Looking over at the Dodge guys you see a lot of hype about this
Power Wire thing. My experience makes me skeptical - not on the heralded power gain, but the side effects. I’ll explain, and if I’m off base please help set me straight (with references if possible).
1) Knock. The closest thing I’ve seen to this is a “happy knob” for my GTP (3.8L V6 Supercharged). While it doesn’t do it the same way, the effect is the same - more timing. Some guys who got a little too happy end up knowing first hand why knock is also called detonation - on a high performance engine sucking hot pressurized air it is very easy to push too hard and blow a piston.
I suppose that the line between performance and damage is more thin in a supercharged application, but still it made me think that with extra timing you could potentially do damage to the engine if it was hot and you drop the hammer. The knock sensors should kick in and pull the timing, but by tricking the computer with this mod you’ve got it playing defense on the reaction side. React too slow and you could cause damage.
2) Emissions. One of the reason car manufacturers don’t have tons of timing in their vehicles is emissions regulation. The more rich you run the worse your emissions. I suppose the negative effects from this would be not wanting to get the vehicle inspected with the wire on and possibly shortening the life of your catalytic converter. Better fuel mileage would probably balance the greater pollution, but there’s no way to check that.
Anywho, again if I seem way off the mark on this let me know. I’d also like to hear other’s opinion on this mod, especially if any of our folks have done it. I’m looking at increasing fuel efficiency on our Libby and it seems that the Dodge guys love this one.
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