Performance chips and trucks. advice

[FarmerChick]

we have a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 Mega Cab, 5.9L Cummins, 373 gear ration, auto trans.

we are thinking of putting in a performance chip, smarty jr or edge.

anyone do this? researching and reading reviews. I want more fuel mileage!!

would love any info ya'll have on these chips and do they deliver what they claim?

thanks

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[bsloan]

Hi FarmerChick, I wish I had great news about chips, but I don't. Over the last few years, I've known a lot of people who have tried chips and exhaust kits on their trucks, trying to gain anything from power to fuel economy. They all complained they didn't get the results advertised! One good thing, You may be able to increase your mileage by changing the type of oil in your truck. My manager has 2 Dodge/Cummins, don't know what year, he has found he gets another 3+ mpg with different oil. He also runs synthetic in the trans and rear end. Now the bad news. Each truck uses different oil !!! He takes oil samples of all fluids in his vehicles, and sends them off to be checked.
Hope you can find better mileage somehow, diesel is getting too high, which makes no sense. It takes less to make diesel than unleaded, but costs a lot more. Go figure.

Best of luck,
Bill

[spartacus53]

bsloan, the reason for the higher cost is supply and demand. I have a diesel car and wouldn't think about a gas driven one, better fuel mileage and engine has fewer moving parts too.

Oh, the only chips you'll see in my car are potato chips

[FarmerChick]

thanks bsloan, I am so on the fence on spending near 5-800 on this chip ya know. so many say they get a little extra mileage and I guess overall in the long run it adds up, but geez. Oil? hmm off to google all about oil in a diesel. thanks for info!!



Spart, you stop the chips. you be getting mice in that vehicle HAHA
don't kill them. get them a wheel. attach to motor. extra miles per gallon if they run their little legs off for ya LOL

[bartholomewroberts]

Farmerchick; I have an 03 model of your truck.. I do not have a chip..... for a couple of reasons... The first is... we never found it necessary to have one.. There is more than enough power in the vehicle... we can pull the horse trailer loaded with no problem whatsoever.. The second is that you can purchase a lot of fuel for the cost of a chip. The third reason is... yes you have more power.... yes the engine can take it... but, the trans is the weak point in a Dodge (well, one of several... front end being the other main one)... And the trans is not designed to handle that extra power... you can, and probably will, damage the trans with then extra torque and HP Fair winds Bartholomewroberts

[Dave44]

I also have the 2003 version. The 48 re transmission is much stronger than the 47 was. You used to figure in a transmission at 100k,, But I have 220k on mine and it is still strong. You can purchase a transmission built stronger for about 3k?. The front end and brakes have been the worst problem for me too.

As for mileage. My fuel lift pump went out last week. I replaced it with an aftermarket raptor pump and it gets about 3 miles more a gallon. (400-650 $)

I have looked at the products and I believe that I could get about another 6 miles a gallon with about 7k$.

On the other hand Farmerchick. Yours has smog control and I believe you live in a state that monitors emissions, I don't know how high you can get it.

And your lift pump may be in your tank. Makes it harder to do.

[FarmerChick]

barth and dave

thanks alot. I was seriously wondering about what 'extra' increase in fuel. This chip interest was never about power. Power we have , well you both know that owning one lol

In fact with out 10K travel trailer, we were at a red light and hubby 'wanted/just had to/couldn't resist' seeing if he could beat someone off the line. a mid sized car next to us. OH YEA. he nailed it and our truck and camper tore in front of that car....haha...we took them out like white on rice. I told hubby to stop that crappola but he was laughing for many miles after that. I told him we used 1/2 of the tank of diesel pulling that stunt

so this chip is only about fuel increase to me.

