smarty questions

[SBLASIUS]

just recieved a new smarty and installed it on my 2006 my truck is stock except for a intake and a catback exhaust noticed on setting #1 alot of ignition noise truck sounded terrible, have now returned to stock setting and the noise remained anyone else have the same problem.

 

[Giachino]

I've never seen anything similiar on my truck... . it does make the truck sound different (beefier, smoother idle,... ) but not a terrible noise by any means.



Sure Bob W / Marco will respond... . in the interest of time, you could redownload the stock smarty software ver. 205a and reprogram your truck..... just to eliminate it being a bad program... .

 

[Bodie]

Does it have any codes? Is it cold out?

 

[Bob Wagner]

Scott I called and left you a message.

 

[AK RAM]

Bob, there has been a small handful of folks that have had the same thing and mentioned that it didn't go away when returning to stock. If you or Marco have any insight into why this persists on some trucks after returning to stock and a fix or recommended course of action... ... could you post it here for the rest of us please?

 

[olznut]

Part of me wishes I left the previous update in because when I installed the latest, it rattled like an old 12V, but quieted down when I put my foot in it. Solution? I installed the aftermarket injector, stock turbo program. Been a few months and no more rattle.

 

[AK RAM]

Scott and I are specifically asking about the rattle not going away after returning to stock. I'm sure Marco or Bob can better explain why that happens to some folks and what's going on. It would just be great if we can all learn from it and not just Scott's answering machine.

 

[SBLASIUS]

I have no codes and it was about 50 here yesterday motor still seems to rattle it definitly is not the same as it was. Thinking of going to the dealer to reflash the computer. Any other suggestions

 

[BGlidewell]

I have not returned mine to stock yet but I do notice a significant rattle at idle. I went straight to #3.

 

[Giachino]

One potential option i think could help... .



Update the smarty to the aftermarket injector version and load that... . it has less timming and no rattle. Then if you still want too, from that version of the software, return the truck to stock... . it's a guess, but if you can get the smarty software that doesnt rattle and return to stock from that it may clear it up.



Just a thought.

 

[Bob Wagner]

Scott never returned my call

 

[Bob Wagner]

and scott did have a complaint about the bullydog on his truck prior to purchasing a smarty.

 

[SBLASIUS]

I tried the bully dog last summer and thought it worked good but was worried about it leaving a trace of itself for the dealer to find. But it did not make a timing rattle after removing it. Smarty made alot, hope I can get a quick fix. I had the computer reflashed once before for white smoke in october could tis cause the problem?

 

[Marco]

There are two possible reasons for a different timing after the use of Smarty.

First and most obvious one for the 06's trucks.
The latest update that Smarty leaves in the truck. If you remember, when the first 06's came out a lot of people complained about the bad mileage they got. DC came out with a new SW that fixed the mileage problem. Yet, these new SW's have a considerably higher timing than the older ones. I've noticed that in our test mule also but personally I would not call it " terrible noise". After all it's a diesel...

Second thing that can happen if another brand downloader has been used prior to Smarty in that truck. It's a little bit tricky , I'll try to keep it simple...

Background. In order to keep the key count, trip data and what not intact Smarty reads all those parameters from the ECM and then stores them back into the new software that has to be downloaded into the ECM. OK?

Here it becomes tricky. I have seen it several times by now that the other brand toys screw these data up really bad. They claim to be not traceable but in reality they do their thing just plain out wrong!

Now Smarty reads that data from an older revision SW and writes them into the latest availabel one.
Mind you, Smarty is doing nothing wrong! All he does is to read and then write the key counts and trip data yada yada yada. If those data's are messed up from the beginning... Smarty reads and writes senseless stuff.
Unfortunatly there's no way for Smarty to determine if what he's reading is correct or not!

All kind of strange things can happen in that scenario...
Likely, even strange timing rattles.

There are two ways out of that situation.

1) A reflash by a dealer. DC's tools do not save any data from the ECM before they download new SW's thus they will erase the screwed trip data. (Keep in mind, If a dealer checks the trip data he will see senseless things... )

2) I can do a special software for Smarty that will erase the trip data and update the ECM with a stock SW similar to what the DRB / StarScan would do. Done that several times by now to get rid of the Argentina/ Brazil SW that our competitors have used / are still using. A dealer can not flash those SW's back to a Federal / CARB one even if they wanted to.

Makes any sense?

Marco

 

[BGlidewell]

2) I can do a special software for Smarty that will erase the trip data and update the ECM with a stock SW similar to what the DRB / StarScan would do. Done that several times by now to get rid of the Argentina/ Brazil SW that our competitors have used / are still using. A dealer can not flash those SW's back to a Federal / CARB one even if they wanted to.



Makes any sense?



Marco

This sounds like a good feature.

 

[Bob Wagner]

Scott wants to try a recovery software followed up with an aftermarket injector software.



We will keep you updated on the results

 

[Signal73]

After reading marco's post, Im glad the first downloader im about to try (tonight hopefully) is a smarty

 

[CUMINNTSTRKN]

I got my smarty today thanks Bob. It was a breeze to install.

