Hand held programmers?
 

Can I use a hand held programmer like the diablosport on a LS swap? On a stand alone system with no body control module, I'm not sure.

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

You don't need a BCM with genIII swaps, but I don't have any idea what motor your looking at/have.

Handheld tuners are a waste of time. The "canned" tunes they come with are ballparks at best, and usually neutered to minimize risk on the tuners end. While it is physically possible to use tuners like those, its not encouraged by most. Handheld tuners were the best option before full scale tuning suite's were readily available.

Their popularity also exists because they come out for more "unusual" vehicles, which don't traditionally have larger followings or specialty tuners. Now that CRM tuning allows for a mix of traditional tuning and handheld flashing, its bridged the gap a bit.

Still for the money, a real tune is worth it IMO.

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

I'm building up an LQ4. Trans is stock 4L80e. 3.73 gears. This is going in my 1985 C/10. I know I'll need a custom tune for my unusual build combination.

The last engine I built (gen III Hemi) it took 15 dyno pulls to get dialed in and it required a Diablosport predator to transfer and save the tune. If I don't have to buy a Predator for this LS build that is good.

I appreciate all of your advice and knowledge on these swaps.

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

Your tune will most likely be done with HP Tuners, or possibly EFI Live. Either of those put the "Burden" of the tool on the tuner, not the customer. The tuner owns the cables/box and software on his laptop, and plugs into your ECM, directly "Flashing" a tune to the computer. You don't need any hardware yourself, nor anything to be mounted or hooked up for it to work.

Most of the tuning market (literally 85%+ for GM) now uses these software-suite style tuners in place of the old handheld flash tuners.

CRM tuning that I mentioned before is basically using a software suite (much like how HPT works) except its distributed to the tuners to read/write the data, then saved into a file, then given to the customer, then the customer flashes it. It adds steps, its a pain, and the only benefit is that you and your tuner don't have to be in the same place.*

On top of that, HP is introducing new features that better allow for live/remote tuning, and Haltech (big in the import world, made in australia) actually have complete tuning-via-wifi...which scares the hell out of me.

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

I am interested in this same topic but in my case I just want to turn on/off radiator fans at 190 and 200 degrees respectively. I also want a decent tune to benefit of the dual exhaust, x-pipe, CAI, towing, etc and I don't mind using 91 oct. I am not looking to squeeze the last 0.01 HP out of my truck so to speak so dyno and a $500 tune (plus) is out of the question.

My truck has a 5.3L fully rebuilt engine with a NV4500 gearbox and 4:10 rear-end. The intake and computer is from a 2004 Pontiac GTO. What is a decent hand-held tuner for my needs?

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

"Remote Tuning" why does that scare you Br3w?

Re: Hand held programmers?
 

For the same reason that I disable OnStar, homelink etc. Its just one more massive data risk.

I'd have to be really comfortable with how they are dealing with latency/buffer cache issues over wifi/cellular. If I can see firsthand that there are safeguards against a corrupt packet (i.e. some sort of data check), causing errors, then maybe I'd warm up to the idea. Plus I don't like the idea from a liability standpoint as a tuner, there are huge grey-areas.