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HP Tuners and LS1 Edit Comparison?

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Old 10-09-2004, 02:20 AM
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Default HP Tuners and LS1 Edit Comparison?

I need to tune my Z06 and I have been looking at HP Tuners and LS1 Edit. It seems to me that neither is great and each has something the other doesn't. I came across this post below on another forum. Anyone used both and compared the two? Any info appreciated.

I have begun benchmarking and comparing the 2 PCM tuners products that function off a P/C.

I have used LS1edit for over 2 1/2 years and tuned 100's of F and Y bodies so I know it inside and out.

I began comparing it to Hptuners for I was told it was the best tuner product out there.

I find this untrue and in researching find again forums that have so called supporting vendors where hptuners is a sponsor and Ls1edit is not so its bashed and hptuners is being *** kissed without merit.

Neither tuning program is well written, looks like young kids wrote it in visual basic but hptuners user interface is worse.
Both have lousy user manuals but again I find hptuners even worse then LS1edit where even their manual stinks.

In many cases hptuners does not have have any content for a PCM function or in many cases does not tell you what a value means, it could be in PSI, or KPA or even in.hg but they give you no clue as to which.

Being LS1edit can read a flash file from hptuners I tuned a '99 C5 with it and then compared it with LS1edit and find hptuners is making changes that are for one function table when it really is not making changes to the correct table.

Also I find in setting values that once saved they are not correct such as the AFR for Power Enrichment .

The so called PCM scanner hptuners comes with is a joke, it would not even meet the generic parameters for EPA much less all the GM parameters.
You have no real control of what you want to scan or record and even the graph mode can only look at 200 PCM cycles which is less then 5 minutes of engine run time.
The meters screen is also a joke, you cannot configure it or dicate what parameters you want in the meters.

There is no way I would suggest anyone use that scanner to get a good PCM recording of all engine conditions.

One of my customers bought hptuners for his '99 C5 and goes to use it to find hptuners sent him a version for a '98 C5 thus he now had to wait until that vendor sent him the right version so for a small vendor there should be no reason customers get the wrong product.

I have been monitoring their forum and found it interesting as people post complaining of bugs in the product that the vendor deletes those posts so others do not read them.

In either tuning product its clear these vendors do a lot of guessing and hacking and their costs are crazy for most car owners would only use it a few times, their car is now tuned and no use to use it again, so for $450-500 they are really raking in the money and the quality of their proiducts are not very good and worse for those buying it who have zero experience in how to use such a product for neither vendor is willing to write a "how to tune" for frankly I do not think these 2 vendors know what the PCM functions really do much less be able to teach others on good tuning practices.
Old 10-09-2004, 02:48 AM
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lol. I find that to be very humorous.

Much of it is not true but of course my oppinion is biased.

We are all ears to constructive criticism. We read all the posts on our forums feature request and bugs and support issues and try to implement as many as we can. Our current shipping build has no known bugs. 1.5 versions we have in testing also show no signs of bugs or issues.

I like to believe my oppinion is very fair, however as owner of the company is that ever really possible?

Like I said though, we are all ears.

- Keith, HP Tuners
Old 10-09-2004, 03:25 AM
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Well I think you need to take ur sunnies off and look again.

The VCM Product I have captures up to 50000 frames, not 200 - good for 1-1/2 hours.

Copy and Paste in LS1Edit is truly abysmal - it doesnt follow default Windows programming practive and constantly causes crashes. Copy and Paste is the MOST common feature of any product I use for Windows.

LS1Edit rewrite takes forever when going through the OBDII port and has lost many a PCM. VCM writes are less than 30s and have never failed on me once.

All I can say is that I am VERY happy with VCM suite. Whats takes me 5 minutes to do in VCM takes me 60 minutes in Edit.

Both products fundamentally work. My preference is for usability, and VCM is by far the most user friendly of the lot.

That script you included in yuor post must be old.
Old 10-09-2004, 07:58 AM
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405HP_Z06 - Do you happen to have a source for that drivel? It's common internet practice when quoting something from another forum to include a link. For all we know, it's from Carputing's site from a year ago.

