New engine! What tuner do I need?

[XJArcher]

I'm replacing my 122k hemi (lifter failure) with a 44k motor. I've done the research and want to use a tuner to bump the idle speed to 750 rpm. I know I'll need an unlocked pcm but what tuner can I get that will accomplish it? I'm new to the whole tuner thing. In my day it was just "turn up the idle screw".
Thanks!

 

[Mojo88]

I was kinda in same boat. I did some minor tuning many years ago, with Accel DFI, so I got my feet wet with that, but that's 20 years ago, haha. I have a lot of little tweaks I'm gonna do on my 2019 5.7. I shopped and asked and debated... but finally settled on HPTuners. I just got my new dongle yesterday (MPVI3), plus I bought 6 credits which will allow me to tune the engine and trans. Just today, I loaded up all the software and registered everything with HPTuners.

My next job is to use the new software and dongle to read (through the OBD port) and download everything from my current PCM. This will all be saved as a '.hpt' file, which I will forward to HPTuners, along with my actual order for the Dodge PCM. They will then flash all of that data onto a brand new unlocked PCM.

Once I receive the new unlocked and flashed PCM from HPTuners, I will swap that into my truck, carefully saving the original PCM in case I ever have a problem. At that point, I will have complete control over the tunes in the engine and trans.

Cost summary so far (approx);
MPVI3 dongle............. $399
Smart Access Cable..... $89
6 Credits ($50 each).... $300

Basically $800 to this point. Another $700 for the PCM. So ~$1500 total.

Credits are the licensing fees. You only need 2 credits to license/tune the engine. So if you had no trans tuning to do, and only wanted to tweak the engine, it would cost $200 less (2 credits only, instead of 6), thus ~$1300 total.

 

[Fast69Mopar]

I'm replacing my 122k hemi (lifter failure) with a 44k motor. I've done the research and want to use a tuner to bump the idle speed to 750 rpm. I know I'll need an unlocked pcm but what tuner can I get that will accomplish it? I'm new to the whole tuner thing. In my day it was just "turn up the idle screw".
Thanks!

More and more Mopar tuners these days use HP Tuners. Diablosport CMR is still around and there are some tuners who use it and are good with it. HP Tuners is more user friendly in my opinion.

If you don't have any tuning experience find yourself a reputable Ram tuner and let them do the tuning for you. It is very easy to make a mistake with tuning software.

If you are going to attempt to do some tuning yourself ALWAYS make sure you have a saved backup file to revert back to in case you don't like the changes that you made.

 

[Fast69Mopar]

I'm replacing my 122k hemi (lifter failure) with a 44k motor. I've done the research and want to use a tuner to bump the idle speed to 750 rpm. I know I'll need an unlocked pcm but what tuner can I get that will accomplish it? I'm new to the whole tuner thing. In my day it was just "turn up the idle screw".
Thanks!

One more thing I forgot to add. When you make a backup copy of your PCM's file it's okay to save a copy on your laptop but please save a copy on a jump drive. You never know when your laptop is going to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and stop working. If your laptop goes down in the middle of tuning or whenever you can always download the VCM Suite on another laptop and flash your backup file from the jump drive.

Having a jump drive with your backup is just smart, cheap insurance.