I spoke to the service department, and they pulled up the car and told me that there is no recalls on it. They couldn't find the TSB with the number I gave them, so I'm going there in the morning to give it to them and see what they say. I'll keep you posted.
Raven3416 wrote:
Quick. I noticed that you posted this on superbee's thread. Would that maybe apply here, and is that in the transmission section? Or can i change it thru quick adjust?
I haven't heard of this particular behavior. Did it re-occur after you returned to stock mode? If you're sure it's ok stock then try a different mode. Are you even using one of the modes? that's only for auto upshift behavior right? Or are there 3 modes for shift firmness too? Shift firmness will change some parameter passed to the TCM the same as the SRT8s (SRT8's don't have that option on the predator). But I think shift firmness and auto upshift behavior are two independent adjustments.
2006 Magnum SRT8
AFE Stage II
Mopar Cat Back
185* T-stat
RDP tune by Steve
Raven3416 wrote:
Quick. I noticed that you posted this on superbee's thread. Would that maybe apply here, and is that in the transmission section? Or can i change it thru quick adjust?
I haven't heard of this particular behavior. Did it re-occur after you returned to stock mode? If you're sure it's ok stock then try a different mode. Are you even using one of the modes? that's only for auto upshift behavior right? Or are there 3 modes for shift firmness too? Shift firmness will change some parameter passed to the TCM the same as the SRT8s (SRT8's don't have that option on the predator). But I think shift firmness and auto upshift behavior are two independent adjustments.
I returned to stock a few days and the tranny shift normal. No issues at all I'm going to reload the tune back in and turn off the MDS. I have a thought that it maybe the problem. With the stock tune it never turns on below 45 mph. I'm thinking now that that is the root of my problem.
I spoke to the service department, and they pulled up the car and told me that there is no recalls on it. They couldn't find the TSB with the number I gave them, so I'm going there in the morning to give it to them and see what they say. I'll keep you posted.[/quote]
The dealer said that there wasn't anything wrong. How did I know that was coming. But I have to bring it back in two weeks and they will give me a reflash. I'm going to see if I can fix it between now and then.
i had almost this same problem i did realize the car was getting stuck in 2nd gear and not downshifting into first at a stop,
i did have it on dyno mode, i did not read anywhere that we could not drive in dyno mode so i do not know if that is the problem....
when i turned the car off and back on it went back into first, but a few minutes later it was acting up, when i went back to stock tune it was fine, so far it appears to only do it when in dyno mode. but i do not know what the exact cause is.
DS's "official" statement is that dyno mode is for the dyno and you should not be driving your car in dyno mode. I seem to remember that people were going into limp mode? can't remember if it was the lx's or the jeeps though.
2006 Magnum SRT8
AFE Stage II
Mopar Cat Back
185* T-stat
RDP tune by Steve
Here has been my experience so far with the 91 CAI tune on the 5.7 auto. Pretty much a duplicate of Raven3416's experience. Some days the car is ok and others it ain't worth a sh*t to drive in traffic. It can't decide to do MDS in/out, or which gear. Occasionally it does the tranny in 5th, MDS on and then it takes about 3/4 throttle to force the MDS off and the tranny into a lower ear. Today, I encountered several episodes of severe ping during the MDS transitions. I'm gonna go and put the stock tune back in the car. I started talking with Vas at DS about this a month ago and he claims they have a fix for the problem. But Vas has not returned a PM or phone call recently - so I don't know what that means. I would think that if they have a fix, it would be available to all the folks with the auto or at least when someone calls them with the issue to offer up a modified tune. I'm almost at the point where I think this Predator was a bad investment.
lowellb wrote:Here has been my experience so far with the 91 CAI tune on the 5.7 auto. Pretty much a duplicate of Raven3416's experience. Some days the car is ok and others it ain't worth a sh*t to drive in traffic. It can't decide to do MDS in/out, or which gear. Occasionally it does the tranny in 5th, MDS on and then it takes about 3/4 throttle to force the MDS off and the tranny into a lower ear. Today, I encountered several episodes of severe ping during the MDS transitions. I'm gonna go and put the stock tune back in the car. I started talking with Vas at DS about this a month ago and he claims they have a fix for the problem. But Vas has not returned a PM or phone call recently - so I don't know what that means. I would think that if they have a fix, it would be available to all the folks with the auto or at least when someone calls them with the issue to offer up a modified tune. I'm almost at the point where I think this Predator was a bad investment.
Lowell
Lowellb when I started this post I thought the tune had screwed up my tranny. It took me some time to figure out what was going on but it's the same issue as you have. I was running the 93 canned tune and I could never get it to act right. I had the MDS issue and so much retard from knock that the car ran like crap. I turned the MDS off and that seemed to fix the surge and lockout issue, but I added up to 20% fuel and could never get all of the knock retart out of it. Over the weekend I installed a 180 stat and a catch can and loaded the 91 canned tune in it. Up until now It is running really good with MDS on and only 8% added fuel. I only had 2* of knock retard on a log I ran today starting at 5.1 k RPM. I added 4 more percent to 4k to 7 k rpm and drove it for a couple of hours and it seemed fine. The real test will be this weekend driving around in the heat around 2 to 3 pm. That's when mine starts to act up. But right now it seems to be working good. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Have you tried the 93 tune instead? I'm thinking that some tunes are more compatiable than others with different car revisions. I also heard that they do have a fix for this issue that we have. Hopefully they'll issue a fix for it soon.
