Got the springs and the cam installed last week. The weather was crappy, so I couldnt do what I needed to do on Isaacs truck. The next step there is draining the fuel tank, and hooking up the fuel lines back there. It is wired, just needs to be plumbed. I dont want to do that in the garage.

On the way home thursday, I was planning my weekend, thinking about getting his truck running, and possibly painting the new engine. We were leaving to go eat, and we noticed there was a bunch of coolant under my car again. Lots of coolant. Great.

I got up friday morning and looked into it, and it was the radiator this time. Recall I hit a dead deer a few months ago, and bent the radiator. I said I was going to drive it until it exploded.. Well, I guess it exploded thursday. Thank the Lord I bought a radiator. My immediate plan was to replace the radiator, and leave the tweaked A/C condensor in place, because I havent had a chance to have the system evacuated. But when I was removing it, the bolt next to the dryer was rusted in. I put some blaster on it, and tried it again, but it split the condensor right at the welds for the dryer. Well, I guess Im changing the condensor also, I thought.

So, I figured it was a good time to look at the intercooler fitment also. I know some people on YouTube say this thing will fit, but man it looks tight.

Old radiator. Thats almost a straight shot down, so that thing was tweaked pretty bad. Hitting a full size deer at 45 isnt good for your car.

Condensor/trans cooler/dryer. You cant really see how bad this is, but its folded over almost 2" at that bottom portion

Radiator support. This thing was mangled. It was bent and folded.

New stuff in. Just need to watch the coolant level for a few days, and get the A/C serviced. I got the car back together after this picture.

Intercooler. I figured out this will be too high after installing the bumper cover. It will have to drop another 2" or so. That bumper has to go also.

 

I almost forgot to mention the tuning debacle Im in.

I spent a bit of time looking into tuners for the build. I went with HPtuner, because it offers the most in depth tuning potential. The plug and play stuff will get you there for sure, and the email tunes work well also. But HPtuners can do everything, provided you know what you are doing.

I wanted to get a remote tune to start, just as insurance, so I called a few places and ran into some trouble. The first is price. I have to already have HPtuners, and the credits...good I do, but then they want between $900-1500 for a remote tune, on top of what I already spent for the tuner and credits. Then I had a conversation with one of the tuners and asked if I would be able to work off of their tune to build it a little more custom to my needs (they would "adjust" it up to 10 times, in a few driving scenarios they had set up), and he said No. After talking to a friend (the one who convinced me to go with HPtuners) I found out that some, not all, shops will lock the computer after they tune it. Apparently there is a license they can get from HPtuners that allows them to lock you out of your own ECU, and makes your tuner strictly for data logging. What?

Okay, this is a little crazy. I understand they have what they feel is proprietary, but for the life of me Ill never understand why software companies feel its okay to lock me out of something I have already paid for. Im okay if you write protect your tune. That would work fine. Im okay if you hide the tune from prying eyes so I cant see it or re-sell it as my own, fine. But to lock me out of my own ECU and prevent me from making my own tune? Nope, Forget that.

So, I am going to have to do this a little different than I had planned. It might just work out better. I am going to start logging and tuning now, right after I get Isaacs truck running. Im going to learn as much as I can. Then, Im going to add the exhaust first, after I install the AFR gauge and re-tune the car. Then, the engine will go in, with the new cam and Ill re-tune the car. Then the supercharger, and a re-tune. Then the injectors, which is apparently pretty hard. By doing it in stages the car wont be down as long, and I have the benefit of having the knowledge I learned during the last stage.

I am not a programmer by any means, but I understand engines and how they work. And I am familiar with programming, just in a different way. I am a lead avionics installer for a large helicopter manufacturer. That means when you buy your helicopter, and add a bunch of radios and GPSs and audio panels, I have to set them up and make sure they all get along. Its basically turning on communication ports, and telling the gadgets what computer language to use at what speed. As these helicopters get more advanced, even the lights are computer controlled now, and we have to tell the lighting power supply what voltage to put on what pin.

It cant be much harder than that can it? I guess we will find out.

 

Does HPTuners have forums to help you out as well?? I know there is (still) a LARGE community tuning OBDI (yes, obd one) computers for GM cars/trucks.... Anything similar for Chargers??

 

Yes, and I am on the HPtuners forum. There is some good information on there, but for the Dodges it seems noone wants to share with a newbie. If you start asking technical in-depth questions they start to help, but if you ask about shutting off the MDS there wont be any responses. Any novice questions just get ignored, and they dont usually share information.

YouTube has a few decent channels about Dodge tuning and I am watching those and learning a ton, but its still not very specific. I am going to have to learn a bunch, and make tiny adjustments.

 

Once you have the software in hand, and your current tune loaded, some of that may become obvious. Might just be a switch somewhere. Change one bit in the code, and no more MDS.

 

Try:
Engine
Fuel
Lean/Fuel Saving
Multi Displacement system
If that sequence still works, then set to 'disable'

 

So I have started looking at the exhaust install. I noticed the shape of my X-pipe isnt going to work, so I have 2 options. 1) run an H-pipe instead (I could make this very easily--see pictures). 2) modify the x-pipe. Im not sure which one I will do to be honest. But I have another issue. I bought the stainless headers/mid pipes/ cats kit from modern muscle. I have to add an O2 bung for the gauges I am adding, and to help with tuning the HPtuners. I have the gauge and it uses a Bosch 17025 O2 sensor. I dont know where to put it though. The exhaust already has the 4- O2 sensor bungs, so I dont want to get too close to them. Plus I have a tig welder, but I suck at tig and I have never welded stainless. I want to put it back further in the exhaust, because after the mid pipes, I have a steel exhaust and a mig welder. If I run the X-pipe, it could go in it. Some people say not to do that, some say its okay. But with an H-pipe, I cant put it in that. The instructions say at least 18 inches from the collector, but Im going to be closer to 30+, which it says would be fine for a turbo car.

What have you all done with your O2 sensors?


X-pipe. I can straighten the ends, but it would be a lot of work. An h-pipe would be easier, and very short.

I think this is how I will run it. All the parts forward of the flex pipes are stainless. The flex pipes and everything after will be steel. I would add the h-pipe right after this.

 

Put your wideband where the red or blue dots are.

 

The instructions say a minimum of 18" from the collector, so that would be too close. The lower bungs (the second set) you see there are close to that measurement. Plus those are stainless, and I would have to get someone else to weld them. I can do that if I need to, but before I do that I need to see if thats a good location on the car also. I cant seem to find any really good pictures of these cars from underneath.

 

So messing around in the garage today for an hour or two, I came up with a plan. Dont judge the gaps yet, I know they are gross, but my wife babysits and I couldnt make a ton of noise, so Ill clean this up before welding. The pipes needed to be an inch apart at the end to fit the way I want them to fit, and this gets it done. I will also just put the O2 sensor in this area (shaded circle) and go with it. Of course I have to double check the angle on that as well, and Ill make sure there is nothing in the way under the car.

Im not sure what I need on the back side, so I havent looked at it yet. I might just tack this really good, and wait. I think Ill have to do the same thing, but I need to be under the car to see this first. I dont have a lift, so Im going to be doing this the hard way; jacking the car up and rolling in and out with a creeper. Although I have been trying to talk the wife into one of those mini-portable lifts. 24" of lift, and it runs off of 110 VAC. That might help me a little.


Its not lined up very good either, and the gaps are bad, but Ill deal with that. This is the basic idea.

The shaded area is where the O2 sensor will go. Also the ends are not the same length, Ill fix that too.