Im ready to buy a tuner

[superdav]

Ive got my 6.0 and 4l80 for my swap and I want to tune myself.
I don't care about bells and whistles I just want something that tunes my swap motor/trans for my 84
The only laptop I have is a MacBook and I'm not buying a windows laptop just for this but I do have a windows desktop that I never use and would dedicate that to the tuner if I need a PC

Can I do this effectively without a PC?
Which one is the best for a budget?
Do they do the TCM too or is that separate?
The reason I ask is because donor is a Yukon that can still be driven, do I need to plug it in and get the info before doing anything? Or can I just wait until the swap is done to worry about the tune?
Regardless I'm kinda anxious to get a new toy

[BR3W CITY]

I prefer HP Tuners, just based on familiarity and forum support.
I believe it may be doable through one of those PC Virtual Machine applications for MAC, but you may need to doublecheck that.

You can wait till after to tune it for the mostpart.

[Houston Ben]

I'm with br3w, wait till after. I don't know if you have ever looked at the hp interface, but I just bought it and it is way over my head. I need a hp tuners for dummies book!

[davepl]

HPTuners is the way to go UNLESS you can find a vendor that offers prepackaged tunes for whatever engine you happen to be running.

Coming up with the tune is way harder than operating the software. That's like learning to operate a typewriter vs writing a novel.... one's just the tool.

[superdav]

Originally Posted by davepl

HPTuners is the way to go UNLESS you can find a vendor that offers prepackaged tunes for whatever engine you happen to be running.

Coming up with the tune is way harder than operating the software. That's like learning to operate a typewriter vs writing a novel.... one's just the tool.

since the donor was a 2003 yukon those are basically the tunes I'm looking for, correct? and those shared tunes you can find on the forums can be used to start with? or am I gonna have to find a local tuner?
I should clarify. Coming up with my own tune is not the first step for me but maybe down the line, I am pretty handy with some auto cad.
Ive never worked on anything without a carburetor until this came along so the tuning stuff is totally new to me.

[t300]

i bought hptuners pro. works fine in Windows 7 inside Fusion running on macbook.

['63GENIII]

I was going to go with a tuner but in an effort to save mainly time (and money), I sent my 'black box" to a guy in San Diego. He did great with the black box but now I'm looking to do the 0411 swap (the PCM that I think you may have) so that I can "rent" his data logger, get some recording time on the 0411 and then send the logger and PMC back to him to get it really dialed in.

Im not looking to keep messing with my tune though. If you're looking to keep playing with different tunes, this may not be the route for you.

[StingRay]

I run Parallels on my mac and run HP Tuners on XP inside that. Works great.

[Hart_Rod]

Dave - I think you will like HPTuners, it has a nice interface and a lot of good features to it. And tuning on a Gen 3 motor is easier than tuning on a Gen 4/5 setup. But, like I told HoustonBen in another thread, there's a learning curve. The HPTuners forum and LS1Tech has a lot of good info that will help in this process.

[superdav]

A co-worker is going to get an HPtuner for his new brodozer. I'm going to wait until I need it before I buy one, probably next year before I get that far since I don't need to capture anything while the donor is still running. I'm going to play with the tuner while he's learning too. Ive been checking out those forums and they do have lots of info.