IMO, neither one is ideal because you need to need to pay for every PCM you tune with it, weather it's in the same vehicle or not. For example, if you want to play around with 2 or 3 different PCM's on your vehicle, you need to license each of those PCM's individually, swallowing up the included licenses very quickly.

I understand this principle for tune shops that really should be paying the price for all the vehicles they could tune with it, but for hobbyists or people doing swaps, it can get expensive quickly.

There are hardly any other plug and play options available though. Hopefully the open source community will change that one day.

 

With the exception V1 could not tune any CAN based GM vehicles, no fords, no dodges, and only 20 minutes of standalone datalogging on LS1 vehicles, functionality wise there are HUGE differences between our MPVI vs their V1 and from what I can tell they've had to redesign their V2 recently not to mention restructure their licensing, I'm not sure how its not a fair response as its all true.

 

We offer year/model licenses that allow you to tune an unlimited amount of vehicles for that year/model for instance the 2001 Camaro/Firebird V8 license allows you to tune an unlimited amount of those vehicles for one small set price, we also offer unlimited vehicle group licenses(more commonly known as tunershop licenses), not to mention you get 8 credits with your original purchase which is enough for 4 single vcm licenses in most cases meaning less then $170 per vehicle for the first 4.

Even for the hobbyist that swaps in several pcm's you'd need to go through 4 before you'd have to spend another dime in most cases.

Regarding open source you could purchase our std interface & unlimited gen 3 v8 car vehicle group for $1600 which would come with the hardware/software to flash pretty much any 97-04 LS1 powered car+custom operating systems(most with real time tuning available) ask anyone that was around during the LS1edit hayday when they were charging $10+k for similar licensing minus custom operating systems & a scanner and you'll find its about as close to open source now as it'll likely get.

-Bill

 

how about reliable boost fueling control?
the Boost Enrich table is a joke! its cant be relied upon as it is too slow to react and if you do want to risk using it, it makes lean cruise unusable.
The only reliable way to run a boosted car with hpt custom 2bar os is to use only the PE and then rape the ve table to lean out the low boost areas.

reliable boost fueling is required for a "good tune", efilive have no problems doing this

 

Tunercat! If you can find a used cable.

 

Zero out PE. Tune strictly off VE

 

This only affects some operating systems(2004+ LS1 1024k pcm's if I recall correctly) as we had to use a slow reacting part of the code, BE was only ever meant to be a safety mechanism for seeing an overboost condition, not as a main fueling solution.

 

Yep, that's what I told myself when I bought HPTuners too. "There's no WAY I'll ever need to license 4 vehicles to get 1 vehicle working". Murphy's law, I suppose

Heck I figured maybe I'd need 2 at the most, and I'd have some left to mess with my daily driver.

So, in case you're wondering... I've used all 8 credits (4 for the original PCM so it was upgraded to 1-bar SD custom OS) and then 4 additional credits to license 2 other PCM's that wouldn't fix my problem.

I have a good feeling I know what PCM I would need to put in there to make everything work right, but I'm not going to risk blowing $100 just to see if I'm right.

8 credits, 1 vehicle, and it still isn't right. Yes, you offer make/model licenses, but that's a little extreme.

 

Unlimited vehicle year/model is only 6 credits, would've been cheaper

 

Yeah, but It looks like EFI live would suit me better, that's probably what I'll do, since I want to be able to experiment with many different OS's on just my one PCM.

Woulda shoulda coulda! -- Too bad none of the years match either.

 

As a customer of both EFI Live and HPT, I will attempt to give you my opinion as un-biased as possible.

Both products are VERY capable of tuning the LSx engines quite well. I personally started off with EFI Live and have tuned enough LS1's to know my way through the software and scanner with great confidence. My copy of HPT was picked up because it was the solution available at the time for me to be able to tune my LNF. After a couple of years under my belt with HPT, I stand by my original statement - both are very capable products.

However, when we speak about things like "ease of use", I would award more points to EFI Live. Their layout in the tuning software design is 2nd nature to anyone who's worked on a Windows-based computer. Everything is layed out in a colapseable folder design that flows. The scanner is a step above as well in layout/design. Applying filters and setting up guages is super easy and slightly better in pure asthetics IMO. The last time I tried to use the filter effectively in the HPT scanner, I ended up getting confused because it felt like I was writing a raw Excel formula. EFI's system is straight forward - you select a drop down (ex. Exclude data when), select a PID, say less than/equal to/greater than a value and move on. This is done with as many PIDs as you'd like and can really narrow down a given condition when looking at a log.

Granted, the funtionality of the HPT suite might have a few things here and there that EFI doesn't have. But, I'd almost argue...for the guys that are just starting out or tuning a car as a hobby (not cranking out high numbers like a speed shop would), the time saved on something like real-time tuning is lost when you're hunting down tables that appear as bubbles in a box or you're trying to connect the dots between which tables are interacting with others (hyperlinks in EFI Live descritpions take you to those other tables).

At the end of the day, I think both serve their purpose. HPT has invested a lot of time in casting a wide net of coverage across many platforms...more so than EFI Live, which is evident in the "vehicles covered" lists published. Both seem to do a pretty good job of keeping up with customer requests for improvements. But, I think EFI Live initially wanted to provide a more polished product to it's customer base, which IMO is apparent in their design. That, to me, gives EFI Live the edge for the end-user learning curve that needs to be tackled early on.



PS - please excuse my sig - that's been there since day 1.

 

Hey did you get that software update I sent you a couple of weeks ago for your LNF? We added a bunch of new tables for it fuel pressure, wastegate duty cycle, etc.

In any event ease use is in the eyes of the beholder I suppose but now that we have a demo version of software that can be left up to the individual.

Coming from the user side to the support side I've tried to keep a touch of personal service knowing who's who on the forums, like yourself, and knowing what their needs are.



Bill

 

I did - thank you for that. I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet. Between moving, getting taxes done, a new girl to entertain, and trying to sort out the new car...I haven't really had time to futz with the DD too much.

I hope you don't take my notes as an attack on HPT. I do think HPT offers a good product. It's just my personal opinion it's a bit easier to make my way through EFI Live's software/scanner. Like I said (and as demonstrated in your note), you both do a good job of trying to keep us happy with updates. For that, I feel I can speak for most when we say we're grateful.

 

Thats the thing I've toyed with efi and I can navigate much quicker in our software than theirs so it really all depends on what you are used to in the end and in many cases where the navigation is the argument it can boil down to what you used first.

-Bill

 

I will put my 2 cents in since I use both HPT and EFI almost daily. First let me say that Paul & Ross at EFI and Bill at HPT have always given me top notch customer service. Even though me and Bill at HPT have not agree'd on many things on forums over the years, Bill has always treated me like I was he best customer when I needed anything or even when just talking outside of the forums. To me customer service means alot. You cant go wrong with either one.

I like things about HPT and EFI, I also dislike things about them both. I am just thankful to have both, they are years ahead of the other tuning options out there. Just tune a dodge with whats out there and you will really miss HPT or EFI.

PS Bill,
I still think EFI is easier to navigate also

 

Lorenz we've entered beta testing for Dodge NGC3 pcm's recently, if you'd like access to the newest software for them shoot me an email and I'll fill you in on the details.