2018+ Stellantis (Dodge, Jeep, RAM, etc.) PCM modification?

Hello all,

I was talking to a guy at work about his Challenger 6.4L, and he stated he hates the MDS and wishes he could disable it, espcially since it makes his Borla exhaust sound funny when it is active. I told him I'm learning tuning and that it should be relatively easy to disable MDS with a tune, and I'd research it and let him know. It appears easy to do using my HP Tuners kit, except.......

I noticed that many 2018+ Stellantis products (Dodge, RAM, Jeep, etc) require a security gateway cable to access the PCM, and in order to write tunes to the PCM, HP Tuners website also lists PCM "upgrade" (modification) services. Does anyone know specifically what is being modified? I mean, the OEM/Dealer can reflash these PCMs using OEM tools without "modification", why can't HP Tuners? Are there other tuning software/hardware packages that can, like EFILive or something?

I'm half tempted to buy a used PCM, open it and take pictures, then send it in to get modded, then re-open and compare to my original pictures to see if any hardware mods are done (I suspect there are not, and TBH, I kind of suspect they are using the JTAG interface or something to modify the internal software. Of course I'm likely also wrong, as I'm not a HW or SW dev so I really don't know what I'm talking about either.....I just have an interest in electronics and computers.

Anyway, it seems his only option is to send his PCM in for modification, and after that I can get a tune license/credits and easily disable his car's MDS, but that seems like a pretty pricey proposition to just disable the MDS. I'm actually willing to do the "work" for free just to get the experience and stock tune file to look at and play with, as I think it will help me learn. Thoughts?

If anyone can shed some light on this it would be much appreciated! Thanks.

It's in the provider's best interest to offer a solution that doesn't require sending hardware in because that's a barrier to entry many users won't accept. Safe to say if they could offer you a front door flash option, they would, and the money charged for unlocking likely barely allows them to break even on the labor/shipping.

You can certainly attempt to reverse engineer your own unlocking procedure if time isn't of the essence and it's just a fun learning process for yourself. It may or may not require permanent hardware modification. It may require altering code on a one time basis, which requires physical access to achieve.

From having worked at a company offering similar solutions, I can say you might get lucky and find a solution relatively quickly, or it may take months and potentially involve bricking a PCM or few. With that sort of security work, you generally have no idea how long it will take up front.

So in order to flash just about any 2018+ Stellantis product for a customer (in the future, you know, when I'm finally a tuner), I'll have to pull their PCM and send it out for modification (unless I reverse engineer my own solution)?

I'm of course no expert in electronics, reverse engineering, hardware modification or software development, but I'm not afraid to learn either. I may go that route at some point, but not right now. My wife has a 2020 Durango (sadly, just a V6) that I could tinker with I suppose, if they offer the PCM service for it.

So for now, it appears I'll have to tell the guy at work that in order for me to do anything, he'll need to pull that PCM (or do the swap option they have) first. That will likely be a tough sell.

Thanks for the reply.

Yup it's not ideal, but as security gets tighter this is going to become more common.

Lucky for you, you're in the same country as HP Tuners.

We ran into this at HPA HQ in NZ and shipping is a bit more of a deal there.

If you have an MPVI (and HPTuners account). Go to HPTuners.com, click on my Account. After you login, this click the upper right where it says "Welcome Kenneth", and you will find a button for Tune Repository on the left. You can search for vehicles there and download the stock tunes that have been uploaded. It's a good way to research how much you can do with a specific vehicle before it ever shows up. And you can use this file to compare what their ECU/PCM current has.

When I search for "Dodge" "Challenger", I only see vehicles up to 2016, but perhaps these will be useful anyway.

@David Ferguson - thanks for the tip I'll check it out.

Regarding the unlocking of the PCMs on Stellantis vehicles, I talked to a co-worker that used to be a Maserati dealer tech, which is part of the Stellantis family and uses the same electronics and factory scantool (the wiTech system and MicroPOD datalink adapter), and he says I should be be able to use that to unlock the PCM. I've not researched the cost of this equipment, but I know that I can get a 3 day or monthly subscription to Tech Authority (so, "as-needed"). So, I'll see what that costs and go from there.