Originally Posted by DOUG @ ECS

At this point, I have literally tuned 1000's of Corvettes, and are very aware of the boundaries in which I need to stay within.



.BTW, we offer trans tuning via a hand held programmer.

Originally Posted by pTr73

And my car being 1 out of those 1000's with no problems!

The only way I can see a problem happening Kevin is if the tuner is in-experienced with tuning.

Originally Posted by DOUG @ ECS

Hi Kevin,
I can say with certainty (because I'm sure we would be the second to know) that we have never had an engine failure from one of our mail order tunes.

At this point, I have literally tuned 1000's of Corvettes, and are very aware of the boundaries in which I need to stay within.



.BTW, we offer trans tuning via a hand held programmer.

Originally Posted by '06 Quicksilver Z06

It's a saga. Like all modding mishaps, but for you....... Get yourself a beer. I'll wait.

You ready?

To summarize though, since being a member of this forum I have owned 3 Vettes. I owned an 86 vert before that. ALL have been modified with some of the work done by me, some done by local shops.

2003 I have several posts on the mods done to that car.

Let me straighten it out for you. Better yet, PM me if you want more than what follows though that is plenty, it is not the whole story. I could write a volume on the issues I had with my modded '03 and my modded '05.

I have owned several cars. But my Vettes are 1986 Vert, 2003 C5 Automatic, 2005 C6 Z51, 2006 Z06.

They were all modified. The '86 modded like it was just gave me minor issues, "check engine" on the dash. Never did figure out what it was, the guy I was working with then just reset the code periodically.

The '03 problems hit me perhaps hardest. The following happened in 2004 on my 2003 C5.

Purchased brand new in 4/03, this car was perfect until I started screwing around with it.

Mods to it were the usual bolt ons, Vararam, stat, KOOKS headers, plus high stall converter, 3.42 gears and I ran 18in BFG G Force Drag radials on it at the track.

The day of the gear, torque converter install, I went to pick the car up from the shop.

If you know about gear swaps in automatics, you know that the transmission has to be tuned to allow for the new gears and torque converter.

The shop did not have the capability to tune the car so I relied on a mail order tune from RWTD to get the correct gear scaling for the change from 2.73s to 3.42s and for the torque converter.

I loaded this tune into the car at the shop. I test drove it. It shifted well, everything was fine. Paid the speed shop owner, got on the road and promptly smoked the transmission in it before I got home.

Lost 1st and 2nd gear. Third and 4th were in short order and believe me when I tell you, it didn't take long. What felt like torque converter slip, was my clutch packs going. Transmission literally trashed.

Shop owner/Installer initially tried to deny fault. Tried to blame the transmission tune which I installed in the car but after speaking with Rodney of RPM Transmission and other forum members in here, they insisted that I be present for the autopsy.

I got the car back to the tuner the next day. Took off work. They drove it. 2nd gear and above lost. They put it on the lift and start putting transmission fluid into it. No dice. Too late. My transmission was gone.

Now had I not been there, they would have never owned up to not having topped off the transmission, which is what likely happened, and would have blamed the tune.

Shop owner blamed RWTD (James) for his transmission tune). James swore up and down his tranny tune was solid. I'm doing this long distance and with Rodney from RPM on the other line and trying to work all at the same time.

Shop owner eventually had to fess that the transmission was not topped off.

So the car has just around 10-11,000 miles on it, it's practically new, and it needs a transmission.

I have to leave it there for a rebuilt transmission..... how long do you think that took???? and had to order a new torque converter and wait for it....and a new transmission cooler because the transmission cooling lines would need to be flushed, and the advice I got was to not use the prior torque converter as it could have debris from the blown clutch packs in it as well.

Get the car back. Rolling fine for a few weeks, (just the faint odor of burnt transmission fluid still lingering inside the car from the prior blown tranny) when one day I let the revs drop too low relative to the car's moving speed while turning a curve, and it throws a code and starts knocking. Car trying to take off in 3rd gear. Of course it knocks and stalls.

This is an automatic mind you. You know that it can be "somewhat difficult" if one were so inclined, though I don't know why anyone would want, to start a manual off from a dead stop in third gear. Sure with the torque we have, it's possible, hell I can start my Z06 from a dead stop using 5th gear, but who the hell would want to?

So you can imagine what happens when an automatic transmissioned car with approx 300lb/ft of torque tries to start from a dead stop from it's third gear instead of it's first gear. It knocks like hell.

Any guesses as to what was happening????? Anybody?????