Last edited by Raven3416 on Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Looks like we might be adding to the database here Raven3416. I also had the perception that the problem was temperature sensitive. As in your case, I had instances where I got what I called slam shifts out of the tranny - but then those went away. In the morning here in Houston, air temps are mid 80's and the car behaves well on the 10 mile commute to work. In the afternoon with the air temps in the 95-100 and who knows what the air temp is a couple feet off of the asphalt the car really acts up - but not all of the time. Last nite I put the factory load back in and the car behaved like it used to during today's afternoon commute. I've got a high idle at engine start, but for now am assuming that the ECM will adjust it back to normal values. I see that a new thread was started regarding an 09 Challenger for which the Predator will not boot up and Vas and Mike1 were right on that one - so I don't know why I'm not getting a response back from Vas and/or we aren't seeing a response in this thread. In Smkn600ctd's case, if the 09 Daytona has the same engine/trans as the Challengers then Diablo has an even larger problem that I think they would be motivated to fix.
I wish I had the time to become more knowledgable of the engineering in these cars and had time to fiddle around with the Predator like Raven3416, but I don't. I just want to put some quick mods on the car and be happy with it. I was somewhat of an expert on my Porsche 968, but it was really getting to be a high mileage maintenance pig - still it was fun to drive. I told the wife I was tired of working on the Porsche all of the time, so I got rid of it and got the Challenger. She laughs and shakes her head whenever I get something for the Challenger - guess I'll never learn. I really hope DS has a good fix for this...
Guys I don't really know what to do any more. I'm going to keep tinkering with it. I changed everything last weekend and up until now it's still running fine. Temperature is defiantly an issue, and I’m not really going to know until I do some cruising around this weekend. I do know I live about 5 miles from the DS shop. I will let them experiment with my car until they get it fixed if they want to. From all the forums that I read, I think it would fix a lot of people’s issues if they would take me up on that one since it is close to their place. It’s just a thought. I'll keep you posted on my progress.
Hey guys, Vas has PM'd be back - he was buried under Trinity work. He asked for some data files from my car and I pointed him to what Raven3416 already has available at the start of this thread. I also let Vas know that Raven3416 offered his car up as a test mule if that would help - hope that was ok Raven3416. I hope DS connects the dots here and sees that the 09 Daytonas have the problem also. And finally - looks like there was no fix already on the shelf - bummer. I'll work on getting another set of files to Vas this weekend so they have a couple of datasets.
Hypothesis: After extensive testing and relearning things that I knew 20 years ago. This is what I came up with. First of all Hemi motors like a lot of gas, and the driving conditions that we encounter everyday on the street is a lot different than the conditions the tunes have when they are developed on a dyno in the shop. When I started out naturally I wanted the most out of my engine so I went with the 93 canned tune. I tested this tune extensively, and it just will not work with my engine. I tried everything. I upped the fuel to the max that the tool would let, and it wasn’t enough to take out all the knock retard. I was going to start pulling timing out, but I decided the hell that, so I threw the 93 tune in the garbage and went to the 91. I upped the fuel to 12% up to 4K RPM and then 16% across the board from there. The knock retard is gone finally, and the engine is performing the way that I would expect it to. The other issue with the transmission shifting is all the same with both tunes, and actually it’s a lot worse with the 93 tune than the 91. All the tunes reduce torque management. With reduced torque management you can feel the MDS kicking in and out. This is also where the surging comes from. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, but turn the MDS off until DS decides to fix it with a patch. My car is running well right now and has been for the last week, so I’’ keep you posted of any changes.
I don't mind stiffer shifts and sharper MDS transitions. But the tranny controller gets really screwed up. I went back to stock for a couple days to remind myself how nicely the car behaved in traffic. Yesterday, the 91 CAI tune was back in it and things were fine. MDS transitions were a bit sharper, and the car responded well to moderate throttle inputs. Today, I once again experience the need for large throttle inputs to get the car to downshift and accelerate(I only wanted mild acceleration!). MDS was dropping in and out with the engine at constant load and the trans was doing odd things. But no pinging so far - I'm sure that will come in the next couple of days. So what could have changed between day 1 and day 2? Same route, same time of day, same temperatures. The trans controller is adaptive and for some reason it is learning something bad. I think that is what DS needs to address. A couple years ago the GPS in my plane got weird at power up and couldn't find satellites for a while, then the displayed date was sometime in 2098. The box finally did manage to navigate accurately with the screwed up date. Turns out the folks who designed the firmware coded a limit for the week rollover and when that majic date was reached many of the boxes just stopped navigating. I'm one of the lucky ones and my box still navigates. As far as I can tell Garmin never proposed a fix (they want me to buy a new box). So this trans problem makes me wonder if DS is writing something improper which results in the the tranny controller going out into the weeds after a couple update cycles?
