I called and gave them the usual barrage of questions. Didn't get much new information, but here is what they had to say.

Box adjusts timing, pressure, and duration. No pressure on the tow mode, a little on the performance mode, and a little more on the extreme mode. Said there is enough room for an additional 20hp in the extreme mode when stacked with an EZ, so the downloader makes roughly 50hp from pressure.

They could not give me the exact numbers on timing advance, rail pressure, and duration extension. Said he didn't have those numbers. (Don't they make this box? )

They use the exact same program for the 03s, 04s, and 04.5s, so you can buy one and regardless of what year you have, you can let your friends try it out with no problems. Does not work on the 05s yet.

It will not erase any custom changes that you have made to your ECM. I specifically asked about the custom revs per mile changes made for my 315 tires so the speedo would be accurate. He said that information is not tampered with and would not be lost.

They said the downloader gets its power from the truck when plugged in. There are no internal batteries. Your stock program is burned into a chip in the downloader where it will remain safe forever, unless you drive over the downloader and crush it.

The only thing that can go wrong during a program change is if your truck's batteries were to drain completely during the burning process. He said the dealer has the same problem to be concerned with when they do any kind of reflash and DC makes them hook up a battery charger to prevent that possibility. Said the odds of that happening are 1000 to 1. If that was to happen while burning one of the downloader's programs, you simply disconnect the batteries to reset everything and do it again. No problems what so ever. However, if that was to happen while your stock program was being burned back into the truck, there could be unrecoverable errors requiring a visit to the dealer to get your ECM reprogrammed. So now the question is can the dealer completely reprogram an ECM that easily?

That's it. So, just guessing here, but given the fact that it resonds so much better on the dyno on an SO truck than the other trucks, it sounds a lot like the RAMifier in that it may do timing, pressure, and boost fooling with duration only as a result of the three, or vise versa (RAMifier does pressure and boost fooling with timing and duration only as a result of the two). Benefit being the downloader is somewhat adjustable and no boxes and wiring harness under the hood to go bad. Hard to tell. We will have to sick Doug on this one. It will be interesting to watch the hard facts come to light as time goes by.

 

I guess that saves me a call. One thing that I have noticed in the following of these threads is the repeated reference to the "touchy throttle". Brian, here's a new twist to the pm you sent me where I said "no way" to altering my stock ecm. Looks like I have a lead on a second '03 ecm! If I can get this for a good price I'll buy the downloader and put it through the paces.

Richard

 

Cool. I just wish it was more adjustable. I don't like not being able to go from mild to wild and back instantly if need be. I guess you could get their monitor thingy which is suppose to let you install the extreme program and turn it down and back up at the push of a button, but that's another $300+.

 

Ak Ram yes can be adjusted with the so called outlook monitor just ordered, be on tomorrow will let you know

 

It won't do "boost fooling", it changes the threshhold for what sets a high boost code. It's better than fooling. The ECM should know the real boost the whole time.

I think the reason it responds better on the SO is because they are uploading a modified HO calibration. I suspect you could put an HO program into an SO and get the power of the HO since the hardware on the engine is the same (turbo, injectors, etc).

Andy

 

Anything is possible when flashing with an entirely new program, but that seems to go against all of the fueling map knowledge we have learned about these trucks to date. Did Bullydog tell you that?
If that were the case, wouldn't the HO program turn off the late injection event on the 600s? That is not happening (or the feds just haven't figured it out yet). As much as we would like to see it, any company that offers a box or program that turns that injection event off will be promptly invited to pay a large fine and possibly jail time for tampering with federal emission control systems. That would undermine everything the feds have fought to change in diesel emission standards over the years. On the other hand, if it started out as a 600 program, wouldn't it turn on a late injection event on the SO and 04 HOs? That ain't happening either, not with the EGT reports we have seen so far.

 

What I would really like to know at this point is rail pressures and how much total advance they are using. I hope this isn't just a pressure box and custom map program disguised as a "replacement performance program". There are different ways to skin a cat and make it look original.

 

I was told the third injection event is also there to cool the piston. If you eliminate it, the piston could swell ( from heat ) and stick in the bore.

