SCT Offers Your Tow Rig More Power Without Altering Emissions

Unless you’re driving a street/strip car to the track, your trailer is more than likely towed by a truck; ergo, the highest majority of racers own a truck. The topic of towing power and efficiency can be as important to racers as the performance of their race car.

When you order an SCT programmer, they are preloaded with programs to match your vehicle. These devices and programs have gone through the rigors of testing to ensure safety and environmental parameters are retained.

On the flip side of increasing your towing power are the government environment laws regulating the emissions output of all vehicles and taking a very dim look at modifications that diminish or disable a vehicle’s reduced emissions capability.

Along comes SCT, which produces performance programmers for many cars and trucks while achieving these horsepower and torque gains through your vehicle’s electronic control unit (ECU) without modifying or deleting vehicle emissions. There are many custom tuner services that can provide a custom tune through the SCT programmers; they are also required to follow the guidelines of the Clean Air Act as they develop their unique ECU mods.

 For example, let's look at an example of a popular truck used by racers to get to the 'strip. With the SCT X4 performance programmer, a 2019 Dodge Ram with a 6.7-liter Cummins powerplant can gain 49 horsepower plus 77 lb-ft of torque.

With either model SCT hand-held programmer connected to your truck through the OBDII port, the tuning software will begin to interface with the ECU. When it comes time to upgrade the tuning, the software will read out the old tune, save it, add your changes, and put them back into the ECU.

The OEM calibrations have different goals than custom tunes, which generally seek to optimize horsepower and torque. The SCT programmer will modify various parts of this control system to optimize vehicle operation and ensure safety and legality.

When towing with a gasser, for example, the SCT BDX performance programmer can upgrade a 2014 Chevy Silverado with a 5.3-liter gas V8 to an improvement of 26 horsepower and 30 lb-ft of torque directly from the standard tune choices within the programmer.

If you’re looking for more towing power while still conforming to emission laws, these safe tune options from SCT are the answer to making your towing beast more powerful, yet remain legal.

Article Sources

About the author

Todd Silvey

Todd has been a hardcore drag racing journalist since 1987. He is constantly on both sides of the guardwall from racing photography and editorship to drag racing cars of every shape and class.
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