-Matt
(another very satisfied HPTuners customer)
Old 10-09-2004, 08:57 AM
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Looks like all the comaprisons made are reversed.
I have begun benchmarking and comparing the 2 PCM tuners products that function off a P/C.

I have used LS1edit for over 2 1/2 years and tuned 100's of F and Y bodies so I know it inside and out.

I began comparing it to Hptuners for I was told it was the best tuner product out there.

I find this untrue and in researching find again forums that have so called supporting vendors where hptuners is a sponsor and Ls1edit is not so its bashed and hptuners is being *** kissed without merit.
We know the difference between something that was thrown together and something that was actually worked on and pride was taken in the development of the software

Neither tuning program is well written, looks like young kids wrote it in visual basic but hptuners user interface is worse.
I cant beleive this. HPTuners interface is light years beyond Edit. I have both and can make a valid comparison. Edits buttons are big and bulky, archaic and have no where near the functionality of the Tuners software

Both have lousy user manuals but again I find hptuners even worse then LS1edit where even their manual stinks.
We have a functional manual that gives an explaination of what each table does...

In many cases hptuners does not have have any content for a PCM function or in many cases does not tell you what a value means, it could be in PSI, or KPA or even in.hg but they give you no clue as to which.
Anyone that can read will clearly see the tables ARE referenced by their values eg (IFR vs kpa and there are many more where the units arent a mystery)

Being LS1edit can read a flash file from hptuners I tuned a '99 C5 with it and then compared it with LS1edit and find hptuners is making changes that are for one function table when it really is not making changes to the correct table.
LOL this is absurd there have been plenty of ttimes i have read my PCM back out with edit to find the values werent what i set them at. Take the fans for instance mine were set in edit at 180-175 for both on temps when the pcm was re-read the values have changed to 178-173 not a big deal as it is a couple of degrees but what else isnt being stored and rtepresented correctly

Also I find in setting values that once saved they are not correct such as the AFR for Power Enrichment .
LOL I havent seen a problem yet

The so called PCM scanner hptuners comes with is a joke, it would not even meet the generic parameters for EPA much less all the GM parameters.
You have no real control of what you want to scan or record and even the graph mode can only look at 200 PCM cycles which is less then 5 minutes of engine run time.
The meters screen is also a joke, you cannot configure it or dicate what parameters you want in the meters.
You can log 50k frames and 24 bytes of information. I am pretty sure this will be changing in the near future. hmmmm does edit have a scanner that works

There is no way I would suggest anyone use that scanner to get a good PCM recording of all engine conditions.
YOu deifnately have other alternatives but what has edit offered in regards to a bug free scanner. Just check the mailing list and you will see

One of my customers bought hptuners for his '99 C5 and goes to use it to find hptuners sent him a version for a '98 C5 thus he now had to wait until that vendor sent him the right version so for a small vendor there should be no reason customers get the wrong product.
THeir customer service is great, they have a forum and are pretty active on their forum. Can you say that about the moderated edit mailing list
I have been monitoring their forum and found it interesting as people post complaining of bugs in the product that the vendor deletes those posts so others do not read them.
Since i havent found any bugs i dont monitor that forum..

In either tuning product its clear these vendors do a lot of guessing and hacking and their costs are crazy for most car owners would only use it a few times, their car is now tuned and no use to use it again, so for $450-500 they are really raking in the money and the quality of their proiducts are not very good and worse for those buying it who have zero experience in how to use such a product for neither vendor is willing to write a "how to tune" for frankly I do not think these 2 vendors know what the PCM functions really do much less be able to teach others on good tuning practices.
This person sure has room to criticize if both softwares are that bad build and use you own **** that meets YOUR requirements. Stop whining and do something about it. If you build it they will come.

This post isnt directed at the poster but the asshat that typed all that erroneous drivel. Carry on
Old 10-09-2004, 09:11 AM
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I saw this article go by, right about when HPTuners
was first released. The Help section started out very
light, it has been improved quite a lot, but being
written by folks who don't need to read the help
section, there are still things that many people
(including me, and I have used it a fair bit) could
use more explanation of. But the way it works is,
users have to ask specifically (and the forum is
very good about this with the developers answering
my detail questions in near real time; not quite
"live help" but the next best thing). Especially when
a lot of what people are really after is tuning advice
rather than "what is this"; the Help is constrained to
the tool details, not application of them.