 

Yeah, lots of guessing going on here. I wish they were a little more candid on what they were changing as well. I hate that. The initial reports of the motor feeling like it is electric (smooth) just doesn't make me fell like there is a lot of timing advance going on. The initial reports of decent EGTs doesn't sound like a lot of duration either. However, the 180+ HP gain they made on an SO.....that can't be done with just moderate pressure and moderate timing, so there has to be more to it than that.

The RAMifier has to raise rail pressure close to 27K to see the kinds of gains on an SO over the HO that they are seeing, but they claim only 50hp from pressure, which wouldn't take high rail pressures at all. Kind of odd. I guess we have much to learn still. Just have to sit back and wait. It will eventually come out, or I'll buy one and send it to Doug for measurements before I run it.

Richard….the guy posting on TDR apparently has an "in" with one of the Bullydog owners and is posting some good info, but nothing as specific as we are looking for. Put a little pressure on him to spill it.

 

The heat is coming...

 

They didn't tell me that but I know for a fact that they are not uploading an entirely new program to the ECM. That's why it won't be changing gear ratio changes you've had made previously. It is also not going to mix and match a 600 program with the previous 555 program. The device has some modified tables and it knows where they are located in each ECM's flash image. They are downloading the entire flash image, replacing some tables and settings with their own custom stuff, and uploading it back into the truck's ECM. I've looked at the code and tables on SO, 555, and 600 cals and there appears to be a lot more code to the 600.

Since they are not uploading a 555 program into a 600 they are not changing the fundamentals. I suspect there are hardware differences between 555 and 600 ecms that would prevent swapping an entire program anyways.

There are two types of things in the flash image. There is the program, the executable code and there are tables. Think of it as MS Excel being the program and the data you type in as the tables. Basic fueling and timing is located in these tables as well as various other things like when to set a code for high rail pressure, boost, etc.

That's not to say they didn't make some crafty small changes to the executable code, but I expect they will be minimal.

The code between the SO and the HO appear to me to be damned close to the same with just table differences. In fact I'm sure an SO would run a complete 555 program and you'd get 555 power with only minimal hacking.

Andy

 

We know all about fueling tables. I took your original post as you thought they were replacing the entire program. Thanks for the clarification.

On the subject of boost fooling, from what I understand there are safeguards built into the ECM program, separate from the fueling maps, that prevents the ECM from fueling too heavily without the presence of boost. This is to keep the engine from hurting itself. So far, the only way to really increase low end torque below about 1900 RPMs has been to totally fool boost from start to finish (via the under hood box), in effect telling it there is much more boost available at throttle start than there really is. Fairly simple way of doing things. So your implying that they are tweaking the safeguards in the executable, either laxing them or removing them all together, and not fooling boost at all, except for the cap?

 

I would imagine there is a table or a constant that tells the ECM what boost levels are "clean" per a given fueling and timing value. I don't know how Cummins implimented it but I'm quite sure it's parameterized. When Cummins was doing emmissions programming they would need to be changing this stuff, too.

I really really doubt BD changed any executable code.

I need to find a spare $499

Andy

 

Sorry for the conspicous absense; my day job consumed all of my extra time, and I've been concentrating on the fueling boxes so I'm not actually as close to the downloader stuff as I want to be at the moment...

this is conjecture on my part, but I think the primary reason why pressure boxes perform well on the SO is that rail pressure already higher on the HOs (so the SO has more to give in pressure). Some boxes may be able to take advantage of that more than others, and I expect the Ramifier could probably be custom tuned to outrun the others on an SO. At least those that use the same program for the HO as the SO.

