HPtuners a novice point of view

[suburban99]

A little background, I am 60 years old, and a ticket Millwright...my Dad was a mechanic and I have always had my head under the hood of something. I am not a Auto Technician. I have done 2 LS Swaps, first one a 62 c10 5.3/4L60E. My current 72K10 6.0/4L60E ..I have sent my ECM's out to be programmed for the last few years.
I wanted to be able to do my own programming to better understand the whole system. So I thought about a tuning program. Went with Hptuners...I watched about 10 youtube videos and finally pulled the trigger. I am very happy with it. I have done segment swaps, and adjusted shift points, and idle settings. I know that's just scratching the surface of what it's capable of but as a novice user I am very satisfied.

[Willie Makeit]

Same situation here as well and as with anything I have found the more I use the software the more comfortable I am with it. Best advice I have rec'd so far from guys with a lot more experience is to always backup your tune before making any changes. ALWAYS.

[AussieinNC]

Ditto on backing your current tune up before making any changes....

So easy to restore if the backup is available...no backup...usually means back to stock tune then start again....

[lutronjim]

Maybe a good thread to ask this - I have a GM 'connect and cruise' in my 70 C10 with the 65E tranny. Ever since new the transmission sometimes flairs going into 3rd. It had to be accelerating at least 30% for to slip - regular driving everything is fine.

Had to Chevy performance dealer when under warranty and they couldn't duplicate problem. Of course their rules were I could drive with them - BS.

I have read several articles on this and a couple say that it might be the ECM.
Seems sometimes it would intermediately be slow to release the solenoid causing it to slip and replacing the ECM solved the problem.

To complicate the 'connect and cruise' has a separate computer for the transmission which of course talks to the ECM.

ECM's are not that expensive so I was wondering if HPtuner could backup the current tune and 'push' it down to a replacement ECM. I don't want to lose the current tune - GM has it so the torque comes in at a fairly low rpm and damn near flat till it tails at a high rpm love it.

[MDPotter]

I'm glad I got HPTuners. I did a cam swap and trans swap and at that point wasn't even considering getting HPTuners so I sent it off for a mail order tune. It ran great but I had been reading about HPTuners and really wanted to be able to get into my PCM and see how it's running. The tune is actually pretty good judging by the fuel trims, so I haven't messed with it yet. But I will spend some time dialing in things to get fuel trims closer.

If anyone hasn't already, check out the HPTuners tutorial by gregski in this LSx Swaps section. It gave me the comfort to buy HPTuners and make minor changes.

I've plugged it into my 2016 and recorded some data just to see how things work.

[Heavymetl]

The good news is that if you successfully tune with HPTuners (especially idle, throttle follower, and cold startup) then moving to an aftermarket EFI system is a piece of cake.

I used HpTuners for several years, but due to price points and ease of use, and excellent results, Holley EFI is taking over the LS world.

There's even an open-source Speeduino setup coming soon!

[joesscamaro]

I’m a complete rookie when it comes to tuning also. I’ve been going back and forth between trying my hand with HPtuners or the Holley terminator set-up. It all seems overwhelming at this point, due to zero experience in the tuning game.