As to the "written by kids in VB" part, the platform
makes no difference to me, I don't know or care. As
long as it runs right, and works well with other apps
(see cut-n-paste).

The main difference as I see it is, HPTuners is a "living"
product and its development team responds to its users
in hours or days on the little things, provides bug-fixes
fast when found, rolls that learning up into new release
features / fixes every couple of months, and thus keeps
getting better. Can't say about what LS1-Edit does, I
haven't used that product nor dealt with its customer
service.

If you can get an opinion off some of the others who're
now familiar with current LS1-Edit and current HPTuners
product versions, it would be more meaningful / less stale.
Or, get ahold of the original author of that post and see
what he thinks about the situation now, 1.4.x relative to
the 1.0.0 release the review was based upon.
Old 10-09-2004, 09:17 AM
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Interesting reading

Man are you guys, including magnus just asking for a big ole ugly bug to rear up its head. ITS SOFTWARE guys/gals and humans programmed the code. ( well unless your cyborgs or something ) Humans attempt to make flawless code, do be so cocky that your coding is perfect.
Yes I have a degree in computer science and math so I do know what I am talking about. I even work for a small computer company that makes lots of software and the occasional peice hardware

I would like to demo the hp product, but I already have ls1edit and was interested until I saw the price. comparable to ls1edit but maintenance and additional licenses is WAY higher.

User friendly - I am not as picky as most and don't really want it to look fluffy. hell if they both just read in csv files, as long as they work is all I care.

The flash time for ls1edit is not that bad with 1.5, not sure if they changed something but I flashed my gto the other day at the dyno many times and it took maybe 2 minutes each time.

Scanning tools, sorry folks but I would rather use EFILive or Autotap had both and stuck with efi, just my preference and it does 96 pids, not all real time but heck I can grab almost every pid available real time or at least level 2. unless battery voltage is what your wanting to monitor

If HP wants to send me a demo I will compare them
hell I will post the results on my web site with screen caps of each.

Is it cool that HP integrated the scanner, yup. good idea

BTW: EFI looks to be building a pcm editor also, the menu is there just not active.

Old 10-09-2004, 10:01 AM
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I have to hand it to HP Tuners. They have a top-notch product. I have used Edit, and Autotap (not efilive though), and there is no comparison. It is like comparing Windows XP to MS-DOS. Ok...maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.
Old 10-09-2004, 11:05 AM
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Thanks for all the input. This was taken from another forum, here's the link: http://www.crossedflags.com/nuke/htm...=118614#118614 , and was written on 25 Sep 04. I don't know what versions he was comparing. I just want to make sure I spend my money on the better product.
Old 10-09-2004, 05:01 PM
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Originally Posted by 405HP_Z06
Thanks for all the input. This was taken from another forum, here's the link: http://www.crossedflags.com/nuke/htm...=118614#118614 , and was written on 25 Sep 04. I don't know what versions he was comparing. I just want to make sure I spend my money on the better product.
Hmmm.... That was written by "Team ZR1", who also posts here on LS1Tech, if I recall correctly. He claims that he was using HPTuners V1.4.5. I'd like to see him in here to try to explain that post and why he wouldn't post that over here on this Forum.
Old 10-09-2004, 05:59 PM
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Originally Posted by monodax
405HP_Z06:
There is quite a bit more to the comparison than just what was stated in that thread. The general time for writes to the VCM is around 30 seconds but HP Tuners has “Flash Recovery”. This feature alone makes it worth double what they are charging.
Shhhhhh. Don't tell them that!

Originally Posted by Scooter70
Hmmm.... That was written by "Team ZR1", who also posts here on LS1Tech, if I recall correctly. He claims that he was using HPTuners V1.4.5. I'd like to see him in here to try to explain that post and why he wouldn't post that over here on this Forum.
v1.4.5....it's a beta. I think it is a bunch of B.S. trying to get people to consider buying edit again, but still, he is talking about a beta. Beta software is "use at your own risk". Always has been. Plus a lot of people cause their own problems when it comes to computers.
Old 10-09-2004, 06:13 PM
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TeamZr1 is the resident basher of software. Start a thread about EfilLive being better than Ease and he will be all over it like fly on ****...