There are three boxes that perform enhanced boost fooling to increase low-boost fueling: Ramifer, Pacific Performance, and Volumizer. none of these boxes adjust timing directly . now then, I want to be precise here. In My work I have adopted a system of language where fueling boxes are classified by the engine interfaces they connect to and what they (the boxes) control. Thus, if you ask me, no pressure box on the planet adjust timing. Sure, there are some interesting side effects of pressure fooling and boost fooling, however, but this is the ECM making adjustments to its own fueling and timing tables, not the box. So yea you can argue that Ramifer affects timing, but then so does the Volumizer and the Pacific Performance box. You can argue that the Predator changes fuel plume geometries and brings on world peace too, but then you should say the same thing about all the other aggressive pressure boxes. Simple pressure fooling will cause the ECM to make small adjustments to timing as well, but we don't say pressure boxes do timing, we say they do pressure. Add enhanced boost fooling and you just ratchet up those ECM reactions.

But note that for the 03-04 engine, all this fancy boost fooling only enhances the low end. At peak horsepower, actual boost is always higher than the ECM maximum, so there is no longer any room to play there, and so there is no more opportunity to count on ECM side effects. In other words, these three boxes are on equal footing with all the other pressure boxes as regards peak horsepower influenced by boost fooling.

As for the Bullydog downloader, yea there is no boost fooling going on. the maximums have been altered, so that the ECM doesn't complain at the higher boost levels, set codes or de-fuel. that is, the safeguards are themselves parameters in a table, from what I understand. So a downloader would be a good way to guarentee storing out of (factory) bounds conditions in the ECM when somebody wants to review your peak numbers . AK is right about low boost fooling - if you want the ECM to see higher than normal boost pressures, then you have to fool that with an external box. But consider what fun you could have with a customer Ramifer when the downloader raises the maximum. now all of a sudden you have more room to play!

I note, however, that many of those who are really chasing even moderate horsepower don't do this enhanced hocus pocus boost fooling because they already have PLENTY of fueling and timing down low from injectors, duration, and timing advance boxes.

AK is also right about the duration. Since the downloader was built to stack with a pressure box, which means it will be heavy in duration and high in EGTs until cooled off with some pressure. Since they are adjusting the actual fueling tables themselves, they should have a lot of room to play there. However, depending on the granularity of the table structure itself, going too radical may affect drivability. They can't change the structure of the table, only the parmamters that go in there.

As for risks, it isn't illegal for an independant shop to flash the ECM (I think they have to be certified by DC though...). So the presence of a newly flashed ECM by itself is not a warranty buster. only if that discovery lead to an investigation around a disputed coverage. For example, Either the "wrong" table parameters, or the timestamp of restoring the stock ones, would be evidence of tampering in a warranty dispute. At least a box is physically removable and forces the ECM to work within the stock parameters. I personally think downloaders and dealers are going to be a continual cat and mouse game, with the after market trying to change things and the mfgs trying to prevent that, motivated by law (EPA) and protection of their own revenue.

BTW, hash identity is nothing new in the software world, a message digest (hash) is a single number that represents the bit identity of whatever it points to. So all they have to do is store the original (MD5 for example) hash in a place where no one can touch it, and DC has guarenteed that they can discover when something changes. If you don't put the stock code back in 100% bit identical form, including any headers, timestamps or whatever, the MD5 will not match. I don't know if DC does this or not, just pointing out that it would be easy for them to do it.

Advanges of the downloader include zero part count on the truck. risks include the fact that if you put the stock numbers into the downloader, suddenly your downloader becomes your gold standard copy of that software for stock operating conditions. You now have to think about backups or preservation -- where are you going to store the downloader and how will you protect it from failure should you want to restore your engine parms at will. Prior to the dowloader, the dealer and the entire DC infrastructrure was the gold copy. Now it is you and the downloader mfg.

 

Doug, through your conversations with Bullydog, have you gotten the feeling that the downloader is in fact directly controlling all the parameters they claim to alter or are there aspects of their claim that leave you wondering?

Why I ask....I'm not too concerned about duration, they readily admit to 50hp from pressure (not bad at all if correct), but I would really like more specifics on timing. Are they directly controlling it? How much advance?

The early reports of a smooth, "electric like", engine makes me wonder. Generally, advance it about 7 or 8 degrees and you can tell it. Not that it is bad. Even more is not bad, but it will definitely not leave you with an "electric like" running motor. Around 5 or less degrees is generally not enough to really bother with. Your thoughts? Oh, and nice of you to drop in.