Spying Beast

Being that I've had HP Tuners for about 6 months now, and still haven't had the time or motivation to learn how to use it, I figured I would start this thread as a beginners course of the use of it.

Basically I have the HP tuners installed in my laptop, and am ready to plug it in to my car.

What do I do first, and exactly how do I do that?

My goal is to plug it in, and record my tune for future reference.

Also, do I need to use that MPVI unit when I plug it in?

Also, I've gone over the HP Tuners forums, and I can tell you that they are more geared towards the more experienced tuners vs. the first time user. Plus the number of members are small, and responses are slow & general (no offense HP tuners).

Thanks in advance!

Keith

carlrx7

it literally took me two days to get just the scaner setup with all the correct histograms and config's.

open the editor or the scanner and press F1, read all though that before you do any connecting to your car.

a good place to start to learn is to buy greg banish's "advanced engine managment" book, its a quick read. then after you get familiar with that, and ready for more, buy his GM Tuning DVD. thats where im at right now.

and everyone on the hptuners forum, except for like a handful are idiots, including myself!!

-Carl

p.s. if i ever goto Hawaii again, ill shoot you a PM.

jxhunte

I subscribed to "Tuning the Right Way: A Beginner's Guide to Tuning GM Vehicles with HP Tuners Software", Learn-At-Home Course (The Tuning School.com). This course is authored by Bob Morreale and consists of Text Books which will lead you through the tuning process, step by step. On line and phone support is offered for 12 months with your subscription. Ian Thompson is a Tuning School Tech who is a C6 Vette owner and has helped me with my tuning questions, both by phone and on line,"E-Mail". I have been having a blast tuning my C6 and have received great support from both Bob and Ian at the Tuning School. They have led me by hand through issues (such as setting up my NGK AFX Wideband) when necessary. Ian knows the C6 and can help with your C6 specific tuning needs and questions.

I also have Greg Banish's book "Engine Management - Advanced Tuning". I found this book to be very helpfull.

HP Tuners "Help" Tab will offer a wealth of information. I have found Tuning to be a journey and not an abbreviated process. My guess is that guys like Greg Banish, Bob Morreale, and other experts in this field are still learning. However, they are able to write books which touch on their depth of knowledge while I am working on my first paragraph.

8850

To answer your original question. You said you had your HP programmed into your laptop and know how to hook up your laptop and MPVI to your car and turn ignition on. Open your Editor. There is an icon you can click to read your tune or click Flash and Read Entire. From there you will do a File, Save As and give it a name. Hopefully this gets you going.

pmj341

Keith
I've read most of your threads from the blower to ecu locked.
Dude there is a mail order tuning school that will make HP tuners easy.
The tuning school has a great course, they give you a step by step procedure to follow.
if you have any questions pm ian@thetuningschool.com, he will be glad to give you an overview of the course and answer your questions.
they do follow thru and help you, of course your time Zone might be a problem
I have taken their class and its great once you learn to follow the procedure and understand the scans

Spying Beast

Thanks for the replies fellas, very much appreciated.....

So the MPVI needs to be connected to read the tune, or can it be left out? What is the purpose of the MPVI, and when should it be used?

And to PMJ, thanks for the link to Ian @ tunerschool.... I emailed him asking for the "complete idiot" version of tuners school. You know, the tuner class that requires the use of a hockey helmet, and a bib..

0foff667

Unless you want to pop every fuse in your vehicle you must connect our interface to be able to talk to the pcm.

I can't think of a better place to start than by reading the help file www.hptuners.com/help start to finish, you'd be amazed by the information contained in it, including the question you asked in this post.

Spying Beast

"Our interface" You mean the MPVI? This is what I'm talking about when I say that things are generalized, and assumed that people should know. With respect reading the help file "start to finish", someone like myself doesn't have the time to sit for hours reading "start to finish".

Thank you for your help, but my question would better be answered by saying "yes" you need the MPVI for all applications with HP Tuners, or " you will only need it when"..... Some basic written instructions with pictures should be included for us "simple folk".

0ian@thetuningschool

I went ahead and sent you some information on The Tuning School Seminar classes. The hockey helmet and bib are supplied by the tuning school free of charge

Ian

TurboLX

You're never done learning. I work full time as an OEM calibrator and am constantly learning from those around me as well as from some of my students occasionally. You never know when you can apply a lesson learned in one arena to another. The PCMs aren't getting any less complex as we go, so one can't afford to sit idle and hope for knowledge to somehow land upon him.

BluV

"Yes, you will need the MPVI every time you connect to the car."
Does this help?

The MPVI has the cable that actually attaches to the OBDII port under the steering wheel to do reads/writes (I can connect it via muscle memory now ) You cannot connect the laptop directly. Also, the MPVI has your VIN/licensing info to make the connections.

You say you just want to make a copy of the original tune (to begin with perhaps?) I am assuming you also have the 2 MPVI drivers installed as well.
1. Open VCM Editor
2. connect the USB to the laptop on one end, MPVI on the other
3. connect the OBDII to the dash port.
4. on the file menu -> "Flash" -> "read entire"
5. Name and save the file it creates.

Scanning for tuning is much, much more complicated though.

When you get deeper into the tuning, you can save configs to the directly to the MPVI, so no laptop is needed while recording -- only to save the files off to your computer for review/edit. Be forewarned, there is not much memory on the MPVI in standalone mode. It all depends on how many parameters you are scanning, but I average about 15-20 minutes. More parameters = less time and vice versa.

The books mentioned are good, also, you can go to Holley's web site and download their free manual for their "Commander" EFI system (9500? 950?) It is not specific to HPTuners obviously, but all the theory still applies.

Sorry - there is no "quick read" for tuning. That is what others have tried saying above, unsuccessfully. Consider this as long term investment. Just as you cannot learn AutoCad in an hour, or how to overhaul a transmission in 15 minutes. I am guessing, but it probably took 5-6 tries over several days just to get my first scan to come out right. It is said that it takes about 40 hours of study to be able to use HPTuners. YMMV.

I know this post is getting long - so I will wrap it up with these last words. There are tons of people on HPTuners. But the reason it seems slow is that there are only a handful of people for each type of vehicle/engine. LS2, LS3, LS1 - then you have the Colbalt SS guys, Canyon, GMC trucks -- then the Fords, etc, etc. So some things have to be learned by extrapolating from other vehicle types. The theory is all the same -- it just requires some brain power to get it to apply to your specific circumstance. Regardless, you are not going to find any "horse power tune recipes" on any of the forums. No step by step. No pre-formulated tune files. It would be nice it it were that easy though.

And lastly -- there are many CF guys over there. A lot of us even use the same screen names. Stick around over there and you will recognize a lot of us.

But for me - it seems a balance of this section in CF and HPTuners combined is required to make real progress.

Spying Beast

PERFECTLY CLEAR!!! Thanks!