Flashes and Programmers for SRT8

[Buffmech]

I have seen a ton about this for the non SRT8, but not much on it. I am looking to get more performance out of the car. i understand that some of the flashes work well anbd others not, what is the overall consensus here? Also since there is not a progammer yet, are than any alternatives?

Thanx!

[artichoke]

Superchips did a moderately successful Flashpaq for the 5.7 but it appears they will never do one for the SRT8. B&G has Stage 1 and Stage 2 flashes where you send them a PCM and they reprogram it. There isn't much of this and it isn't as nice as you might hope, because nobody has been able to reveerse-engineer the code for the engine controls. Efforts continue however.

There are rumors that the 6.1 is capable of much much more power, but I don't know because I've never heard of a single example -- other than a story of someone seeing a manufacturer's demo in Italy going over 200 mph.

[srt8danno]

Originally Posted by artichoke

other than a story of someone seeing a manufacturer's demo in Italy going over 200 mph.

Artichoke is totally on the money.
I have to chuckle about the Italian SRT8. This is like the elusive SRT8 Bigfoot. Plenty of sightings, no pictures or substantive data for its existence.

[Lucky]

In England Pigs fly too!

[artichoke]

I've seen some pix of failed 6.1 engines torn down. In both cases, it seems that the tops of the pistons failed. There was actually a crack or hole in the top surface of a piston, where the compression would be pushing on it during the power stroke. I think we have ultra-light pistons, which is a good thing because they have to be accelerated back and forth for every rev. That gives us a free-revving engine that doesn't have much engine braking. But they may have taken it so far that the piston tops are a likely failure point if you pump up this engine.

I've never seen failures on the piston tops on any other engine or pictures of any engine besides ours. But maybe this is why they've limited the power from our engines in various ways.

These engines also fail really fast with a supercharger attached. Some cylinders get a bit too much air/fuel, the cylinder overheats and the whole engine dies. They seem to be operating near the edge of safety in the factory tune and can't take much more.

[Lucky]

That is a very good point, I was recently looking over my collection of 426 hemi parts and I looked at one of the pistons from one motor, the thing is a heavy heavy paper weight now, however, long time ago I saw it spin at 7200 in street trim, never seemed to have problems with pistons, just rod bearing. I can say from my butt dyno that this SRT8 has more power than the old 426, just does not seem to be so brutish.

[Undertheradar]

I hear the B&G flash is very good. An srt8 in Long island, NY has one and said he's had no problems and it unleashes the power of his SRT8. I've decided to get one and should arrive in a couple od days. I will update you on how it works for me. Hey, ARTICHOKE did you ever get rid of that ticket. on I287?

[NYC_SRT8]

Originally Posted by Undertheradar

I hear the B&G flash is very good. An srt8 in Long island, NY has one and said he's had no problems and it unleashes the power of his SRT8. I've decided to get one and should arrive in a couple od days. I will update you on how it works for me. Hey, ARTICHOKE did you ever get rid of that ticket. on I287?

I know the guy personally who had the flash your talking about. My boy Mike, his car is a beast and he loves the flash just that damn limp mode . However, their is a guy on the chargerforums I believe he signed up here a few weeks ago too...need4speed is his screen name. I bought his jetchip stage2 from him. I asked why he was selling it and he said he had the B&G flash. He wasnt very impressed with the flash but he didnt get into details, said he will post up. I haven't seen the post but you can PM him about it. I also seen another post that said the flash got wiped out and reverted the ecu back to stock . Im installing a few mods soon and will take it to track and see how much I improve. Currently im running 12.81 at 109.5 basically stock (K&N CAI and jetchip stage2). Then I will think about the b&g flash.

[Undertheradar]

NYC SRT8,
Nice! I see you put the 180 tstat. Do you have the fan mode too? Looking into the fan mode only with a 180 tstat. I don't want the GSM esp/fan mode. I'll let you know who the B&G works out too!

[marnepup]

hmmm...so you'd need stronger (without being heavier...titanium?) piston tops to go with a tune?