VandykeT/A

I've been thinking about getting hptuners for a little while but I'm a little unclear about a few things. I know I need a wideband to tune but any professional tune I've ever had done, the tuner didn't weld in a extra 02 bung for there wideband? How exactly did they use it? Is a wideband 100 percent necessary? How long does it take the average user to get fairly decent at it? I've got a intake/exhaust 2012 Silverado to practice on. I would imagine the closer to stock the better. Also if they're any other things that most people miss about hptuners go ahead and tell me. I know very little but I'm ready to learn. Thanks

badazz81z28

iTrader: (6)

The tuner puts a probe in the exhaust pipe. IMHO, don't even bother. Unless you plan on tuning cars for a living, or swap engines parts often...Leave it to the experts. Help is very minimal, especially on HPtuners.com. There are a few guys that are willing to give you some pointers, but it takes a lot of learning to get good at it. Paying the tuner $500 is worth it to me. My HP tuner purchase was a mistake...

Just IMHO.

Bowtie316

iTrader: (1)

I feel the exact opposite. I bought HP tuners about 6 months ago, and while it is a pretty big learning curve, I can't imagine having to take it to a tuner at $400 a pop for every little change I make.

Alex in Houston

I agree whole heartedly with help being minimal (or non existent in most cases) on HPT or any other forum for that matter. BUT, if you're willing to invest a lot of time in reading/studying/testing you can manage to get the basics ironed out, and I do mean the basics. If you're working with a NA set up, getting that going on your own is not overly difficult. Add some forced air into the mix and everything becomes critical and having someone who's more familiar with the intrinsic values/parameters is what you really need. At that point, I'd suggest paying someone (Research heavily on the choice before you spend money with them).
My $.02

The Alchemist

iTrader: (19)

Nobody is going to hold your hand and walk you through doing your tune. The problem is most people post up their tune and say, "can someone look at my tune and tell me if it's ok". Well, that is impossible to do, and you're going to get zero responses.

Now, if you post up your tune, plus a couple scans, pinpointing to a certain snapshot in those scans, and ask for specific help with a specific problem you're having, and what you've already done to try and fix it, you'll get 10 responses in 10 minutes.

For example, lets say everytime you drive the car, and it's at full operating temperature, when you push in the clutch, the rpms drop to 200rpm, and the car stalls. Posting the details of your problem, with exactly scans, and your tune will get responses for help. People are willing to help people who have some clue as to what they are doing. If you have no clue, then read, read, read, and read some more, and when you post questions asking for help, do yourself a favor and search, and post your tune and scans. Without those things, noone can help you.

I have found this site and HPTuners.com to be extremely helpful. Case in point, I upgraded to 60# injectors and was having an issue with a wild swinging idle afr values. I posted my tune, plus some scans, and mentioned what I had already tried and I was able to get my tune squared away.

People are willing to help those who help themselves. If you're not willing to take the initiative and learn, then you are better off paying for a tuner to do your tune. If you want the ability to learn how to tune your car, then learn it. There's plenty of free info out there.

badazz81z28

iTrader: (6)

Kind of what I was saying. Its alot of work to just tune your car once...maybe twice. But if you are constantly making changes and are willing to invest alot of time to learn, it can save you money. There are alot of tables, you are not just going to "pick it up"

T/A KID

iTrader: (12)

I'm on Hptuners.com by my name, I try to help as much as possible. I actually do pretty well on there too as individuals pay me to do tuning and I show them how to tune using my configs/histograms.

mcdonald77

iTrader: (21)

I've had hptuners for over a year along with an ngk afx, first thing I did was pid the wide band for Lambda and read lots. Master efi tuner is a great book from Mast motors, The tuning books by banish. One is better then the other if your not such a beginner. I welded my wide band bung in and use mine daily. I re calibrate it before I tune and will eventually unplug it and put the plug in the bung. Again, read about tuning in Lambda its easier to tune to percent of error when the magic number is 1.

JLoosh

iTrader: (1)

I have a thread going now trying to figure out an issue.

I wouldn't have noticed anything without a wideband or hptuners. Issue was only showing up in openloop speed density. At first the issue was a leaking pcv line that I fixed and helped some, but now started running into other issues.

Its called "lean issue need HELP" located here : https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...need-help.html

I included the name because I'm trying to get it moved into the tuning section now, and if someone down the road tries to find it and gets frustrated like I do when you can find pictures/links in old posts that may help with an issue it will help them locate it.


Anyways just wanted to post this to give you an idea about what they are talking about.....look up stuff, learn, play, learn, look up stuff, find issues, get stumped, look up more, come up with some ideas, look up more, then when your finally stuck or just to frustrated to effectively fix the issue post up what you did, results, what you might think it is, ask questions and try new things.

Hope this helps and was appropriate to this thread....also if anyone can help me in my thread that would be great too lol..just saying

JLoosh

iTrader: (1)

plus I have some pictures on there on how I set up some stuff for tuning that may help people out too

TNSS

iTrader: (2)

I think HPtuners is critical. I have hptuners pro with a wideband "I an not even close to being a tuner". I have paid PCMofnc.com to tune my tbss they can look at my data logs and tune my car with out me ever going to their shop we do it over the Internet via email. it works out great and they are top notch to work with. also once you have a good solid tune from a tuner you can make small adjustments "let the tuner do all the hard stuff and yo can focus on just tweaking the WOT stuff". such as when im at the track and trying to dial in a index you can pull a little timing or maybe adjust a shift point just a little to get you at the ET you need. another reason its critical is, when your at the track all though you have a great tune something might go wrong HPtuners will help you catch it before you blow your motor or trans or what ever. also Hptuneres is a diagnostic tool, you can read codes do live data logs watching miss fires all kinds of stuff to help you figure out when something is wrong.

Alvin@PCMofNC

Thanks TNSS, I didn't know you where on this board!


We sell HPTuners but also do remote email tuning for guys all over the world. It's handy because you get tune updates typically within the day and you can watch what is being changed and learn a little yourself.

TNSS

iTrader: (2)

i have been on here for a little bit, just mostly read and learn im on yellow bullet also but my post count there is like 5 LOL. i use them mostly for education and to see what others are doing. now that im building the Camaro i find myself over here a lot more.