Back to the forums I go as no one local knows WTF is going on with it. Is this transmission failing too? . LS1 Tech, Vette Forum, etc. Turns out that one person has seen the same thing over on LS1 Tech.

Reading the codes, indicates clogged valve body.

The aftermarket torque converter has additional slip so it throws a code corresponding to a clogged valve body. This code will make the car behave as it did when I had the issue.

But now hold on a second. Was it really a clogged valve body or was it a red herring? Was there still debris from my first transmission in the lines which caused this??? Was it really a clogged valve body??? Or was this a common code following high stall converters in C5s and F bodies?

I took to the internet. Used my search skills, asked around.

Turning the code off with tuning, which is what was recommended by the crowd in LS1 Tech, meant letting the shop off the hook in case it was a clogged valve body as a result of remnants and debris left over from their previous F/U.

The mail order tuner, James, RWTD, had never heard of it. He didn't know WTF was going on either. (Keep in mind, this is what we had then, and what many of us still have as far as tuning options), James did not want to send me a tune with the code turned off. Covering his own ***, because of the prior incident whereby he had been(wrongly) implicated in the first transmission failure he didn't want to be accused again should this tranny crap out, and I couldn't blame him.

James wanted the the car put on the lift and the valve body inspected, which if memory serves me, involved dropping the tranny on a C5.

Who gets to pay if the tranny has to be dropped and the valve body inspected?????


Finally, after much coaxing and agreeing to absolve him should anything go bad, he agreed to send me a tune with the code turned off. That worked. No more problem with the tranny.

But if it hadn't worked, who pays?

Now lets go to the headers.

I won't bore you with the codes which I had to have turned out as a result of the cats not heating up enough, this is a common problem and comes with the territory when you install headers and leave the rear 02s on. So they have to be turned off, but that can create emissions inspection problems for you when it's time for the inspection, so you want to run them if you can.

Headers cause increased valve train noise. Especially in a automatic pulling hills under load. If you have ever heard it, it sounds like knocking, pinging.

So lets take care of KR and get the A/F ratios in line. With that Vararam on it.

How to do it? Voltage or wide band? Dyno or street? Track or normal driving? All of the above......and leave the tranny tuning the hell alone.

I played around with them all with help. Dyno, street, mailorder, local, but the car was never right. Either I got KR, smelled gasoline or got some other problem. T/C lockup issues, etc. By now, HP Tuners was on the scene. I had already had an 02 bung welded into one of the headers and ran an LM-1 into the car. We got the A/F as good as they could be gotten.

But not before we burned out one of the catalytic converters in the KOOKS X pipe.

Burned it out during a dyno pull. But looking back, it probably wasn't the dyno pulls that did it, and that misadventure, it was probably brewing for a long time.

Noticed it on the way home actually after the pulls. Coming to an off ramp. Again, if you have never had this, it can be a chore to diagnose. Substrate seperated from the metal of the converter.

If you have never experienced this, it sounds like something let go in the engine. Sounds almost like, well a broken valve spring.... and unless you know what to look for, it can be difficult to find.

The substrate lets loose from inside the cannister. Part of the time it rattles around inside of the canister, usually on part or full throttle. The rest of the time, ie at idle, it is silent.

So you get out of the car you usually don't hear it. The best way to "diagnose it" should it ever happen to you, is to get the car on the lift and bang on the Cat with a rubber mallet. You will hear the substrate rattle around inside.

This meant that I had to get a new catted x pipe from KOOKS. They argued that the tune had caused the cat to fail. They were likely right, and in fairness to them, they sent me a free catted X pipe. If you know the KOOKS system for the C5, you know that the rear 02 bungs in their X pipe face upwards towards the tunnel plate of the car.

Well the new one I got, KOOKS welded it so that the bungs faced downward. Meaning that the rear 02s would have to be mounted downward. Decreasing ground clearance. That's if there would be enough slack in the wires. You couldn't flip it, because one of the legs of the x is longer than the other.

Now granted the rear 02s were shut off in the tune. But I wanted the option of turning them back on, if a better tune came along which would allow me to turn all of my emissions codes back on and still run the high flow cats.

This nixed that option. I plugged the rear o2s in the new X pipe and kept going. My emissions weren't due for a while, I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Which I ultimately had to.

Lets move on to the Vararam.

The Vararam gave the performance it promised to deliver. The car would run into the low 12s no problem and I would not hesitate to take it to the strip. The Vararam's build quality, sucked. But the tune was difficult because of the increased air flow and turbulence, and the foam rubber and chicken wire "race" filter they were using back then. Nailing the A/F ratios was a nightmare on the street.

Here in the Northeast, in cold weather, the air charge can be cold. Very cold when that wind chill is down out there.

