You love your truck, but you feel like it could use more power. You want to tune it, but you’re confronted with different options from various companies all promising different things. How do you choose?
The first, and most important decision you have to make is whether you want to go with a custom flash tune or an inline tuner, like Banks’ Derringer. What’s the difference? In the simplest terms, an inline tuner installs in between your engine’s sensors and the engine’s ECU and carefully manipulates the sensors’ outputs to convince your engine that it’s making less power than it actually is. The engine then turns things up to compensate for what it thinks is a deficit and all of a sudden, you’re making more power. A flash tune (sometimes called programmers) takes the software that’s loaded on your engine’s computer and rewrites it, making permanent changes to many parameters to make more power.
All other things being equal, a good custom flash tune will probably make more power than an inline tuner, because it doesn’t have to work within the guidelines set by the vehicle manufacturer. Unfortunately, a flash tune has other issues. If you have a newer truck, you may have to physically send your engine’s computer into a tuner and if your vehicle is still under warranty, a flash tune will more than likely void that.
According to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, your vehicle's warranty can't be voided completely by aftermarket parts. That's the good news. The bad news is that if you have a vehicle tune which has left its fingerprints on your ECM, and you have an engine component or even a transmission component fail, your dealer will see that you're tuned and almost certainly deny your claim and future claims related to those systems. That can be an expensive proposition if your truck goes down.
Because an inline tuner doesn't leave a trace on your truck's ECM, all you need to do to save that warranty claim is remove it before it goes into the dealer and that's just a matter of unplugging a few connectors.
An inline tuner, on the other hand, can typically be easily uninstalled and leaves no trace on your engine’s ECU because it doesn’t know that it’s being manipulated, so it is much less likely to give you issues with your warranty. They are also frequently a bit safer, since it’s more limited in how much it can change before your ECU catches on.
The safety, ease of installation and the fact that it’s less likely to affect your warranty makes Banks’ Derringer inline tuner a great option for anyone looking for some more power, with easily adjustable maps for everything from towing and fuel economy to maximum power.
Of course a tuner like the Banks Derringer is just the start. When you pair it with a throttle response controller like the Banks PedalMonster, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for changing how your vehicle drives. Add in things like our Ram-Air Intake, Boost Tubes and intercooler and your Derringer has even more overhead for performance, allowing it to push the engine further while remaining safe.
