HP Tuners / EFI Live Updates

[Gimpster]

I think I've made it pretty apparent in many posts that I enjoy self-tuning my vehicles. I'm going to assume perhaps some of you do or might enjoy it too. So maybe we can keep a running thread until we have this ability.

For those who don't cruise the HP Tuners forum, they added a boot loader to the recent betas to read-out E78 PCM's (what the 1.4T uses). The E83 guys (1.8N/A) are out of luck for now it seems. That sucks, but I honestly doubt they would've sold many E83 credits anyway.

It looks like the Cruze guys have been sending in reads, but they haven't received any Sonic to my knowledge yet.

I, like a jackass, sold my HP Tuners last year thinking I wouldn't ever need it again. I'm having a serious internal debate on buying it again, because obviously theres no guarantee even with the reads they'll add E78 support. Not sure about you guys, but $500 is a lot of money to me, especially if its a door stop. I'm especially hesitant given all of the rainbows and unicorns they've been chasing on the Dodge support.

EFI Live also has support to read out the E78, and tune 2011 E78 Cruze at the minimum. They also haven't received a Sonic calibration to look at, and their product is an even higher initial investment.

I've tried to find local-to-me folks who'll pull the reads, but I've had no luck so far. The one place I found who owns it wants me to pay to do a simple read, and that isn't going to happen.

So anyway, that's the state of the union as of today.

 

[SonicChris]

I'm not a fan of doing my own tuning. Maybe if I was building something more aggressive not intended for daily use I would feel different. As for HP, they've never seem to have had a problem cracking G.M. tuning in the past. I have a friend with a turbo Monte Carlo that swears by them, but other than G.M. cars I've heard they're awful. Of course the Dodge guys hate them, but I know a few Mustang guys with HP horror stories as well.

 

[turbotimmy]

EFI Live also has support to read out the E78, and tune 2011 E78 Cruze at the minimum. They also haven't received a Sonic calibration to look at, and their product is an even higher initial investment.

I've tried to find local-to-me folks who'll pull the reads, but I've had no luck so far. The one place I found who owns it wants me to pay to do a simple read, and that isn't going to happen.

I was in contact with EFI support not to long ago and they told me they recieved tons of reads for both the E78 and E83. They are currently in development of support for this vehicle.

As far as the guy who wants to charge you for a read, remind him that it costs him nothing to read a ECM, only to tune.

 

[Eric Smit]

I've got some buddies in a car club here with Cobalt SS/TCs and they love HPT and EFI Live. They also hate trifecta, so to each their own.


-Eric Smit

 

[Gimpster]

SonicChris, thats not a bad thing to not want to tune. Some of us do though, and why we have interest in what HPT/EFI Live come up with.

I don't hate Trifecta at all, to the contrary I don't think without Trifecta HPT ever would've released additional LNF support. Just wanted to get that out of the way I wish Trifecta had a self tunable option, but alas thats just not where his product is. It makes me wish I still had an LNF, just not surrounded by a Cobalt.

If EFI Live has a bunch of E78 and E83 Sonic reads, then I'd say we're close. When did you get that information? 2-3 weeks ago when I emailed with their support, they had no Sonic reads at all.

And yah, the local EFI Live tuning shop knows reads are free, he's just a greedy bastard.

I keep teetering on this because I owned HPT so long. I like the VCM suite, but the virtual VE stuff EFI Live can do is pretty damn cool. If EFI Live officially supports the Sonic, its game on I think. I wouldn't be surprised of EFI Live was first, as there seems to be a decent amount of Cruzes using it.

As to HPT.... yah their Ford support is somewhat interesting. On the Dodge, and I mean no offense to Dodge ownes, I really don't get why they'd even bother anymore. Maybe I'm totally misreading the market, but so much time has passed I think that products time has come and gone?

I'm usually a really patient guy, but I REALLY wanna crank it up on this car.

 

[turbotimmy]

I actually got an email from them when I sent in my E-78 read. This was the reply,

"This OS is with development already. We have a ton of calibrations presently. The 2012 was a major change to the 2011 and earlier, so is going to take a bit more effort than normal to add support for them. At this stage I’m not able to give you an expectation for when support will be available."

That email was recieved on January 24. Hope this helps.

 

[Gimpster]

Cool.

I got this reply from one of the EFI Live folks yesterday on their forum too:

Thanks Gimpster, we are good with reads on E78 & E83. Should be completing mapping for those up to and including 2012 models within a week or two.


... so wow, we could be pretty close here. Sound like the 1.8 people will even be gettin' the lovin'.

 

[BNRacing]

Yeah the SS/TC crowd hate trifecta. Mostly due to a certain person on the forum that tunes using hp tuners and sells the tune for a really cheap price. I won't say who but I will say that I personally have 4 customers with LNFs that went to that guys hp tune and trash talked trifecta only to break stuff. Next thing I know they are all back to Trifecta. To each his own. HP Tuners is a great product in the hands of an experienced tuner but you never know just how aggressive the tune is until something breaks and you have to foot the repair bill. I have HP Tuners myself and use it on a few cars that I'm comfortable with though.