I threw a weird code from the Vararam because the IAT was too low for the registered coolant temperature. More tuning needed to "resolve" this issue. Of course when the CEL comes on in the middle of driving the car, you don't know what it is. In a modded car, until you look up the code, it could be anything. And even after looking it up, it could be anything. Remember my "valve body" issue?

At this point I had come to a crossroads. It was all or nothing. Heads and Cam or move on to a C6.

It was around this time of year in 2004, and some had just gotten the Vettes back out and on the road after the weather broke. I had a neighbor, a buddy I told you about with a 2000 C6 who had gone all out. Cartek heads and cam package, the coil overs, I told you about him I believe, lowered, high stall converter 3.42s and all the other bolt ons popular to the C5 then.

The final day we were playing around with it. Shortly after his heads and cam package, and he had gotten it back from Cartek, we took it out after he had it shipped back home from Cartek

Had a blast with it. That was on a Saturday afternoon. We both put it through it's paces, him on the way out, me on the way back.

He called the next day, Sunday to tell me that after he dropped me off at home, yesterday, that his transmission had started slipping. He was losing 2nd gear and by the time he got home, less than a mile away, it was worse.

It could not stand up to the new power from the H/C package.

He ordered a built Rossler, later that week,.........you don't want to know what he paid for it. He had plans to have a local installer at one of the other local shops here install it for him.

After coming home that Saturday, and of course before talking to Denny (my neighbor) I was all set to go heads and cam planning on sending the car to ECS after getting off the phone with them the prior Friday and being quoted a price.

When I mentioned my plans to my friend, that Sunday, that's when my friend told me not to expect my transmission to live long if I went through with it.

This would have meant transmission #3 at some point. Probably a built transmission. More money into the car which I would never see again, and for what????

I bought a C6 June of 2005. My C5, most of the bugs had been worked out, but I knew it was time to move on.

Alright, lets move to the 2005 C6.

The C6, well I was ready to go.

It had the power I needed so I felt no need to go into the engine. H/C was pretty much out.

I started out with long tube headers. LG Pros this time, and because of the build quality, the low end torque, the issues with the KOOKS, and because of of the Vararam and the foam rubber and chicken wire filter, decided to go with the Callaway Honker this time.

This time, I had my plan tight. No junk. Only the best parts I could find, hence the Honker and the LG Pros to start with.

The Honker.

Install went real well, quality piece, but always had the same case of nerves I had with the vararam on the previous Vette, every time I drove the car in the rain.

Drove around on the Honker for a good while before moving on to the next step

The headers and the tune.

This was it. The watershed moment for me. The end of the road.

Headers came in around 2/06. Bought from a forum vendor, install was nothing, of course not difficult, especially coming from the KOOKS on the C5 which required removing the motor mount bolts and jacking the engine and moving it slightly to one side to allow the headers to go in.

The LG Pros on the C6, no sweat. I've installed mufflers which were harder.

The header install went well. I have been turning a wrench all of my life, and have always done much of the work on my own cars. Tuning though is an art I suppose, but I digress.

The headers, well I am a a perfectionist when it comes to doing my own wrenching. Always have been. I had a driver's side leak which I just could not get rid of. Used new gaskets of course. Always a believer in going back and re torquing my bolts after an install. Set my torque wrench to re torque the bolts after a few days of the install figuring that they had backed off a bit. 14ft/lbs if memory serves me.

And promptly snapped off a header bolt. Flush with the driver's side cylinder head. Just bad luck, but $#!+ happens. Nothing to grab hold of because it was broken flush with the head. Only good thing was that it was the bolt up by the alternator as opposed the the firewall and I would have a decent shot at it.

This was on a Thursday evening. Only way out was to drill it out. Easy out.

I spent the weekend weighing my options, I couldn't get a right angle drill on it, and finally on Monday had to make the call.

Now the guy who had smoked my transmission in the C5, well we were still on good terms. I respected him for replacing the tranny and torque converter without much of a fight. Of course had I not been standing there when they were filling the transmission, back on that day in 2004, the case may have been different. Plus he had installed my Cartek line lock for me and had done a good job as well as he was nearby.

I took the car in to him and he got the bolt out with a reverse right angle drill and over sized bit, and replaced it.

While he was there he tightened up all of the clamps for the slip fits of the LG pros and remarked that this was not the best setup. That I would be constantly fighting exhaust leaks underneath the car.

Around this time is when I pulled the ECM and sent it away to be tuned. Mail order tuning, was and still is big and is the only option for many.

