Tuning a tuner

[jknappen]

How do you tune one of those tuners. And what is a good one? I have only a gibson cat back exhaust. Well its ordered anyways. What mods do i need witha tuner or can i tune it with stock setup?how does a tuner mount etc?

 

[MADDOG]

You don't have to mount a tuner and leave it plugged in if you don't want to. The tuners/programmers available are flash tuners...they load their tunes and then you unplug them.

I'd suggest a DiabloSport InTune for your truck. They've been in the business of tuning HEMI engines for quite a while now and make a great product.

The tuner is part of a system which includes the tuner (of course), exhaust and a cold air intake, such as the Vararam.

An internal combustion engine is just a big air pump with spark and fuel added to make power.

More air in + more air out + fuel/spark management = More Power.

Check out Diablosport and our supporting vendors here who sell their products.

Once you have your tune loaded you can tweak some user settings and eventually, if you wish to, get a custom tune to load on your truck from any of the experienced tuners out there (like Sean...aka Hemifever) via email or by a local Diablosport trained and authorized CMR tuner who will tune your truck on a dyno.

I had a Diablosport Predator on my 2007 5.7L powered MegaCab, I have a Predator with a custom dyno tune on my 2006 Chrsler 300C SRT8 and I'll add an InTune (current generation Diablosport tuner) on my 6.4L powered 2500.

 

[jknappen]

You don't have to mount a tuner and leave it plugged in if you don't want to. The tuners/programmers available are flash tuners...they load their tunes and then you unplug them.

I'd suggest a DiabloSport InTune for your truck. They've been in the business of tuning HEMI engines for quite a while now and make a great product.

The tuner is part of a system which includes the tuner (of course), exhaust and a cold air intake, such as the Vararam.

An internal combustion engine is just a big air pump with spark and fuel added to make power.

More air in + more air out + fuel/spark management = More Power.

Check out Diablosport and our supporting vendors here who sell their products.

Once you have your tune loaded you can tweak some user settings and eventually, if you wish to, get a custom tune to load on your truck from any of the experienced tuners out there (like Sean...aka Hemifever) via email or by a local Diablosport trained and authorized CMR tuner who will tune your truck on a dyno.

I had a Diablosport Predator on my 2007 5.7L powered MegaCab, I have a Predator with a custom dyno tune on my 2006 Chrsler 300C SRT8 and I'll add an InTune (current generation Diablosport tuner) on my 6.4L powered 2500.

So I need just as the basics, an intake and the exhaust for the tuner? What does it actually do really what gains will I notice? I'm not into racing or major offroading, just want to get a unlock the locked up potential that is in my HEMI. I've never used a tuner and always been leary about engine codes etc. Where is the least expensive place to purchase a tuner I have seen these selling for over 500 on some sites. Also do they come preloaded with programs or will I as you say ahve to get with someone who has a program already upload me a link?

 

[jknappen]

What do you recommend for fuel/spark management?

 

[MADDOG]

The tuner does the fuel spark management. We have supporting vendors here that sell the Diablosport InTune DCX for our trucks.

The programmers come with pre-loaded tunes plus a few user settings you can customize such as settings for tire sizes, WOT shift points, rev limiter, etc...

Gains will vary but what I've experienced were more HP and torque across the RPM band, a bit better mileage and the HP/torque values come up faster at a lower RPM value, making the truck much more responsive as you have more power at a lower RPM.

Here is my 5.7L Hemi MegaCab Ram's dyno sheet with two runs. The Green Line is with the tuner, the Blue Line is stock, the top two lines are torque, the bottom two lines are HP:

Not huge gains but look at the rise in both HP and torque down low in the RPM band.

You asked about spark and fuel management. The programmer does this work and here's an example of those results. HEMI's, and most cars, run lean and they do that for emissions reasons. Problem is, lean at WOT is NOT good and stock programming keeps the fuel delivery lean regardless of what the engine is being asked to do. You start seeing knock and the engine's computer starts to pull timing and fuel to avoid pre-detonation. The programmers help to add fuel to keep the Air/Fuel ratio in the "sweet spot". It is generally accepted that the HEMI "sweet spot" is around 12.5 - 12.8 A/F.

Take look at the graph below. Blue Line is stock, Green Line is with the programmer. Look at how the stock tune keeps the A/F lean at around 14.1 A/F all the way past 4300 RPM under WOT. Then all of a sudden it dumps fuel and starts to overfuel the engine above that RPM. Neither condition is good for the engine nor good for performance.

Now look at the Green Line, the run with the programmer. See how the programmer adds fuel earlier into the WOT pass and keeps adding fuel to maintain an optimum A/F.

I NEVER had an engine code on my 5.7L equipped MegaCab with the Diablosport Predator on it. I used a 91 octane tune with 92 octane fuel and it worked well.

I have a Predator with a custom tune loaded on my 300C SRT8 and the change to that car's performance was amazing.

 

[jknappen]

Thanks for all the info.

 

[Hemi450hp]

Your best bet is to just get a custom tune when purchasing your tuner. Most guys do not know how to tune these vehicles themselves, so there are companies like Hemifever that will write an email custom tune for you that you simply load into the truck and drive it. You do not have to change any parameters yourself as they will all be preset in the tune that they send you. Its the best bang for buck mod you can buy, and it will work whether you are bone stock or heavily modified.

DiabloSport InTune Programmer 2011-2014 Dodge, Chrysler, Ram, and Jeep 5.7L Hemi and 6.4L Hemi Vehicles

 

[HammerHead]

I would start with a diablo product and a custom tune. You do NOT want to be messing around with fuel/spark. Let a professional do the work. I also would drop in a jet 180 thermostat
Do those two things and go from there...

 

[jknappen]

With the hemifever ture what would I need as far as mods if any? Also can I still run 87 octane or will I need to have premium?

 

[MADDOG]

You don't "need" mods to run a tuner. If you want to run an 87 octane fuel, use the 87 octane tune.

Just don't run a 91 tune and put 87 octane fuel in the truck. That won't work too well.