Canned Tuners ??

dieselfan1 · December 26, 2019

I'm lifting my 18 5.3 6spd. 9" lift 37" tires. Regearing down the road but not right away so I'm looking for a little something.

School me on canned tuners.

Are they traceable at the dealer? I'm looking for something to do tire size correction, speedometer?, maybe change shift points?, maybe grab a few ponies. I'm not expecting much but with my Borla exhaust it has to help a little, right?

Some are big buck . Are they worth it?

I'm sure a lot of guys will say get a custom tune (Lew, etc.).

I'm not sending my ecu away and lose my warranty so forget that.

What's the best bang for buck?

Reit38 · December 26, 2019

Is there much difference in handheld tuner vs going thru gm mechanic and paying to do the unlock and changing everything with laptop?

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Pt187 · December 26, 2019

My personal experience with canned tunes. Didn’t really notice much as far as power. Vehicles get a little more responsive.

they are nice to be able to make some changes. Especially for me removing the top speed governor. That drives me crazy.

I really doubt you will gain much with the borla.

as far as dealer, some say they can tell it was tuned and some say they can’t. I’ve always had a good relationship with my dealer and service manager and never had an issue. Even times when they knew very well the vehicle had serious mods and was tuned, they warrantied the repairs. Again YMMV.

my personal opinion on this is the way to do it right is if you have a really good local

tuner and they dyno and road tune it. That don’t sound like an option for you because of warranty though so get a handheld and make the few changes you are wanting and call it a day.

dieselfan1 · December 26, 2019

I already have the Borla exhaust on the truck and they say it's around 7 hp gain. Definitely not enough to notice. But with maybe 10-12hp out of a tuner now we're at around 17-20 hp. I don't know again probably not noticable. Mostly the tire size and shift points would be nice to fix after the lift and tires.

CamGTP · December 26, 2019

Any change to the computers stock calibration will be caught, if they want to look for it. It doesn't matter if it was HP Tuners, Diablo, SCT or whatever.

HP Tuners like I have would be a minimum of $200 just for the credits to unlock the computer. Then whatever a person or shop charged to it.

Nitrousbird · December 27, 2019

Any tune change can be traced, period.

There is no reason to send your ECU off, even for a custom tune. Only the TCU needs sent out to be unlocked on the '18's. I wouldn't waste my money on a handheld; get HP Tuners, do it yourself on a laptop and be done with it.

CamGTP · December 27, 2019

The T42/T43 TCM on the 6L80e do not need to be sent out.

Only the T87A in the 8 speed and 10 speeds do.

I live probably 5 minutes from this guy. I could help him. He could even buy the software/hardware/credits and I'd show him exactly what to do if he wanted to have it for future use.

dieselfan1 · December 27, 2019

1 hour ago, CamGTP said:

The T42/T43 TCM on the 6L80e do not need to be sent out.

Only the T87A in the 8 speed and 10 speeds do.

I live probably 5 minutes from this guy. I could help him. He could even buy the software/hardware/credits and I'd show him exactly what to do if he wanted to have it for future use.

I knew you were NW of Mpls. Where do you live? I'm in Rogers by the elementary school.