You can get a local tune, you can travel for miles to one of the big name shops, or you can get a mail order tune from one of the gurus on this board.

I did my homework, realizing that a mail order tune would get me close and eliminate the check engine light from the rear 02s of course not being hooked up, but the fine tuning and data logging would have to be done on the road and at the track. I could do that by emailing my logs.

The mail order tune was just to tide me over until I could get to the track as well as on the road for the data logging.

I had sold my prior copy of HP Tuners with my C5. I asked the mail order guys who would do the tuning, what they were tuning with and selected one who told me that he was tuning with HP tuners, as I knew that I would purchase it in the future for any further tuning needs. This tuner said that his tunes were not locked, so that if I wanted to make alterations to the tune, that I could.

I sent that shop my ECM. (You would know the name of it right away if I called it) And got it back. Car ran great......for about a week.

That's when it started to misfire. Very rarely, but still misfire. I thought little of it, its just "learning the tune" some told me. Or it could be due to the header leak, (not fixed at that time) Besides, I have HP Tuners coming, I'll iron it out then. Plus I am going to take care of that header leak."

Then one day another buddy of mine came over to see the car after the header install and before the next planned mods. We went to fire the car up. She wouldn't start, took us about 15-20 attempts. Finally she hit. But she wouldn't recognize throttle input until after 5 minutes or so of idling. After that, it ran normally.

We went to put some gas in it, jumped on it a few times and headed back home.

Next morning, same thing. This time 20 or more attempts to get it started. I started to worry that at that rate, I would burn out the starter. I started asking for opinions.

This is where the real fun started. Some said it was the tune. Some said it was the throttle body going bad. Some asked if the guy who extracted the bolt had welded onto the remnant of the bolt to get it out figuring that this caused an electrical glitch, some said that I needed to bore a hole into my throttle body blade, some asked me if I had polished the throttle body figuring that I had screwed it up.

The tuner however.....said that it was not his tune..... argues me down.....now imagine that. In addition to the above, he said that it could be a problem with the fuel pump. Now granted, I had never had a problem with the fuel pump before.

I decide I'm through with them because as one forum member points out, "the tune was the last thing that you did" when the problems started. Another forum member in here, had his car tuned by the same vendor, and was having similar, .....no near identical problems, which he stated in my thread.

So now where to start?

At the tune. Take it back to a stock tune and see if I still have the problem. Work the problem. The UPS guy brought HP Tuners in. But I needed a stock calibration if I was going to take it back to stock. Who can give me one? Forum members offered. Or I could send the ECM back to the tuner and have him reflash it back to stock. 3-4 business days round trip unless I want to pay extra for overnight, both my way overnight and his. No thanks.

I load HP Tuners onto one of my laptops and hook up to the car planning to license the HP tuners, read the tune, compare it to a stock tune from one of the forum members here, and let others look at it.

No dice. It can't read the VCM. IT IS LOCKED

Now I was told by this outfit, that they did not lock their tunes. I called them up, irate.

In that conversation, I learned that the ECM had not been tuned HP Tuners, but with LS2 Edit. Which unbeknownst to both them and me at the time, by default locked the ECM and made it unreadable and unwritable to anything else.

I demanded to speak to the tuner himself who was an employee of this shop. I was denied access to him.

I demanded that my stock tune be returned into my ECM. This meant removing it from the car, shipping it back out, waiting for them to reprogram it to stock and sending it back to me.

I asked around some more. Asked people locally, asked people in here. Called Chuck CoW asked for his advice. That's when I learned from Chuck that LS2 Edit was locking ECMs by default. Chuck offered to try and unlock it, but made no guarantees that he would be alble to.

Did more research on LS2 Edit. Found out that one forum member had his car tuned by the same folk who did mine, then a few months later on, had mods done by West Coast Corvettes, which would require another tune, and they were not even able to reflash his ECM with a Tech 2. He ended up buying a new ECM.

There are entire threads on LS2 Edit locking ECMs now.

I pulled it. Sent it back to the guys who had tuned it...........and Fed Ex lost it.

When they finally found it, it was in another part of the state. They had transposed the last two numbers of the Zip code. I waited for them to deliver it to the tuner.

They got it, after several days, "returned it to stock" and sent it back to me. I waited again the turn around time. Keep in mind, I am paying for the shipping and return shipping. Both ways

I got it. Put it into the car. Drove it a few miles and again attempted to license my HP tuners.

No dice.

I called the vendor again. Not very happy because I had made arrangements for someone else, another form vendor to do my tuning for me, using HP Tuners, and discovered that I could not tune my car at all. They insisted that it was not locked and that it had the stock tune in it. I verified this by seeing the 1-4 shift light, and the code for the rear cats. It was indeed a stock tune. Again, I asked around, posted inquiries on this board and searched others.