That all being said though, I know a few guys that can do amazing things with hp tuners

 

[Sonny@bnr]

one very credible tuner of hpt, was banned because a certain someone who tunes htp for basically free is friends with the admins on that site and told them that tuner x should not be charging what he charges to tune the cobalts.
so tuner x was banned forever and just said f it i dont wanna deal with the imaturity anymore.
can you beleive that a tuner who was a vendor was banned because someone thought he charged to much :-/
what he charged was fair from my stand point and he was charging for what he thought his time was worth.
no forum should dictate a price,
if your price for a service or item is to high then nobody will buy it and you will go out of buisness.

pretty much allot of ccs tuners have left because they cant beat someone who uses hpt and tunes everybody for free almost :/

 

[Eric Smit]

sonny, I literally face palmed.


-Eric Smit

 

[Gimpster]

Well, no matter who I end up going with... HPT or EFI Live, I know I'll be willing to post any help/findings I make ... always have / always will. I was pretty deeply involved with the freeware OBDI Honda and OBDI Mitsubishi ******* efforts. ECU/PCM tinkering has always been a hobby for me... and is the most interesting part of the car to me. I did a lot of ******* on oldschool HKS VPC's and the like too. I wish I still had the time and the tools to dink with OBDII stuff, but once it got past simple ROM's I kinda lost interest. It was fun times staying up till 5:30-6 and suddenly making a discovery.

I'm not trying to run anyone out of a decent living, but at the same time I'm a fan of not holding back what I know. This thread was never meant to be an us vs. them type thing, so hopefully nobody feels that way.

Will I be able to get every last ounce of power out of my car? Well... no.. but thats on purpose too. I've destroyed enough engines over my life trying to run on the ragged edge!

Woops

 

[Brandon]

Ill definitely be keeping an eye on your efforts with efi or hp tuners, as i work with a few guys who are into efilive and studying it for their trucks. I would like to get it when the support comes out even if its just to disable the power learndown and lower the electronic thermostat/ raise the boost and trim the ve tables etc.

 

[GJohnson7385]

How much hp/tq do you think you will see with a tune?

 

[bill@hptuners]

Guys were finishing up the master def for the E78's basically this is the file that we base all future files off of, we've got several E78 reads thus far, most of which are from trucks. I think we only received a couple of cruze reads and no sonic reads thus far. This really isn't suprising though because everything seems to be a "build it and they will come" feeling in today's day and age. One of our tunershops had access to a sonic the other day so they were able to send us the vin info which we've added into the newest software so hopefully someone will get us a read from one shortly. In any event once the first def is done they are all technically supported and we'll add them to our supported page. I would expect to have E78 stuff ready by the middle of April.

-Bill

 

[bill@hptuners]

How much hp/tq do you think you will see with a tune?

Almost every turbo application(from the factory) has a huge upside, with cobalt TC's guys were making 40+hp & 70+ ftlb with tuning alone...on a 1.4 I could see 20/40 being a reasonable scaled guesstimate. Really depends on how much room there is for improvement in stock form...

 

[Gimpster]

Bill,

I appreciate the reply to this thread. I hate to admit it, but I'm one of the "build it, and they will come" folks these days. I just can't bring myself to lay down 500-800 bucks to either company until some official support is released. That said I also can't handle sending money off for a canned tune, catch 22 huh?

I'd love to shower you guys with reads, but I don't know anyone in my area sitting on a VCM Suite anymore. It seems like all of the GM gearheads in my area passed on, or got married and sold their cars.

Given some time, I can assure you HPTuners would benefit from supporting the Sonic. As I said earlier, I would MUCH rather it be you than EFI Live if I had a choice. Both are nice products, but I'm more accustomed to your product.

 

[wormdigger]

Hey bill. I'll give you a sonic read out. Tell me where to send it

 

[Flyer]

Guys were finishing up the master def for the E78's basically this is the file that we base all future files off of, we've got several E78 reads thus far, most of which are from trucks. I think we only received a couple of cruze reads and no sonic reads thus far. This really isn't suprising though because everything seems to be a "build it and they will come" feeling in today's day and age. One of our tunershops had access to a sonic the other day so they were able to send us the vin info which we've added into the newest software so hopefully someone will get us a read from one shortly. In any event once the first def is done they are all technically supported and we'll add them to our supported page. I would expect to have E78 stuff ready by the middle of April.

-Bill

I know of one read from a Sonic you got.

BTW, new Sonic owner here. Orange 1LTZ hatch 1.4 6MT. Del'd to dealership Wed with 2 miles on it. This car is short on power IMO, but a blast to drive.

As a side note, the order was placed on 2/7. Built on 3/14 and Del 3/28.

 

[Flyer]

Hey bill. I'll give you a sonic read out. Tell me where to send it

support@hptuners.com

That's where mine went and was acknowledged.

 

[GJohnson7385]

I know of one read from a Sonic you got.

BTW, new Sonic owner here. Orange 1LTZ hatch 1.4 6MT. Del'd to dealership Wed with 2 miles on it. This car is short on power IMO, but a blast to drive.

As a side note, the order was placed on 2/7. Built on 3/14 and Del 3/28.

Out of all the cars in its class, it is the fastest one....You do realize it is made for fuel economy not speed.