pupsvette76

Hey guys I just installed twin turbos on my 2001 c5 now it's time to tune it... I was thinking about a Diablo tuner... Does anyone have any suggestions or maybe a tune file I can upload onto my ecm? It's 8psi and 60lbs injectors

Supercharged111

Yeah, don't screw with a Diablo tuner.

pupsvette76

Any suggestions I wanna try and avoid going to a tuner and paying $1000 for someone to type in a tune that I'm sure they already have saved on file lol

94ltz

Buy hptuners of efi live and figure out how to do it your self, not every car with the same parts react exactly the same to a tune so just slapping a pre-made tune into the car will get it close but probably not 100%.

If you did all this work which I'm sure wasn't cheap why be cheap now on probably the most important part of a build?

umrjmac

It is a little less "canned" than that, especially if you go to a good tuner. If someone is flipping through the tune repository and goes "that's close", throws it on the car, and hopes for the best...walk away...very quickly. Tuners who have been doing this a long time may start with a tune that they built for another car, but every car is a little different and the tune will need to be tweaked. If you go to somebody and they do not hook up a wideband O2 sensor to the car in order to do the tune, run away.

I highly recommend finding a really good local tuner. There are a few benefits here...if there's a problem they will be close and can help. Also if there's a mechanical issue with the car they will be able to point you in the right direction, you can remedy the issue, and then you're close so they can get back to tuning. There are some good tuners that do mail order work, but I've never used their services so I won't throw out an opinion here about their quality of work or effectiveness.

Where are you located? You might get some local tuner recommendations.

So looking at price...A Diablosport T1000 (isn't that a Terminator ) is $599 MSRP. Their I1000 (iOS gizmo) is $349. I've never used their stuff, but the idea of a canned tune wont work for you because you're not driving a "stock" car. I am also not a fan of a canned tune because a canned tune is a set of compromises...its something that they've developed that should work effectively on the vast majority of cars...it will most likely leave performance on the table. The "performance" tune listed on their website for a 2003Z06 claims to net an improvement of 15hp/15tq, for example. The last, and in my opinion most important, reason that I would go with a full tuning solution is that the list of items that Diablo lets you tweak is small, according to their website. There are a TON of tables in the PCM. You don't need to touch all of them, but I personally like having the ability to do exactly that.

If you buy HPTuners pro ($649 MSRP), a wideband kit (required to tune properly and ~$200ish MSRP depending on which you use), you are most of the way to that 1k mark that you listed in just parts. If you buy books (Greg Banish, The Tuning School, etc.) you'll be way over the cost of having a tuner handle it very quickly. Also, depending on the tuner that 1k may be double what is actually required to get the job done.

The benefit of buying your own gear and learning to do it yourself is that if you change the car again you can make tune modifications yourself. Personally I love tuning, but my current car is my first FI car, so even with owning all of the material and tools I still took it to a really good tuner to get it dialed in because the $500 that I spent is a great investment when compared to the cost of replacing the motor.

If you do choose to tune it yourself do a LOT of reading. Understand every change that you're going to make, why you're doing it, and what the expected outcome is. Make small changes and test before making more. Depending on which tool you go with, the HPTuners and EFI Live forums are great sources of information. Read the stickies. All of them. Then do it again. It is a ton of fun, but its also a lot of learning to do before you can be confident that you wont make a very expensive door stop.

I'm not necessarily trying to scare you or dissuade you from one path or another, but its important to realize that the tune makes or breaks motors. It makes or breaks performance. Good luck with it!