Turns out that LS2 Edit, even when reloading the stock tune, or any tune for that matter, locked the ECM by default to any subsequent tuning software unless additional steps were followed.

Using LS2 Edit during that time back then, essentially offered two means of rendering an ECM inaccessible. The first, a "deliberate" lock of a tune making it inaccessible to anyone else with LS2 Edit.

The second, and most troublesome, an "automatic" and usually inadvertent, non deliberate "lock" of the ECM making it inaccessible from that point on, to any other tuning software and difficult to impossible to gain access to using a Tech 2. Though some claim to have been able to get through with a Tech 2, many others were not successful.

So if a tuner knew that someone else with LS2 Edit was liable to look at the tune, he could make it inaccessible if he wanted, to anyone else with LS2 Edit.

But he got the "automatic benefit" of having anything he touched, henceforth inaccessible to any other tuning software, and this would occur by default unless he overrode that "feature".

This was probably done to keep the competition out. If your car had been tuned with LS2 Edit, well then you were probably going to have to stick with LS2 Edit UNLESS someone was willing and able to return your ECM back to virgin condition. Not put a stock tune in it, mind you, ....not reload your stock tune in it, mind you......return it to virgin/original/unmolested condition.

Reload your own stock tune into it, using LS2 Edit, and LS2 Edit would close and lock the door behind it, and nothing else could get in to see the tune or overwrite it.....unless you over rode that "feature".

The people tuning that ECM for me, apparently didn't know this. This is what I mean when I say in some cases, you had better know as much, if not more than the person working on your car if you are modding it.

I recall reading here, that because of the uproar from all of this from many an owner, LS2 Edit has since made changes to it's software regarding this locking feature.

But I had a door stop. A paperweight.

I spoke to the shop again and informed them of what was happening. Enclosed instructions for unlocking the ECM with LS2 Edit which had been posted up from another forum vendor since they did not seem to know the specifics of what their tuning software was doing to people's ECMs. Told them to reflash it back to stock.

I pulled it. I sent it. They flashed it. They sent it back........still locked.

By this time, I had heard that the only way to get it unlocked was to send it to the folks at LS2 Edit themselves.

I pulled it. I sent it. They reflashed it back to virgin condition, I reinstalled it and was able to license HP tuners to it.

How much wasted time, how much frustration, how much money in shipping, how much of my "labor" in jacking up my car and removing and replacing the ECM?? How much headache? How much arguing? How much uncertainty? How many inquiries?

Now it was finally time to tune my car. But by now, I had seen enough.

This was not what Corvette ownership was all about. I couldn't enjoy my car. I didn't like that.

Meantime, in the midst of all of this, I had developed an interest in the Z06 and had test driven one.

I made up my mind, "no more". With the '86 I had a few issues, but I was a younger man then with a different temperament. The '03, I saw even more issues due to my modding it. Finally with the '05, I had seen enough.

I made up my mind that in the fall, I would de mod it, sell the parts and get a Z06.

I have not looked back and have no plans to mod for power though my Z06 is in fact modified.

Originally Posted by phileaglesfan

I"m sure if GM could have improved on the car they would have. Why not, it would make their sales easier. Usually a mod compromises something else. Sometimes it is long range durability, reliability, emissions, etc. I haven't heard anyone say a tune caused their engine to fail, at least not a tune by a reputable vendor, but if it does fail you can pretty much guarantee your powertrain warranty is gone. If you mod your vehicle you might as well do what Raazor has done, go with a twin turbo set up which I heard are real reliable.

Originally Posted by Raazor

I think maybe GM sets the car up for the entire country with a moderate tune. Once you get it to your destination, why not have it properly tuned for elevation, octane (max 91 in MT), etc?

Prior to the TT set up, I had mine tuned and the difference was noticeable. It wasn't incredible, but noticeable.

Originally Posted by Raazor

I think maybe GM sets the car up for the entire country with a moderate tune. Once you get it to your destination, why not have it properly tuned for elevation, octane (max 91 in MT), etc?

Prior to the TT set up, I had mine tuned and the difference was noticeable. It wasn't incredible, but noticeable.

Originally Posted by Raazor

I think maybe GM sets the car up for the entire country with a moderate tune. Once you get it to your destination, why not have it properly tuned for elevation, octane (max 91 in MT), etc?

Prior to the TT set up, I had mine tuned and the difference was noticeable. It wasn't incredible, but noticeable.