I have been building muscle cars for the better half of my life. This leaves me in an interesting situation with this HP tuner. I have never tuned a car with a computer before. or. fuel injection for that matter. So is it worth getting the HP and figuring it out or should I take a diffrent avenue? Also is there a way to upload tunes or do you have to make all the adjustments individually?

 

You can use someone else tune or file and upload it yours if you want! I have not ever used it personally but I did take my car to someone who has. It was a very nice improvement over stock....well worth it IMO.

 

Well if ur willing to spend the money to buy one they are really nice and offer alot more flexability over a box tune. You could tune your whole fleet GM cars. Do you budy's make some money out of it.

 

indeed i have a few friends with GMs 2 gtos and and 2 f bodies. We were gonna go 5 way on it : P

 

Has anyone actually used the HP Tuners or had someone else do it? What was it like? Thanks in advance.

-Mike

 

HP tuners is easy to use.

What takes a bit more thought is figuring what data you need to scan, what it means, and what you need to adjust to get the engine parameters where you want them.

There's a tremendous amount of info out there on tuning. I suggest you spend a bit of time on the HPTuners forum - especially in the getting started section. They have lots of beginner guides in the stickies, as well as animated demo's for the software.



Oh, and invest in a wideband

 

Tired,

I sent you a PM on one of those forums. I posted on the HP Tuner forum for some LS4 tuning help. I hope I get some responses.

-Mike

 

I have an 08 SS and I have an HP Tuner and it is a bit hard to use, but the people at HPT and the forums over there are usually alot of help. I'd be more than happy to share my tunes. Most people are so secretive about their tune files, I'm not.

 

I have HPTuners and I LOVE IT!!!

On the 3800 platform the tune means everything.

Take baby steps. Start small. I started getting comfortable by tuning the MAP sensor on my 3800. Reason was it was a backup to the MAF. So when I turned the MAF back on the MAP was no longer doing anything. Most guys went straight for the MAF and skipped the MAP.

As for how I learned, again, I took baby steps. (Reminds me of What About Bob?) I used a website called Gary's Tuning Basics. It is based around the 3800 platform but it gives you a general idea of what you're getting into. It is very easy to read and understand. Gary did a fantastic job in the write ups.

Gary actually has a nice 4T65e tune displayed on the website that I currently run on my GP. I don't know if it is the best in conjunction with the LS4, but with the V6 3800 the shifts seem quite perfect through the powerband when going WOT.

I've helped a few guys now with tuning their 3800's. My Brother and I put a top swap on a guy's GP GT and then I tuned it. I also changed the trans setting for another guy whose transmission wasn't shifting out of 1st until 6000rpm. Note: He had to have his trans rebuilt right before we tuned it.

In my opinion, wideband tuning is a must. Its the only way you will be completely accurate. Without a wideband you're basically only getting your tune in the ballpark, not so much precise. On Gary's website he goes over how to tune with and without a wideband.

The one thing that irks me is the price of the LS4 to unlock. I like to unlock all years, not just individual cars, allowing me to help others. IIRC Its 12 credits to unlock an entire year, so basically $600.

One thing about HPTuners is they put more effort and allow more parameters to be tuned from the cars they make the most money off of. I'm not saying this is wrong, but for myself, using a 3800 platform is very limited on what I can tune. The LS1, LS2, etc. engine owners and HPTuner users can pretty much tune anything and everything possible. As for the 3800, not so much. Most 3800 owners aren't building them to race. The community also has several PCM tuners available and people order custom tunes rather than tune themselves. Not the best way, and there are plenty of horror stories, but they seem to work good enough that people keep going that route.

The good news as LS4 owners is most of the LSx parameters are the same, so HPTuners programmers probably didn't have to change much to get it to work. So you all could benefit because of it just being a LSx platform rather than a 3800.

I'm quite excited as this should increase tuning work on the 4T65e, as well as increase the aftermarket parts for the trans.

Hope this is good info. I spent a lot of time on my phone to type this. Good Luck and I hope you choose to learn with HPTuners.