He is also the assclown that has dyno numbers in his sig that were calculated by ease. DelTrq pid and he also tunes using the stock o2 sensors. That should say enough about this clown
Old 10-09-2004, 07:16 PM
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fwiw 1.4.5 is a stable shipping verison.

Really, it doesn't matter. 1.5 is so close you guys should be able to smell it by now.

Also, our user manual is available for download... AND... i would trust our PE #'s.
Old 10-09-2004, 08:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Magnus
fwiw 1.4.5 is a stable shipping verison.

Really, it doesn't matter. 1.5 is so close you guys should be able to smell it by now.

Also, our user manual is available for download... AND... i would trust our PE #'s.
Well poop. I didn't know that. Not that I believe him anyways, I have seen some of the new goods. I guess I'll go download that manual now...

*downloaded* Drats...I thought there might be some good info on the new stuff in there. Interesting that it does appear to be a manual for 1.4.5/1.4.6. I was hoping it was PDF so I could print the whole thing at work, er, I mean at home.

Last edited by Another_User; 10-09-2004 at 08:34 PM.
Old 10-09-2004, 08:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Scooter70
Hmmm.... That was written by "Team ZR1", who also posts here on LS1Tech, if I recall correctly. He claims that he was using HPTuners V1.4.5. I'd like to see him in here to try to explain that post and why he wouldn't post that over here on this Forum.
Very simple the bias here is the answer, you'll notice only hptuners gets marketed here and anyone defending any other product will get pissed on as already seen.

The fact is read LS1edit forums or listserver, very few bugs ever popup, now read hptuners forums and there is a ton of bugs, many get deleted so others cannot read them but the point is LS1edit, though also overpriced is far more stable and the claims hptuners help document is best thing since sliced bread has not counted how many functions after all these months still has no content.

Problem is - here people are one sided and cannot stand anyone from having another viewpoint and act like kids calling people ******** for not drinking the cool-aid, if carputing paid monthy fees to this forum the content would be much different but what is here is one product people sucking up on and a product not sponsered then must be junk.

hptuners had a competing product to benckmark their design, LS1edit did not so if any thing hptuner should have come out bug free and its not where in fact LS1edit is very stable and the BS that it is faster is totally a joke

People bitch it takes ONE time out of many uses of downloading taking a few minutes with LS1edit but then cannot even do a valid PCM relearn between tune value changes. Who gives a dick if it takes longer one time for after you do that your not downloading the flash each time you make a tune change.

Those claiming my content is hype better go count the bugs on hptuner forum.

As to costs, both products are way overpriced for the guys doing a few tunes to their cars, once tuned the product has no use.
Both products scanners are minimum at best and if you doubt that try and get it EPA certified.

I do not have to explain anything, that is my viewpionts and my right to have them but do not make it look like this is the place to have a real exchange of info on which product is best for you all damn well know this forum's bias and in most cases people never even used LS1edit and go around bashing it so take it like a man, hptuners is not better and should listen when others test it and what they see rather then the finger job,
so it does not cause you to tune faster and in some cases is not tuning tables it thinks it is, the interface is weak, try opening a table to full screen, then jump to another table and its resized back to smaller view, LS1edit then opens all tables to large once set and retains values you entered in the change field, hptuners does not.

In any case waste of time explaining here for all the responses will be kiss off, da da da and in the end hptuners will still pump out lots of bugs while if liked or not LS1edit is far more solld, once leaving this forum most use LS1edit and thus more understood in how to use it.

Whine and cry but I had 5 people do the same compare and we all came up with the same answer, LS1edit is better overall, the owners are money suckers but you are limited in product choice for full tuning abilites so choices are limited in who gets your money with high profit margins these vendors make from us.

Go read all the posts here where people asked which is better and in ALL cases you see a ton of LS1edit bashing and no one willing to give a balanced answer for if they do they are dead meat thus other forums you will find not everyone sucking up to hptuners for as with LS1edit they do not even give out their business phone number for reasons I can see why.

Anyone else have ***** in doing a real compare and having a viewpoint ?

