Just need some discussion, haven't bought anything yet.

My 03 is pretty well done up now, but the 03 TCM is garbage. Just had 4.56 gears put in with a detroit locker and while it gets up and goes now, when I tow with it the hunting has gotten even worse.

2nd..3rd.. 4th, 5th.. HARD 2nd WHRRRRRRRRRRRRRR 5th..... HARD 2nd WHRRRRRRRRRRRRR

You know how they do. Had an 04 prior that I was able to tune shift points on, held gears better when towing. Been reading all I can on the 03 -> 05 PCM swap. Looks like it can be done pretty easily and tune out the downstream O2 sensors. My concerns are with my California emissions. Anyone done the 03 -> 05 PCM swap in California?

There is a MSD Programmable Transmission Shift Controller that looks like it could work too, but I can see that causing the PCM to freak out without the factory TCM there..

I guess my question is, can I do the PCM swap successfully in California?

 

You should be able to, since altering the transmission side of things doesn't affect emissions, though I assume they do an OBD hookup and any kind of code fails you (they do that here). There are a few very extensive write-ups on other Ram forums that detail exactly what you need to. What you need to figure out is whether you can get away with tuning out those rear O2's; knowing CA, most likely not and you'll need to wire them in.

 

Yeah that's my concern as well. It's no problem to weld in some O2 bungs but shoot I'm getting too lazy in life to be bothered.