Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85429
Extramuscle Reprogramming your engine can breathe new life into it, increasing horsepower and fuel economy. It can also shorten engine and drivetrain life and void warranties. Is it worth the risk? BY JAMES JAILLET C differently. hris Backlund scoured the Internet for months looking for someone to reprogram his engine's electronic control module. The Fort Collins, Colo., resident hauls asphalt and road base in varied terrain and says he wanted his 1995 Peterbilt 379 to have more uphill push from its 3406E Caterpillar. He eventually found a local shop, Elite Diesel Services, who connected a laptop to the engine, flashed the electronic control module and inserted a file with new data. "It's been a night and day difference with fuel economy and power," Backlund says. He hasn't tracked the fuel mileage benefits, but says he did gain nearly 150 horsepower – currently at 580, up from the stock 435. Fuel costs can be cut and power squeezed from stock ECM programming, says Pittsburgh Power owner Bruce Mallinson, whose company specializes in diesel engine performance and does the type of work Backlund had done. "If you can do just a mile or a mile and a half [a gallon] better, you're going to put about $20,000 extra in your pocket each year," he says. Pitt Power engineers are constantly researching modern engines and ECMs to determine what can be improved, he says. Companies like Pitt Power, Bully Dog and Delta Force have two major reprogramming methods: • A flash of the ECM that tunes it to perform • Installation of a device on the engine that changes signals either to or from the ECM, based on parameters entered by the user. Mack Trucks' Dave McKenna, though, cautions owner-operators to be careful with their equipment, as "bootlegged" data files haven't been through the rigorous testing to which manufacturers subject their equipment. "We spend tens of millions of dollars a year – if you lump the industry together, hundreds of millions of dollars a year – to try to have a better product than the next guy," says McKenna, director of powertrain sales and marketing. "If you've got a guy with an iPad or whatever that says he's got a file that can improve fuel economy, well, yeah, it may improve fuel economy but it's going to cause problems somewhere else," he says. McKenna points to engine life and disruption of meeting emission standards as probable compromises. "It's a balance," he says. "When we put an engine data file together, the first thing we try to do is achieve a torque profile that's going to work, a horsepower profile that's going to work with that torque profile, and then we work our darnedest to get optimal power, fuel economy and emission regulation." Alex Nikolic, sales manager for Delta Force Tuning, based in Sanford, Fla., agrees that engine changes usually compromise the engine in some way. So his company APRIL 2012 OVERDRIVE 29