Last edited by Team ZR-1; 10-09-2004 at 08:57 PM.
Old 10-09-2004, 09:19 PM
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LS1edit is far more solld, once leaving this forum most use LS1edit and thus more understood in how to use it.
Maybe you dont know how to use HP Tuners??
Old 10-09-2004, 09:23 PM
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Originally Posted by HumpinSS
TeamZr1 is the resident basher of software. Start a thread about EfilLive being better than Ease and he will be all over it like fly on ****...

He is also the assclown that has dyno numbers in his sig that were calculated by ease. DelTrq pid and he also tunes using the stock o2 sensors. That should say enough about this clown
How the hell would you know, you never met me, talked to me or even know what i have done.
BTW my car has been on a dyno several times and guess what the dyno values are not that correct either, hell with tire pressure changes I can change what dyno results AND the PCM deliver torque values have been close to what the dyno reported so NO the values might not be valid in your case, for it could be your scanner is flawed OR you screwed with the MAF and now PCM is being lied to for I hate to tell you but you can screw with calibration tables which take up about 90K of that flash but the rest of that flash has Adaptive strategy which cannot be touched at all and its going to do whatever GM programmed and not what you think your doing with the cal tables.

As to clown, youve been asking basic questions on "how do I tune" for months now on multi forums and to this day your still tuning the same car and you can play with the VE tables all you want is still going to leave you exactly where you are, improper tune yet acting as you know how to tune.
Hate to tell you but it is people doing things different that makes things in the end work correctly and as long as you believe your way is the only way you will never have a unbiased view.

Anyone wanting to discuss how each tuner product different and what the warts are fine, the kid crap calling names is waste of time and water off my back.

As to my tuning methods or performance values, my car this year ran 217 MPH, do the math it meets the performance numbers.
Old 10-09-2004, 09:41 PM
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FWIW, I have both LS1 Edit and HPT and IMHO HPT is light years ahead of LS1 Edit...

TeamZR1 bashes any scanning software that isn't EASE so I generally take anything he has to say about scanning software w/a grain of salt...

LS1 Edit killed 1 of my PCMs (well Tech 2 was able to recover, but still cost me 50 bux for that and then another 100 bux so I could buy a spare PCM incase LS1 Edit killed my PCM Again) ... HumpinSS killed a couple of PCMs with edit ... Havne't heard of this happening with HPT

the Help file with HPT is superior to anything I ever got with LS1 Edit ... not to mention that HPT actually makes themselves known and helps customers (compared to carputing ...let's make as much money as we can , let's charge a ton for an additional PCM license plus a 50 dollar handling fee ... oh our product killed your PCM? no problem send it in with 50 bux and we'll try to fix it) ... the help file explains every table very well...


HPT is simply a superior product compared to LS1 Edit, the scanner is a very nice piece that does make tuning considerably easier ... the 1.5 cable and software will have many very cool features as well ...

So while Team ZR1 is entitled to his opinion ... I really think his opinion is wrong ... based on my experiences between the two (I had LS1 Edit since it came out for 2000 cars) HPT is simply a superior product, easy to use, well laid out, excellent scanner, quick AND SAFE reads and writes ... and excellent support

As for ls1 edit being more stable... my HPT has never crashed on me... I have not experienced any bugs w/the scanning or editing software... and I have not heard of a single instance where HPT leaves a PCM inoperable... but I know many that have had an LS1 Edit tuned PCM become... a paperweight ...
Old 10-09-2004, 10:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Team ZR-1
Problem is - here people are one sided and cannot stand anyone from having another viewpoint and act like kids calling people ******** for not drinking the cool-aid, if carputing paid monthy fees to this forum the content would be much different but what is here is one product people sucking up on and a product not sponsered then must be junk.

well... think what you will... but based on my experiences with carputing ... even if they were to sponsor this forum ... I would not reccomend them... because they are simply an inferior software ....

From what I see... anyone that doesn't agree with you is wrong ... if you don't agree with Team ZR1 then you are sucking up and biased right?
Old 10-09-2004, 10:59 PM
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Whatever Team ZR-1. I own both Edit and hptuners and I can tell you right now hptuners is a better product. Sposor or no sponsor.


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