HP Tuners Tutorials

[Gregski]

this is what my default Speed Limiter settings looked like before making changes

[Gregski]

suggested changes

in case you are wondering what that Speed Limiter Hyst means, Hyst ie Hysteresis is a fancy way of saying lag time, as in how long below our threshold of 255 we need to drop in order for fuel to flow again, in this case we have to be 2 miles per hour below it, we'll never reach our top speed so we don't worry about any of that

[Gregski]

and as always we name our file accordingly and save it

[Gregski]

all that's left to do now is write the new changes to the PCM

[Duncan K]

Thanks so much for these great tutorials!! You have inspired me to take the plunge, just ordered HP Tuners from Summit. Looking forward to being able to make changes on my own

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by Duncan K

Thanks so much for these great tutorials!! You have inspired me to take the plunge, just ordered HP Tuners from Summit. Looking forward to being able to make changes on my own

Thank you, and good job, you can do it!

[Gregski]

HP Tuners - Part VII - Set Fuel Tank Capacity.

This is a benign change that I just like to do for the sake of completion. Most likely our trucks fuel tanks (16 gallons in my case) won't match the donor trucks fuel tank capacity (25 gallons). So I like to make this change in HP Tuners although we use our stock gauges to monitor fuel levels and not the PCM output but there are some third party gauges that do offer Fuel Level readings, like my Edge Insight CTS2.

1. On your laptop launch the Editor. Open the file we saved in Step 3 of Part VI. (Our last saved file is always our starting point).

2. Make changes in the Editor, this time we will make changes only to the Fuel Tank/Gauge Capacity settings found under the Fuel Sys tab. Enter 16 in the box next to Capacity and Primary Capacity, using your fuel tank capacity numbers of course. Again this may not do anything, unless we have a body module or an after market gauge, but I just sleep better at night knowing the PCM knows the proper size of my tank, ha ha.

3. Save the changes you made to a new file and call it something like "13 - Set Fuel Tank Capacity"

4. In your truck, hook up your HP Tuner to the OBDII port and then your USB cable to your laptop, turn the key to the ON position, launch the Editor program, and simply write the new changes to the PCM.

Note: sometimes you have to write the entire tune file to the PCM, sometimes it is perfectly happy with only writing what's changed, more on this later.

More words with each pic below.

[Gregski]

a little visual aid to highlight what we will be doing, setting the fuel level

[Gregski]

we start off by launching the HP Tuners VCM Editor where we will be making our changes

[Gregski]

Under the Fuel Sys tab enter 16 in the box next to Capacity and Primary Capacity, using your fuel tank capacity numbers.

[Gregski]

let's name the new file something that will make sense to us six month's from now: "13 - Set Fuel Tank Capacity"

[Gregski]

we pop into our trucks and write the changes using our laptops and the HP Tuners dongles, with the key in the ON position, truck does not have to be running

[aknovaman]

I see in the first post you refence a section on
Section A - Disable the Oxygen Sensors (O2s) Codes

Why in the world would you do that? WANABE tuners do that because its a hack and a crutch for not knowing how to tune the necessary tables to make it run correctly. Doing so can make the car run poorly when weather conditions are different than when the tune was done. They put it in open loop so they only tune the open loop AFR table and because they don't know how to tune with them enabled.

Also you fuel gage adjustment procedure is lacking any adjustment for the range of the A/D converter tables. If you change the fuel tank size, the A/D tables must also be corrected.

As you said: just blindly follow along what some knucklehead is telling us to do on the InterWebs

[loosenutz]

There are 4 oxygen sensors on an LS series engine. They are talking about disabling the rear 2 which are not used in any fuel calculations. The rear 2 are checking that the catalytic converters are present and working properly. It's fairly common to delete the rear 2 in engine swaps.

