Well i will try to get this all out in one post. First off i will start by saying that i am a ase certified master tech and shop owner. So i have a pretty good knowlege of all systems on cars. Though i have done little to no "pcm tunes" other than factory flashes with the GM tech 2. I have played around with an older fast system. Anyway i am debating on getting the stuff to do my own tuning and maybe some sideline stuff at the shop. I figure with what i have spent on mail order tunes, and so on i couldve had a lot of stuff by now but never really wanted to mess with it. After i installed my 402 i took it to a well known shop outside Chicago for a tune and all i can say is i should have just wiped my *** with the $500.00. Then i found a guy fairly close that does a excellent job tuning, so i took him my car and my buddy sent his 3rd gen with the fast system along too. (his car was unbelieveable f1 charger 383 ect... bad *** ride) Any way he had our cars for over a month. My buddies ended up catching fire, well this guy had no garage keepers ins, and my friend had not gotten an appraisal yet so needless to say he lost his ***. Long story short my bill was just under $2000 for the tune, and yes it runs awesome. But i know that in the future i will be changing heads and cam. I am soon considering changing to an 85mm mass air, which will require a retune. So what should i do. I am not really that good with computers, dont have a laptop yet. So i would be basically starting from scratch. I am tired of spending money for other people to tune my car and then have to change something. I have searched on this site for hours to decide wich system is better, and i think either efi live or hp tuners will do. But as i say once i know what i am doing i might be doing more and more cars, how do the credits work, cables ect... fill me in please. The only concensus i have found is that the 98 pcms are less user friendly than the 99+ ones. Should i swap out the pcm? Could i just get a complete harness from a 99+ car, do i need the cluster out of a 99+ if i do that to make the fuel gauge work ( i need a diff cluste anyway, temp gauge shitty). or should i just keep with the 98 pcm. I am sorry for the long read and rambling, but i hope some serious gurus can point me in the right direction. Thank you.

 

The stickies in this section are a good place to start (sounds like you may have been there). I would recommend you download the demo versions of software, sign up on the respective vendor forums and ask product specific questions, review the product specific feature sets and then pick the one that best suites your goals/needs.