now optimized for and running high octane gas? What's the operating theory? Are there independant dyno tests?
Thanks.