Escapees March/April 2016

“Even though the engine is fully capable of being extremely powerful or surprisingly fuel efficient...the stock truck won’t perform as well as it could in either case.”

if the tuner weren’t even there. When we take our truck in for service on the engine, we put the tuner in Stock Mode, and we disconnect it from the OBD II port in the truck so the mechanics can use that port for their diagnostics. Increased Power The Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Durango, Colorado (US- 550), is a white-knuckle ride with sheer, unprotected drop-offs, hairpin turns and steep climbs. However, semi-tractor trailers traverse it all day long. Once you know the twists and turns, it isn’t so scary to drive. We drove the truck on this road sever- al times before we hitched up the fifth-wheel to tow it over the three mountain passes. The difference in power that the tuner provided was dramatic. Accord- ing to dynamometer tests conducted by Diesel Power magazine, the horse- power on a 2009 Dodge Ram 3500 truck at 2,900 rpm increased from 321 to 362. The torque at 2,300 rpm increased from 605 ft-lbs to 711. Of course, we couldn’t make those same measurements on our truck, but it felt much stronger than before and didn’t flinch at the steep grades of these high-altitude mountain passes. Detailed Engine Temperature Data In addition to having more power, we were also able to monitor tem- peratures for the engine coolant temperature and the transmission

shoot and diagnose problems, the tuner has the ability to modify the engine’s operating perameters, while providing the driver with a way to change how the enginer runs. At the same time, the tuner’s display gives the driver infor- mation about the engine’s performance that isn’t otherwise available on the truck’s dashboard. Edge Evolution CS Tuner There are many tuners on the market, and we chose the popular Edge Evo- lution CS Tuner ( www.edgeproducts. com ). This tuner can optimize the engine’s performance using one of its four modes: • Towing • Economy • Racing • Stock We put the tuner into towing mode whenever we are towing our trailer. If we anticipate a lot of driving without towing, especially long highway trips, we put the tuner into Economy Mode. We don’t race our truck, so we have never tried “Racing Mode.” Changing the modes on the tuner takes a few minutes and must be done when the truck is parked. The beauty of the Edge Evolution tuner is that it programs the truck’s computer (ECU) by changing specific values that improve the performance without altering the integrity of the truck. The Evolution doesn’t alter the engine in any way, so it doesn’t void the factory warranty on the engine. Stock Mode lets you put the engine back to the factory default settings, as

What Is An Engine Tuner? Modern vehicle engines are all computer controlled, so it is possible, with software, to modify some of the computer’s input parameters that govern the engine’s performance. This means that the engine can be set up to be more powerful in situations where it is heavily loaded, for instance, while towing a large trailer up a 7% incline. The engine can also be set up to be more fuel efficient while driving on the freeway without anything in tow at all. However, truck manufacturers don’t provide a mechanism for chang- ing these computer values. Instead, they select default settings at the fac- tory to make the truck engine perform pretty well in all situations. It will be fairly powerful while towing heavy loads in the mountains. It will also be decent on fuel mileage while driving on the highway when not towing and when there is no payload in the truck bed. But it won’t perform optimally at either task. Even though the engine is fully capable of being extremely powerful or surprisingly fuel efficient, the default factory settings will com- promise some aspect of the engine’s capabilities whether towing or not, and the stock truck won’t perform as well as it could in either case. An engine tuner (or “programmer”) eliminates these limitations and truly puts the driver in the driver’s seat of the truck. Using the input port on the truck’s engine (on our Dodge Ram, this is the OBD II port), which is the same port that mechanics use to trouble-

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