The manufacturer published dyno numbers just do not support this "seat of the pants performance increase" between the Hypertech and the SC. I've looked at those charts in the past and it's just not there. And I should point out that when Hypertech was the only game in town, everyone swore what great increases they were seeing in power and gas mileage. It wasn't until SC came on the scene that they became the new darling. I'm sorry, I just don't accept your analysis of why Chrysler doesn't simply buy out one of these companies and deploy their remarkable devices. I reject it because no one has described the downsides that you say deter them from doing that: Rough idle, harsh shifting, not suitable for soccer moms (and presumably the wife), etc.

Clueless: Perhaps too harsh a word. But, your anecdotal data doesn't hold a lot of value. For example, was the age of the motor (thus the break in) identical? Obviously not, since you ran the Hypertech first, then the SC. Older motors tend to have better gas mileage (up to a point). Are you certain you ran exactly the same formulation of gas, and that you ran the tests in virtually identical environmental conditions? Or is it possible that more of your Hypertech usage occurred in the winter, using winter blended gasoline (or vice versa)? Are you certain that the temperature of the fuel during your tests was the same, since colder fuel is denser and heavier, and therefore packs more potential horsepower? So, while clueless may be too harsh a word, the truth is that I seriously doubt you or anyone else on this forum has the requisite technical knowledge to ascertain whether these programmers are truly increasing gas mileage. I believe that it's possible we may be getting a tenth or two of improvement--but there's no way that you or I or anyone short of a testing laboratory can truly determine that.

 

No. But, you don't have to totally redesign an engine to get more horsepower. A little better bending of an exhaust line here, a little polishing on a head there, and you can pick up a few horsepower. And, they may find a little software tweak that adds some more. But, the point is, they do it. They don't leave it up to the after-market (though the after-market for Chevys, et al is just as lively as it is for Jeep).

 

If the Jeep engineers were perfect, they wouldn't have designed things like a plasctic Evap canister hagning down with a target painted on it or a roof that won't stop leaking!

Even with the top engineers at any company, there are always better ones next in line. Same thing with anything computer related. Hire the top security analysts in the world...5 minutes later, soemone else has exposed a security flaw. Happens all the time. There is always room for improvement!

 

I agree with your remark. Right up until everyone suggests that SC knows all the right answers, and the Jeep engineers are too dim-witted to figure it out for themselves, year after year, even with all of these after-market companies showing them the way. CAFE demands that if there were real improvements possible without significant negative downside, Jeep would be deploying it even if they missed it the first year.

 

Manufacturers absolutely leave hp on the table when they program an engine. The answer is simple. Manufacturers have to tune the performance for the lowest common denomenator owner/driving conditions. The guy that puts the crappiest gas in, rarely changes fluids on a regular basis, never changes his air filter, runs with three tires that are always almost flat, drives bad environments (high altitude, etc), but always expects the engine to run smoothly, return reasonable gas mileage, start and idle perfeclty, never ping, etc. Chip tuners thin out the "buffer" that manufactures write into their code to account for these types of owners that never do maintenance, run bad gas all the time, and expect no problems. By not having to account for these idiots, you can tune the engine for better timing and fuel maps (higher octane, for example) and get more power. The assumption is that a chip owner will run better gas, pay more attention to service intervals, etc. Tuning to this level by the manufacturers wouldn't work for the average owner for obvious reasons.

 

JPOP always forgets to mention he has headers and full exhaust on his jeep. I spoke with him over a year ago on the phone and we tried solving his problem for a month, before he mentioned the headers. We asked him not to run our tune because we designed it for optimized efficiency with stock manifolds. If it ran better with headers we simply did a bad job optimizing for stock manifold exhaust airflow. When you add headers to a vehicle air fuel ratio is changed and should be custom tuned for the new found air fuel ratio. If I was running a SuperChip/Hypertech/any box tune sold at a retail store, I simply would not do it without monitoring airfuel ratio unless the tune was made for your brand of headers (not all headers produce the same AFR) A lean motor equals a early rebuild.

I am proud to say that our tune does not perform the way it was designed when you add headers to the vehicle. I fail to understand how this is a bad thing, but JPOP keeps trying to make it appear bad. If it ran better with headers we did not tune the stock vehicle correctly.


Hypertech offers 30 day money back gurantee if you don't like it return it for your money back.

 

I agree

 

I have over 20,000 miles driven with a Hypertech programmer, over 20,000 miles driven with stock JK and now over 20,000 miles driven with a Flashpaq. I can tell you that in a 1/4 mile pushing my Chevelle at over 125mph, by the "seat of my pants" when I have picked a tenth before ever seeing a time slip. I can also tell you when I switched from Hypertech to Superchips I felt an immediate performance increase and you can check back on all my posts about the Hypertech before there was another game in town I experienced no perceivable gains no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise.

Fuel mileage, I have every receipt for fuel that I ever put in my JK for tax purposes. They all have the hand calculated mpg on them and many have notes such as "new plugs", "really hot, ran AC", "stock air box", "new wires", "long trip, high crosswinds" or "changed to 93 setting". So I think from a statistical perspective, I'm very capable of throwing out the outliers. Just shy of 100 receipts for 2009, which individually don't tell the story but as a collective they certainly do without doing laboratory tests.

Oh and I do make every effort to buy my fuel from the same filling station which there are several posts where I have mentioned the same to others.

On the infinite wisdom of Chrysler, today I had to go pick up my Dodge Ram which had recently had the steering box replaced for the second time. While I was waiting for them to tie up the loose ends from my previous visit, I took a hard look at the new Ram 2500 to see if they had added a cross member to tie the frame horns together so the steering issues were minimized and also if they were placing rear sway bars on their new 2500s. Nope, same stuff which has been problematic since 2004 , but they did add about 4-6" of height to the hood, squared off the front end and basically downgraded their aero footprint while supposedly adding some "style".

Exactly how am I supposed to believe that the same set of engineers that can't address known issues are going to address things such as getting the absolute most performance and efficiency out of the PCM and powertrain?

What a Flashpaq does isn't going to appeal to Chryslers installed base and targeted customers as a whole. What about their liability as a company, say someone wants 87 octane fuel on a 93 setting or the soccer mom that's not in love with shift firmness. Then the marketing aspects, trying to hit price points where every step of the way they make attempts to cut costs and increase margins. Things such as the aforementioned rear sway bar that doesn't even exist on a vehicle that's capable of towing 5 tons or have 2,500lbs worth of payload.

Nope, your arguments just aren't making sense to me and I have two flashpaq installed vehicles that tell me that by the seat of my pants everyday.

 

Engineers aren't allowed to freely design the best product possible. The bigger the company, the more constraints they have to deal with, particularly one that has to meet gov. regulations.

The 3.8 driveline tuning is highly biased towards fuel economy and low emissions. EPA and CAFE regulations have a tremendous impact. The JK brand does portray high performance so its a simple product marketing decision to not offer it, in order to improve corporate averages.

 

Wow amazing feedback. I'm sorry guys I may of said the wrong thing..... I have a flashpaq and tuned jeep already. I'm talking about these things u see on the web especially in eBay. They're like $25 and say the give u all kinds of gas and power. Not a tuner it's jyst a performance chip.... Thank u