I have been reading on diesels. You know I don't know them well. many sites saying be sure your exhaust was 4", be sure your intake was new and improved, one site said a bellly pan. lol all this to get more fuel mileage.

we will slowly work on this. he is putting in a fuel additive now. we saw improvement of 1 mpg. whoop

NOW he is talking using Amisol Oil (or something like that)



I don't know lol I would like a bit better mileage as these diesels promise but I have to say, it is a monster of a truck. It isn't small by any means and being mega cab it is just that much bigger

[truckinbutch]

3 milliom miles behind Class 8 diesels . 1.4 million on a 460hp Cat before a rebuild . Certified member of the Cat Million Miler Club . You want to match that ; Shell Rotella oil , Lucas oil stabilizer , Howe's fuel treatment . Gentle use of the throttle and the brakes . Generous ammounts of grease at needed points . Your rig will only be as good to you as you are to it . Mileage chips can't make up for poor operator performance .
Jim

[spartacus53]

Trucking, thanks for the info on Howe's fuel treatment, I'll give that a try on my next fill-up.

[FarmerChick]

hubby uses a treatment but not sure what. I will mention Howes to him
thanks

[TheHarleyMan2]

Well the only thing you can get on a milage chip is only maybe 1-3 miles per gallon more. Yes, in overall that is good, but conditions also apply. I was going to get one for my truck but I didn't have the $400 for the chip.

DRIVING CONDITIONS AND MAINTENANCE MEANS A LOT to get the best performance, AND MPG, and life out of ANY vehicle deisel or gas!

Here is some advice that many may not or do not know, especially if you are pulling a trailer.

You will LOSE about 1 MPG per every 500lbs you are hauling. How do I know? I pull trailers quite a bit and I had researched this years ago and found out why my mileage dropped 5-8 MPG pulling my trailer.

Also keeping your RPM at or just below 2,000 will give you better performance in mileage, YES that would be around 69-72 MPH. Yes, that means you do the speed limit on the highway, IN THE RIGHT LANE. The less speed you are going with cruise control on the better your mileage! YES, NO ONE wants to drive slow including me. But with fuel prices rising, I drive like grandpa now a days!

If you have an overhead console with the MPG average display you can see the changes of performance in different areas of RPMs and driving speed. I ALWAYS use the cruise control on the highway. Your engine maintains speed and engine RPM on level ground and sometimes going uphill depending on the grade of the hill.

There are several ways to get better mileage and performance, (not the hopped up ones), but spending a little money on modifications like direct open air intake stage kits, 4" exhaust system cutting out the catalitic converter, to allow exgaust to move more freely, (BUT, you may not be able to do so depending on your state for emissions testing), Also, keeping your timing, and tune up of fuel and air adjustments in order to get peaked performance, just like as if you had a car doing routine tunes ups, you know spark plaugs, (yes I know deisels don't have them), air filters especially, and changing your oil regularly.

I know I always buy Castrol GTX for deisels and always used it and it is a good motor oil. Even though you can change your oil every 15,000 miles according to the manufacturer of the oil. I change mine every 8,000 miles. Yes, it costs me $87.98 every time I buy the oil and filter doing it myself!

Before you spend the money, I would join a deisel forum, (I have for Ford Powerstroke), there are several for each manufacturer of trucks. There are people on those forums with same trucks that has done everything with them and have experience, also there are MASTER TECHS on these forums that can also give you the correct answer, as well as tips on fixing minor issues to save you money. My FICM, (Fuel Injection Control Module) went out, and after reseaerching because I didn't want to pay the $900+ for a new one, I found in the powerstroke forum a simple repair due to cheap manufacturing. Simple fix myself or anyone, but one has to know what they are doing. Now I have a local shop that I repair their FICM's for a $100 bucks each

But like I said, before you spend your money, (because there is so many different products out there, like metal detectors and it leaves one not sure which one to get and everyone has an opinion), Join a Dodge deisel forum adn you might be able to get better insight as to what chip if any you may want to get. Also word of advice. My friend who owns a deisel shop here in close to where I live has had several people get some performance chips and it later ended up messing up their trucks computer because of wrong programing. Truck just needed to be reprogramed, but that requires bringing it to a shop and can cost you $500+ bills depending on shop.

Most programing chips one can make adjustments to whatever they want. My personally in my opinion, there are too many buttons, decisions, etc, on many of them that you program yourself.

Good luck!

[onfire]

F.C. Go to Dodge 2006 ram forum Edmunds you can ask any Question about this truck or any other one Register and ask a question or brose

[FarmerChick]

thanks everyone.
dodge forum is definitely on the list.