K guys don't kill me all at once but I'm not the most computer savy ****. I finally got my HPTuner in today and now that I have it I'm kinda worried I might F something up. I got of few questions if you could humor me. And yes I did read the manual and did my searches.

1. Anytime I want to do something with the tuner do I need to read the VCM everytime? Save it too???

2. Where do I start?? Do I go to scanner and just drive the car around for 30 minutes or so first?

3. Once you make the changes you just hit save and thats that??

4. When making changes the inginition just needs to be on or does the car have to be running??

5. Is there a failsafe in here so I don't blow my car up?

I have a hell of a lot more questions but first things first. I don't know what I'd do without this board. I figure if I can reseach and build a 12 second motor without knowing jack about cars, I can learn this. (I Hope)

thanks all. Please don't rag me

 

1. Read it once to get your base, save that base file. Then you can just modify that file or any children spawned off it ... no need to reread your PCM each time (on 98s this may be a good idea, but on 99+ no need to)
2. Depends what you want to do... but yes, getting a good scan with various driving is a good start... key thing is learn to read the histogram and chart... I used to always export to excel and read a Csv file... now that I understand the chart and histogram... it's MUCH easier to tune off of these
3. Make your changes, hit save... give it a new file name ... then you just write to your PCM... 27 seconds later you're ready to go
4. Key in the Run position, it won't work if the car's running (it'll tell you this too)
5. There is a fail safe so that it's nearly impossible to mess your PCM up (even if you lose power during a write, you should be able to recover w/out incident)... however there is no fail safe for if you say disabled your knock sensors and put 50* timing at WOT in Make small changes , log and see what they do...

The sticky above has a ton of useful info on tuning the cars w/HPT. ALso read through the entire manual ...alot of it will be over your head at first, but the more you work with it the more you'll start to understand...

1.

 

0. become computer savy. you will be storing a million files of different types, you will be emailing them, posting screenshots, etc. resistance is futile, you will become a geek
1. no. keep track of them, KEEP THE STOCK ONE AROUND! keep good notes, and by that i mean log style, with dates, times, temperatures, pressures, etc.
most importantly, keep notes on what you changed and why. make sure that the names of logs match the names of bins, this way you'll know what settings were influencing which results. trust me, this is a big one.
2. go log. normal driving, highway criuzing, few wot runs, whatever. go through logs step by step. on the beginning it won't mean much, but with time you'll go back and have few 'ahhhh, so that's how it works!' moments. but at least you'll be able to spot the patterns, so you will connect the dots faster.
3. not that easy. once saved, you gotta flash your pcm. stay away from that for a while, there's exactly a crapload and a half of things you can learn without actually changing anything. when you change things, go one change at the time. if you don't, it's a guessing game, not science.
4. car supposed to be on 'accessory' mode (IIRC) to flash the pcm. once done flashing, 'writing pcm' should change to 'connection idle' turn off the car, give it few secs, start the car, enjoy your new config.
5. one thing at the time. keep stock config. keep organized. keep history. keep notes. read, reread, ask questions, the tuning folk here is usually pretty friendly, as long as you're not lazy and try to have others do your homework for you.

good luck, you're in for a LONG trip. i've been at it intensly since January and i'm still not done.

 

Horist,

First I want to thank you for all your efforts on here. We all appreciate all the work you have done and the help you have given all us newbies

Just an observation..........in replying to this post...........you fell into that trap of using language thats impossible for a newbie to computing let alone HP tuners to understand...................I quote:
"Then you can just modify that file or any children spawned off it"
If I had not been involved in computers for the last 3oyears plus.........I would be saying........WTFO...............is he talking about aliens............LOL
Gotta go real easy with the language.....................
Thanks again....................
Enjoy and have fun.......................

 

No ****. I agree a 100% Thanks A LOT Horist. You kept me calm when the Tuner didn't come in and now your the first one to answer. I can't tell how much it helps meatheads like us. You too RedHard. thanks.

 

Mine gets here this week....I can't wait! Thanks for all the help!

 

I got my car dyno tuned with HP Tuners. I just want to fine tune the part throttle and cold start. Can I do this without a wide band?

 

Yes you dont need a wideband for part throttle and cold start. Part throttle can be achieved by just logging the LTFTs, STFTs and tweaking the VE table.

Dixit