Adaptives? (i.e. PCM reset) Anyone?

[Raydar]

Has anyone here experimented with resetting their PCM to "factory default"? - aka resetting "adaptives"?
When I had my Challenger R/T, back in '09-'12, lots of the people on ChallengerTalk (Can I say that here?) were talking about doing this. "Resetting adaptives". It basically involved pulling a PCM fuse (I forget which one) which cleared all the "learned" behavior from the PCM.
They all swore that their cars had more power, after this was done. (I never bothered. Mine seemed to run just fine. Seemed counter-intuitive.)

 

[Richard320]

That sounds more like the power of suggestion aka the placebo effect.

"Adaptives" are to tailor the settings to your situation. An obvious example is if you live in Denver. High altitude. Your PCM is preprogrammed for a certain amount of fuel at certain RPMs & load. A PCM with a blank memory is going to run too rich in Denver, especially at startup. Once it goes into closed loop, it will lean it out so it runs ideal. Over time, the PCM will adapt and always run leaner so you needn't wait for closed loop.

Idle speed is another one that adapts. As the throttle body gets dirtier with time and blowby, the minimum air rate will have to be increased. If you erase the memory, it may stall repeatedly until it relearns.

If there is any actual gain, it won't last for more than a couple of cold starts because it will adapt itself again.