ive had 2. i bought originally because they had promised custom tunes down the line with the pulsar. (i have a hemifever-tuned eTorque ram now)
the pulsar is just okay, in my opinion. It is NOT A TRUE MDS-OFF DEVICE. I went back and forth with the company over this, and told them i had a hunch that when MDS engages, they have code in the pulsar that just surges the gas a little to “kick out” mds. they did confirm this in my email chain with them.
You could do the same thing with the skinny pedal and a trained ear. I’m not saying that’s a feasible option, but i do think it’s disingenuous to claim it truly disables MDS when it just surges the throttle a little. It gets a little annoying, especially with exhaust on the truck. You trade not hearing 4cyl mode for hearing it engage for a second, then throttle blip. repeat…ad nauseam…
as far as real spark advance tuning goes, i dont really buy that either. ive driven stock rams, pedal commander rams, pulsar rams, and my current etorque ram stock, with canned diablo tune + trans tune, and now a custom 93 tune and trans tune.
*stock* - can’t beat reliable power. hemi rams have great power out of the box.
*pedal commander* - great throttle response with stock reliability.
*pulsar* - mds disable is not real. “tune on the fly” is kind of cool. i’d like to see charted demonstrations of spark & timing advance, otherwise its a glorified pedal commander in my opinion.
*canned diablo tunes* - these feel good. the 93 “Diablo” tune and performance TCM tune wake the truck up nicely. notable difference over pedal commander/pulsar setup.
*custom tuned (engine and trans tune in my case)* - incredible difference. from a canned tune to a custom tune, you will immediately feel the difference in power & drivability. the notice is drastic. the truck feels more confident, lighter, and much faster. towing is easier…pretty much just a different truck. now that ive spent the money and took the plunge, i would skip all the other devices ive sunk money into over the years and do this immediately.
I’m not insinuating that custom tuned, canned tuned, pulsar, or pedal commander are not reliable. i feel my truck is 100% reliable. note that you do run the risk of messing something up in the process of installing any of these. people have had issues with the pulsar, issues with the pedal commander, issues with custom tuning…YMMV.
