Hot Rod Todd

I picked up HP tuners since I am putting headers on my 2008 w/Auto. After getting it I went to the HP tuners site and was surprised to see that there were nothing but stock tunes for the LS3 in the depository. Not that I expect a perfect tune from there, but I was thinking there would be something available to get me started. I now have to either develop the entire tune myself or purchase a mail order tune. Since I could not look in the depository prior to buying the tuner, I had no way of knowing what was available. It may be a good thing, since I was not too comfortable about throwing a tune of unknown quality in my car.

Anyone know of other sources to get a HP tuners tune for an '08 auto with headers and Vararam?

0Cunningham Motorsports

if you pay me $80 bucks and send me your stock tune i can give you a pretty close tune, that will make good power

gfish

Ryne do you have any experience with the A6?

0Cunningham Motorsports

yeah i have alot of experience with them, i fact we have a few 10 sec
a6 cars from our shop

0Brian@RPT

I have mine dialed in and it took some work. After tuning the fueling equations and MAF, my car runs great. The only mods to date is the Vararam. I can show you my new file.

Harlech

Liability hassle is the first problem, the second is that anybody can tune with HP tuners if they take the time to dig around the forums and learn the software, it is by no means rocket science and there are plenty of write-ups and even applications that help when it comes to the LS3's. Its a fun process to learn.

PAmotorman

check out these guys as you can see they tune corvettes of some pretty important owners. www.pcmforless.com

EdwardETraylorIII

The repository you speak of is only for stock tunes.

If you have an A:F gauge and learn the basics of HPT, then you can build yourself a pretty good tune.

Most folks bump the timing, remove Torque Management and lean the MAF tables slightly... After all this you can log some WOT runs and make sure it's not too lean and there isn't appreciable KR. This will gain you a decent amount of power and isn't very hard.

However if you are new to tuning and/or HPT, then this is a steep curve. If you'd like to fly me to your area, I'll spend a day or two with you getting you up to speed (pun intended) for no charge.

Motorhead-47

That is not the way HP Tuners represents their tune repository...

"Welcome to the HP Tuners Tune Repository, where car enthusiasts from all over come to share their tunes. Using a downloaded tune is very simple, all you have to do is follow these steps.

Fill out the form to your specifics and hit search.
When results populate, simply click on the "Download" link and select where you'd like the file to appear on your computer.
View the tune using VCM Editor software!
That's all there is to it!

Note: HP Tuners is not responsible for any damage done to your vehicle by using any of the tunes found in the Tune Repository. HP Tuners does not validate nor approve any tunes that have been uploaded to this repository. Use at your own risk!"

FloydSummerOf68

Yes the repository can contain modified tunes.

You should've had a more solid idea of what you were purchasing though. I dont know anyone that has ever bought HPtuners with the assumption that they were going to be using pre-built tunes.

HPtuners is so you can tune your own car for your own mods to get the most power.

Best of luck working it all out.

EdwardETraylorIII

I just went and looked at the repository! You guys are right! They've changed it since I was last using it!

I maintain my own repository of tunes so I haven't been there in quite some time!

Motorhead-47

Like the OP, I also had the expectation that with the large user base of HP Tuner folks there would have been at least some modified LS3 tunes in the database that I could study/pliagerize as a baseline to work from. I was surprised to find ZERO LS3 modified files in the repository.

DSteck

As already mentioned, it's a mistake to buy HP Tuners and expect to get a free tune that'll fit your mods. The point of the repository is to see how other people have tackled certain modifications or setups with intent for you to develop your own tune.

Read the HP Tuners forum and learn the software... you will be glad you did. Understanding your PCM and how it's operating is a huge benefit to you.

Motorhead-47

Our point exactly...there are no modified LS3 tunes in that repository to reference! No one in this thread said anything about wanting a "free tune". I agree you need to understand fueling and timing parameters and adjust for your specific application but there are dozens of other tweaks that really shouldn't require a guy to start from zero. Learning that there are 10 separate codes to be turned off for the rear O2 sensors is a good example. Learning throttle tip in values, fan setting values for colder thermostats, torque management settings and many many others aren't really tweaks that you should have to learn by trial and error. Those are the type of things I would have loved to have learned by running a compare on my OEM tune vs a good modified tune and then going back and understanding what these areas affect as I update my tune.

I think we had expectations that the tune repository would give us a jump start but the modified LS3 tunes just weren't there to help out. Not a big deal but it simply makes the learning curve a bit tougher.

xstang

I've put alot of time in my tune... What specifically are you looking for...??? If you are near stock.. lean out the PE table some... Add a hair of timing... Change your shift MPH by a few for the 3-4 and you should be pretty close. If you see knock, back off a hair of timing. There are a ton of other things you can do, but those few items will really help...

user_name

You don't want most of those tunes from the repository regardless of mods. It's a better idea to learn how to do the whole tune yourself.

0foff667

Yup, I only use the repository to find stock tunes when needed, other than that you really don't know the history of the file & if you are green to tuning looking at the tunes thinking one is good could hurt your tuning progress more than help it in some cases.

Remember the repository is customer fueled but its hard to tell which tunes are good & which ones aren't.

Tuning is more R&D than anything...viewing a dozen files tuned in a dozen different ways isn't going to help you tune, although if you know what your looking at it cant tell you what NOT to do in many cases

PAmotorman

doing tuning without a chassis dyno and instrumentation is a crap shoot.

siffert

Maybe....but a lot of us do quite well without a dyno. I do a lot of testing on the street/frewway while scanning/logging. Even a dyno tune can be a crap shoot if the tuner doesnt know what he's doing. Sending your pcm for a mail order tune, Mario or no, can be a crap shoot too.

Hot Rod Todd

Thanks for all the input everyone. I got some help from Ryne at CMS and I think I have a start. Without a wideband it appears that it may be difficult for me to even determine what I have at wide open throttle. I did do a scan and check for KR, and there was none after four wide open runs. It is tough to do a bunch of playing with the settings when you cannot really verify that you are not getting too lean. I don't know how accurate the time is on a scan, but my car went from 0 to 118mph in 11.5 sec.

I did not expect to pick up a free tune that was perfect, just something to get started. I only have experience using tunes for my motorcycle with a Powercommander, and there are always tunes available for multitude of standard mods. Since I was not able to look at the tune repository prior to purchasing HP tuners, I guess I didn't know what would be available.