Originally Posted by aknovaman

I see in the first post you refence a section on
Section A - Disable the Oxygen Sensors (O2s) Codes

Why in the world would you do that? WANABE tuners do that because its a hack and a crutch for not knowing how to tune the necessary tables to make it run correctly. Doing so can make the car run poorly when weather conditions are different than when the tune was done. They put it in open loop so they only tune the open loop AFR table and because they don't know how to tune with them enabled.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by aknovaman

I see in the first post you refence a section on
Section A - Disable the Oxygen Sensors (O2s) Codes

Why in the world would you do that?

We disable the codes for the rear two Oxygen sensors only, as they do not exist. I realize someone just beat me to the answer, but you are hitting pretty hard so I wanted to defend myself personally especially when there is a misunderstanding.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by aknovaman

Also you fuel gage adjustment procedure is lacking any adjustment for the range of the A/D converter tables. If you change the fuel tank size, the A/D tables must also be corrected.

I do not offer any fuel gauge adjustment procedures, as we do not rely on the stock fuel gauge in our LS Swaps, we keep the OEM fuel gauges or run some aftermarket ones directly connected to the fuel sending unit.

[aknovaman]

Guess I must have missed the part that says REAR. Also, yes I know that.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by aknovaman

Guess I must have missed the part that says REAR. Also, yes I know that.

Yup, ha ha, no worries mate.

[Gregski]

HP Tuners - Part VIII - Turn Off Catalyst Startup Correction & Over Temp Protection

When a stock Vortec truck is fired up timing advance is altered for 80 seconds to help warm up the cats faster. We don't need the PCM messing with our idle timing during warm up especially since we are not running cats.

Likewise, the rear O2 sensors would aid in the calculation of exhaust temps and provide feedback to the PCM weather or not to richen the fuel to protect the cats from over heating, since we are not running rear O2 sensors, nor cats, there is no reason for the PCM to alter our fueling to protect something that isn't there.

Having said that, please do not turn off Catalyst Protection if you have cats!

1. On your laptop launch the Editor. Open the file we saved in Step 3 of Part VII. (Our last saved file is always our starting point).

2. Make changes in the Editor, this time we will only make two changes both related to the cats. Start by going to Engine \ Fuel \ Temperature Control \ Catalyst Protection and change the pulldown to Disabled. Next go to Engine \ Spark \ Advance \ Catalyst Heating click on the Startup Correction button which will bring up the table and zero it all out, every cell should say "0".

3. Save the changes you made to a new file and call it something like "14 - Turn Off Cat Protection"

4. In your truck, hook up your HP Tuner to the OBDII port and then your USB cable to your laptop, turn the key to the ON position, launch the Editor program, and simply write the new changes to the PCM.

Note: sometimes you have to write the entire tune file to the PCM, sometimes it is perfectly happy with only writing what's changed, more on this later.

More words with each pic below.

[Gregski]

we start off by launching the HP Tuners VCM Editor where we will be making our changes

[Gregski]

Start by going to Engine \ Fuel \ Temperature Control \ Catalyst Protection and change the pulldown to Disabled. The other settings shouldn't matter once this feature is Disabled.

[Gregski]

Next go to Engine \ Spark \ Advance \ Catalyst Heating click on the Startup Correction button which will bring up the table and zero it all out, every cell should say "0".

You can do it manually jumpinng from cell to cell with values different from 0 and typing 0, or you can click in the upper left corner of the table to select the entire table (similar to Excel), then use the menu bar to type 0 and press the = sign to zero them all out at once, you decide, ha ha.

the colors in the table will change to show you what's changes, but after you save it it should go back to being all one color

[Gregski]

as always Save the changes you made to a new file and call it something like "14 - Turn Off Cat Protection" something that will trigger your memory months from now

[Gregski]

then in out trucks we write the changes using our laptops and the HP Tuners dongles, with the key in the ON position, truck does not have to be running

and another change has been done successfully

[DWilbur]

Thanks for posting this info. I spent the last 2 days reading through this thread and I'm thinking about doing it my self. Just got my truck back a couple week ago from paint jail. I installed a 2004 5.3 after have it rebuilt NV4500 trans and Atlas T-case. Engine and wiring out of a 2004 Suburban.