 

[AK RAM]

Scott wants to try a recovery software followed up with an aftermarket injector software.



We will keep you updated on the results

Most definitely... ... . anxiously awaiting Scott's impressions.



Marco, we understand what your saying, but I was hoping for better insight into why some trucks have it and some trucks don’t... . that is the part of Smarty that we don't understand. We know the theory of "left behind software" by the other programmers. Problem is, all of the programmers work under the same principles as Smarty, as you put it they don’t know whether what they are reading or writing is correct or not..... they are computers and all just do what they are told (0100110101100001011001000110010101011001011011110111010101001100011011110110111101101011). The one constant in this is that they all do the exact same thing every single time they do it, on every single truck. Understanding that constant, then everyone who has used another programmer, specifically the BullyDog, should be having the exact same problem after using Smarty, but they are not. There are literally thousands of programmer users out there with BullyDog being the most prevalent with its longest on-market time of the bunch. The majority have no issues with the switch or switching back and forth between programmers many times. Why do some trucks have this problem and some trucks don't?

 

[Marco]

You want to know why strange things happen only sometimes? I'm not really sure if I should answer that question or not. I'll need to dig deep into what the competitors are doing and eventually doing wrong. Anyway, comparative advertising is legal. Just let's not start another "transmission war". Ice cold technical facts and that's it. OK?

The answer to that question will require quiet some typing. Sit down, relax, read... .

To begin with more technical background is needed.
Let's start from the different software revisions that Chrysler has released and is still releasing. Let's take my test mule as an example. It's an 2006 / Automatic transmission / Federal emissions. The latest and greatest matching software for that truck is : 35 325 55 3 AR. Where "35" = 2006 ; "325" Hp ; "553" the transmission type; "AR" describes the software revision. They started from revision AA and today the latest revision is AR. That means they went AA, AB, AC, AD, AE and so on. Several...

Important for the analysis of the problem we're talking about is that the LENGTH of the softwares have varied through the different revisions. Sometimes but NOT always DC needs to add new parameters to the existing software. They need to insert some bytes here and there in the software. The new software revision is longer than the previous one and consequently the bytes in the software are shifted.

OK?

Now let's see how that relates to the "trip data". ( For simpleness I call them trip data but in reality much more is involved. Key counts, trip data, secret key, VIN#, trip data & & & )

Basically today there are three different approaches for the trip data.

1) Smarty reads them from the ECM, shifts them into the correct location in the software that he's going to download into the ECM.

2) Erase them like the DRB or StarScan would do. ( Dealer) That's what Bullydog did for quiet some time. We all know that the dealers have learned to watch out for the missing trip data and certain codes. (Most other downloaders still do it this way. )

3)Bullydogs "new" way. Since the trip data are all within about 4K bytes at the END of the software, they've come up with a new idea. They don't erase them nor do they overwrite them. Smart move, the trip data remain exactly like they were before they updated the ECM.

Really?

Let's see... . Things become a little tricky now. To make the understanding of what happens easier I'll use a couple examples.

First example.
Let's say my truck has revision "AQ" in it and also the Bullydog has revision "AQ" on board and writes that one into my ECM. The locations ( technically addresses ) where the trip data were before the update are the same as after the update. Perfect! The Trip data are saved, everything works like it's supposed to.

Second example.
This time my truck has SW revision "AR" on board and the Bullydog is still the same as before. It has still revision "AQ" on board. Now it happens that revision "AR" is LONGER than Bullydog's revision "AQ". You connect your bullydog to the truck and it WILL download SW revision "AQ" into your "AR" ECM. Same as in the previous example, bullydog does not erase / overwrite the trip data. I don't think it needs any further explanation that all the trip data are now located at the wrong address. PROBLEM!!!

To keep it as simple as possible. When the ECM is asked "Read the key count" it'll look into the location where SW revision "AQ" knows to find them but it finds the "AR" stuff (which is longer than the "AQ"). Sure the ECM will read what it finds in the requested location but WHAT it finds there is ???? The trip data are screwed! I've seen an average mileage in the ECM of 54517 miles per gallon, final timing 46895 degrees, after the bullydog... Go figure!

NEVER write an older software revision into an ECM that already contains a newer one. Besides the fact that the customer will loose it's latest update, not only can it screw the trip data. Depending upon what revisions are involved it can even kill the ECM... .

Now you take Smarty and update that ECM with him. It reads what's supposed to be the trip data, shifts them into the locations for the "AR" software revison he has on board. Voilà, Smarty writes screwed data into the ECM.

There are only two ways to get rid of the screwed trip data.

1) A reflash by a dealer. DC's tools do not save any data from the ECM before they download new SW's thus they will erase the screwed trip data. (Keep in mind, If a dealer checks the trip data he will see senseless things... )

2) I can do a special software for Smarty that will erase the trip data and update the ECM with a stock SW similar to what the DRB / StarScan would do. Done that several times by now to get rid of the Argentina/ Brazil SW that our competitors have used / are still using. A dealer can not flash those SW's back to a Federal / CARB one even if they wanted to.


And that's the end of the answer.

Marco