Automotive performance has been one of Justin Nunley’s passions since day one. The Fort Walton Beach, Florida-based comedian and content creator is perhaps best known for his presence on TikTok, where his videos have amassed hundreds of millions of views covering everything from sports rivalries to cooking trends. However, his interest in hot rodding began long before social media platforms became an integral part of modern life.
“I grew up in a rural part of northern Alabama, and tinkering with cars was just something we always did,” he explains. “I’ve always been into muscle cars of all kinds, but the General Lee was my first love. That Charger really got me into all the Mopar stuff.”
Over the years, Nunley’s stable has included everything from drag-tuned Chevy S10s to a supercharged S550 Mustang, but his latest project brings the focus back to the Chrysler side of the Big Three.
“Not much of what I do has any rhyme or reason to it,” he laughs. “Something shiny catches my eye, and I jump in with both feet. I was looking at getting a Ford F-150 Raptor R, but the markups were insane, so I started looking into the Ram 1500 TRX and realized that I actually preferred it. It’s hard to beat the noise of a Hellcat Hemi.”
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Nunley brought the truck to MoParty, Holley’s annual Mopar-centric event at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Kentucky. Although he had initially planned to just check out the sights and sounds of the event, Nunley decided to send the bone-stock truck down the drag strip a few times to see what it could do.
“When I got there, I wasn’t really planning on doing anything with the TRX – we were just planning on hanging out for the weekend,” he explains. “But with the drag strip right there, I figured, why not? After a few passes, the folks from Holley suggested we see what it could do with a tune.”
A DiabloSport Trinity T2 tuner was selected for the job. Like the DiabloSport inTune i3, the Trinity T2 offers a range of pre-loaded TRX-specific tunes right out of the box, as well as the ability to load custom tunes. However, the Trinity T2 ups the ante with a five-inch color touchscreen for real-time monitoring, customizable backgrounds, data logging capability, and built-in LEDs that can serve as visual indicators for a variety of parameters. On an otherwise stock Ram 1500 TRX, the Trinity T2’s pre-loaded 93-octane tune raises the supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8’s peak output by 38 horsepower and 28 lb-ft of torque at the wheels.
“The whole install process took about an hour,” Nunley tells us. “And right away, I could definitely tell the difference compared to the factory tune. The truck immediately felt more responsive and quicker off the line.”
Nunley’s subsequent passes down the strip corroborated this. With the original OEM factory tune, Justin ran a 12.99 ET at 106 mph. After adding the Trinity T2, he ran a 12.59 at 108 mph – a full four-tenths quicker with no other changes to the truck or his technique.
But while the additional power certainly played a role in the improved performance, DiabloSport’s Michael Litsch says that there’s more to these tunes than just the increased power figures. “We’ve been tuning TRXs since the moment these trucks hit the streets, and one thing we noticed during the initial development of these tunes is that the TRX calibration was the biggest departure from all the other applications using the Hellcat V8. It’s definitely more conservative. That’s for a lot of different reasons, but ultimately, it comes down to the fact that this is the biggest and heaviest platform using this engine, so it’s under significantly more load than something like a Challenger or Charger would be.”
Litsch says that development always begins with the DiabloSport team taking a comprehensive look at the factory calibration to determine what was done and why. Once that’s completed, they begin identifying areas where improvements can be made.
“I think the biggest change for the TRX is actually in the transmission calibration, which is also updated as part of these tunes. From the factory, the first-to-second gear upshift is a little bit lazy, even in the more aggressive drive modes. There are also situations where the torque management system in the factory calibration won’t give you wide-open throttle, even if you’ve got your foot to the floor. By optimizing some of that, we’re able to really wake these things up and make them feel more responsive. Our engineering manager had a 2021 TRX during the development of these tunes, and when he installed the 93-octane tune on his otherwise bone-stock truck, he picked up three-tenths just in the 0-60 mph time.”
Looking ahead, Nunley tells us that he’s considered taking the TRX to Hennessey Performance for a makeover that includes an array of hardware that boosts the Hemi’s output to over 1,000 horsepower and more than 900 lb-ft of torque. However, he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll take things that far. “I’m going to have to make a decision about that soon, though, because I’m running out of miles. They’ll only do the conversion if the truck has less than 20,000 miles.”
In the meantime, Nunley is looking forward to the upcoming 2.4 Hours of LeMullets at Cleetus McFarland’s Freedom Factory, where he’ll be serving as an announcer and color commentator. He notes there’s a strong possibility that he’ll bring another high-powered Mopar to next year’s MoParty as well.
“I’m in the middle of a General Lee project, and it’s quickly becoming the main focus. At this point, just about everything has been gone through except for the paint. I’ve been toying with the idea of a Gen III Hemi swap down the line, but for now, it’s going to be a 440ci big-block with Sniper 2 EFI, QA1 suspension, and a Moser rear end. We’ve really dug into this project over the past few months, and I’d say we’re about 90% of the way there now.”
As for DiabloSport, they’re already working on the next phase of modern Mopar performance.
“With the Gen III Hemi being phased out, we’re starting to turn our attention to the new twin-turbocharged Hurricane inline six-cylinder engine that’s currently in vehicles like the latest Grand Wagoneer and Ram 1500,” Litsch says. “Keep an eye out for some exciting news on that front in the near future.”
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