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Superchips Flaspaq Truck Programmers - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine

Fred Williams Brand Manager, Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off Road

Darn computers are always messing with our world. It is bad enough that everyone spends all day on FaceSpace and U-tube, but now you can't swap tires, drop gears, or change parts without the dash on your truck getting all crazy with warning lights and the speedo mixed up. Luckily, Superchips takes the computing out of computing your correct speed by setting straight that hidden black box in your 4x4.

Superchips has a full line of FlashPaq controllers that can reset the parameters your truck came from the factory with. These handheld programmers allow you to adjust power levels, shift points, and fuel requirements to tune your truck for optimal performance. These features net great results no matter if you want to drag race in mud pits, pull heavy loads, or save money on gas.

PhotosView Slideshow The Superchips programmer for our new Dodge needed to be updated online before we could plug it into the truck. This is the most time-consuming step of the job, as you need to download a program off of the Internet and install it on your PC. We were pulling our hair out trying to get the right one for our operating system and then get it loaded into the FlashPaq. The idea is that this allows Superchips to easily update your programmer as upgrades become available. Once the programmer was updated we simply plugged it into the OBD-II port under the dash by the steering wheel, where these ports are commonly found. This taps the programmer into the truck's electronic control center and allows it to modify the factory parameters. Since things like engine idle speed and timing are all electronically controlled, squeezing out more power is as easy as remapping a few of your truck's basics settings. Once the FlashPaq is synched up with the truck, you can adjust tire size, axle gear ratios, and in some cases even transfer case low-range information. This allows you to fix mismatched speedometer settings. We found that it is often best to undersize the tire input. For example, if you're running a 37-inch tire, input 36 inches, as most tires are smaller than their sidewall markings. The programmer can also optimize engine performance for towing and mileage and allow the use of 87-octane fuel in vehicles that recommend 91-octane.