manley845

So, I am going to need to decide to either take my recently purchased 2008 Corvette manual, with LT headers, off-road pipe, stage 3 cam (229@.050" Intake) to a dynotuner [assuming I can find a decent one near me in Panama City Beach, FL] or get HP Tuners and do it myself.

My car most likely has a custom tune in it now, considering how it runs with the cam and no cats, but it has a "miss"/"surge" to it, and I can tell it is most likely a fueling issue. I have already checked it with my Snap-On scanner and can find nothing wrong mechanically or with any sensor operations.

I am curious about using HP Tuners, and if it is something that can be done by a DIYer that has a decent knowledge of tuning [as it relates to fueling via carburetor]. My thoughts are that if I have a good wide band O2 gauge and monitor A/F's under various conditions, that I should be able to tune for the larger cam. It just might take longer than if I had a dyno to run it on.

I know nothing about how HP Tuners works, so I don't know if it's super complex, or fairly straight-forward to use.
I'll eventually find a dyno tuner that I trust and pay for a quality dyno tune, but until then I think I would like to try it myself. I don't need to extract every HP, but rather I want reset the PCM to factory specs, start fresh and adjust for the larger cam.

What are you guys' experience with HP Tuners?

Any and all input is appreciated.

russ472

using hp tuners takes a pretty steep learning curve. unless you have a very good back ground in math/engineering and modern power train management you will need some help getting there. There are some very good online courses available for beginners. There are also some very knowledgeable tuners you can find mostly in the forced induction section that help us out frequently. The hp tuners board is a very good resource as well.

For the corvette platform, seems most tuners prefer using HP tuners.

schpenxel

You can download the software from hptuners.com and there are plenty of tunes from similar year cars you can find on their forum if you just want to check out what is there to change or what logs can look like, etc.

Make sure to go under edit, view, and hit advanced. The default view barely shows you anything.

I always tell people it's basically direct access to hundreds of tables. It isn't a "click on this if you have long tubes" type thing. Min airflow, VE, MAF, spark, idle adapt, all kinds of stuff. It's up to the tuner to change any and everything it doesn't come with any templates or anything like that to start with.

There is def a learning curve in the beginning. If you like learning and tinkering and don't mind getting frustrated in the beginning then I'd say go for HPT. If you just want it done, then pay someone to do it, if you can find anyone decent in the area.

The people on the HPTuners forum are usually pretty helpful, especially after people get past the initial "wtf did I get myself into" stage

You'll need the pro version more than likely.

manley845

Sounds like HP Tuners is what I'm looking for. Yeah, seems like it'll take some time to learn, but worth it for a tinker'r like myself.
I'll still eventually find a good dyno tuner, just to see what more can be done, but HPT sounds like it'll do what I need it to.

jim2092

If approximately $1000 and several hundred hours of learning and experimenting is what you had in mind, you are good to go.

BigBlok502

I'm a DIY type and bought HP Tuners Pro with a wide-band. IMHO there is a steep learning curve, although not impossible. As long as the previous tuner did not lock your tune, you will be able to download it and then adjust accordingly. It won't be necessary to go back to stock, that would be a lot of computer inputs that you will immediately undue.

I also bought the book course for beginners from the Tuning school. It has a very good step by step guide for stock engines, bolt ons, HCI, and forced induction.

You may find after doing your own street tuning with HP Tuners that you do not want to invest in a professional tuner. Some Dyno shops will rent the use of their dyno, and let you do your own tuning.

I also used the HP Tuners to eliminate all the torque management on my Silverado.

manley845

It is. And thank you for your positive and valuable input

manley845

Reducing/eliminating the torque management settings are a huge goal of mine. I know it'll really increase the throttle response and availability of low end power

Unreal

Its not that bad at all. Just have to take it easy. Hard to mess up.

Yes hundreds of hours to "master" but in a day you can get what you want done if you are smart enough to use a forum.

jim2092

This thread discusses some of the good sources for info and partially explains the hours it takes to start the tuning process.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1594578506

Unreal

Still going to disagree on the hours.

He can disable TQ management in less than 5 minutes from opening the box until done. Now fulling doing all fueling parameters, sure, logging and collecting data to make those adjustments can take time, but there is a ton you can do very quickly if needed, and since his car is already tuned, that stuff should be pretty close as is.

seevi

seevi

I can say it’s not that bad, but I have 10 years of experience working on my car and others who have trusted me to work on theirs. It was not that easy the day I started. Hard to mess up! You have obviously not read the posts of those novices who “bricked” their ECU’s the first week they tried using tuning software. In HPTuners and EFILive, there is some small print at the bottom of many screens that caution you not to change calibrations because they can damage the ECU.


Hundreds of hours and I still cannot say I’ve mastered the art of tuning! You can get a lot done in a day, if you have an eidetic memory and understand data logging.

Unreal

In general people are stupid, so yes you can brick an ECU. You can also destroy a motor swapping spark plugs, doesn't mean it isn't quick/easy and something you should be afraid of.

jim2092

Contrary to what you might think, I am not trying talk you out of this project, because I have been down this road. But, "reducing/eliminating the torque management settings" are very easy and would most likely have been done already by any decent tuner already on what you think is a non-factory tune. It gets harder from there. Now, does that cheer you up.

FlatPlaneCrankDreams

I recently also bought HP Tuners for my C7 to be able to datalog and do diagnostics. It's not easy learning HPtuners without a book. It has been very useful to find problems. In my case I used it to log cylinder misfires to find a faulty wire. You will also be able to use it to double check the work your tuner does.

Even if you do get a wideband hooked up you will NEVER be able to optimize your timing without a load bearing dyno. You won't be able to tell whether you've reached MBT or passed it.

romandian

i really depends on the person using it. its intellectual work. if your good at that, youll have no problems. you can also keep things simple and not do all the fancy stuff they do on the forums and get your tune done. actually my main hurdle was to get efilive to run on one of the computers we have.

seevi

It you're tune a stock car, or with minor CAI or cat back, you can get by with tuning spark and AFR. I didn't find installing EFILive at all difficult on the same laptop running HPTuners. EFILIve offers more minutiae to adjust, but has a better grasp on the VCV? Suggest the OP to get Banish's first DVD.

BlindSpot

HPT is a steep curve, I started with an FI tune from a stock motor. Took me about 4 months to get steady, now at 6 months I am completely confident I can tune any situation. Cannot cheat on the time though. I invested the time. Well worth it.

Orion2011

Even with HPTuners and the knowledge there is only so much you can do without a Wideband O2 sensor installed. So add $200 plus installation to the budget.