Tune purchasing lockout

[saintb6969]

Just a question for the software builders, I have a V2 and have purchased tunes for my 07 5.9Cummins simply because I was not familiar enough with the programming of the engine functions and did not want to break something on this money pit. My question is why can't you make the software have the ability for the tuners to only lock out areas they change instead of the whole tune. Reason I ask is my tuner only works on the engine settings, I have worked with a pro trans shop and I am now capable of changing trans settings along with other changes I like to make to things such as warm up idle, but in order to do these things I have to play the back and forth game with the tuner and thus far it has been a 3 week process to just change 2 things and I want to tweak setting even more but it is just such a pain to do the back and forth thing.
I do not want to steal my tuners product, so give him the ability to lock out his stuff and give me the ability to use my V2 and control the functions of my truck that he does not mess with. Why lock out the entire tune?

[anarchydiesel]

Ross would have to answer on the ins and outs of just locking certain tables. I imagine it would be very hard to implement as every tune file would have to have different tables blocked out. Why not use a stock tune to get the trans shifting the way you want and then send the tune that you build to the tuner so they can copy over the trans tables into their tune.

[GMPX]

My question is why can't you make the software have the ability for the tuners to only lock out areas they change instead of the whole tune.
Nobody has ever asked for that before, but it's not a bad idea though. However, it won't be happening any time soon, the foundations of the software was never set up to handle such a thing. We'll consider this as an option for the v8 editor.

[2007 5.9]

I would support this...plenty of customers want to tailor certain tables for personal liking, but I don't want them to dabble in my work.

[GMPX]

Well, like I said, won't be happening in the V7.5 editor, it would be a pretty fundamental change and of course we need to have a think about all the ways people could get around it (and they will try).

[minytrker]

The easiest solution for this is DON'T buy tunes from someone who locks them. If enough people stick to that then either they will quit locking tunes or go out of business. In the gas world locking tunes isnt accepted by most people so there are very few shops or tuners who lock there gas tunes. For what ever the reason people seem to accept locked tunes in the diesel world all the time. Most of the biggest LSX shops and tuners in the country dont lock there tunes but and have all been in business for years but somehow if a diesel shop doesnt lock there tunes people will steal them. I have yet had a single person convince me of a valid readon to lock a tune.

[2007 5.9]

The easiest solution for this is DON'T buy tunes from someone who locks them. If enough people stick to that then either they will quit locking tunes or go out of business. In the gas world locking tunes isnt accepted by most people so there are very few shops or tuners who lock there gas tunes. For what ever the reason people seem to accept locked tunes in the diesel world all the time. Most of the biggest LSX shops and tuners in the country dont lock there tunes but and have all been in business for years but somehow if a diesel shop doesnt lock there tunes people will steal them. I have yet had a single person convince me of a valid readon to lock a tune.

HUNDREDS of hours dialing in tuning...only to have someone get a unlocked tune, run it, screw with it, mess it up and come back and say its your fault their $10,000 motor melted.

Also the internet is a VERY powerful thing...take the above scenario and add in the tuner saying "So you bought my tune, screwed with it, blew your shit up, and you want me to help you? No sorry you are on your own." Then the guy who smoked his engine gets on the inter webs and BLASTS your tuning for melting his motor without telling the truth, only for you to find out 3rd party that this happened, by then your reputation is tarnished from ONE IDIOT.

Im sorry...Ill keep my reputation and shorts with my locked tunes.

Maybe you gasser guys are not quite as vindictive as diesel guys, but its not worth it. And I dont have a tuning BUSINESS, I am strictly WORD OF MOUTH...and one moron saying only his side of the story and ruining what you have worked so hard to achieve...NOT WORTH IT.

[06redram]

Les you are so right

[minytrker]

HUNDREDS of hours dialing in tuning...only to have someone get a unlocked tune, run it, screw with it, mess it up and come back and say its your fault their $10,000 motor melted.

Also the internet is a VERY powerful thing...take the above scenario and add in the tuner saying "So you bought my tune, screwed with it, blew your shit up, and you want me to help you? No sorry you are on your own." Then the guy who smoked his engine gets on the inter webs and BLASTS your tuning for melting his motor without telling the truth, only for you to find out 3rd party that this happened, by then your reputation is tarnished from ONE IDIOT.

Im sorry...Ill keep my reputation and shorts with my locked tunes.

Maybe you gasser guys are not quite as vindictive as diesel guys, but its not worth it. And I dont have a tuning BUSINESS, I am strictly WORD OF MOUTH...and one moron saying only his side of the story and ruining what you have worked so hard to achieve...NOT WORTH IT.

I still dont buy it, there are tons of ways a customer could screw up there own vehicle and still blame you. The tune is usually the first thing to be blamed no matter what goes wrong. The exact same thing could happen to a gas tune that isnt locked, guess what it very rarely ever happens. You make it sound like all your diesel customers are criminals just out to screw a tuner over. A locked tune would be harder to defend if someone is bad mouthing your name, you have no way to prove whats really in there since they cant see it. With your locked tune there still is nothing stopping someone from saying your tuned blew there motor and take you to court. I could just as easily add nitrous, change turbo's or anything like that with a locked tune and tear it up and put it all back and blame the tuner, locked tune is a get out of jail free card. I tune gas and duramax and have seen tunes from hundreds of different tuners over the years, never seen a single one I thought was worth "stealing" I know in the diesel world it is easy to re-use a tune than in gas but still its NOT as big a thing as all you guys make it out to be. I know many other tuners who never locked a single tuned and do it for a living with zero advertising. I been doing it for almost 10 years with zero advertising or locked tunes, along with all the other tuners I am friends with.

Please dont take this as a personal attach on you, I am just making generalized statements none of which are about you specifically. A locked tune isnt a saving grace if someone wants to blame your tune for something going wrong. Hundreds of hours developing a tune isnt that big of deal to me, I have years and thousands and thousands of hours developing my method of gas tuning alone. When I tune anything high performance I encourage the customer to buy EFI Live and data log there vehicle all the time. I think its easier to educate a customer than to lock there tune and say its for my protection. I have gained countless customers because there previous tuner (still a few gas tuners locking pcms) locked there pcm and they were not happen with there current performance or drivability. Someone coping or stealing someone elses tunes will not last long and there unhappy customers will speak for themselves. Just something to think about.

[killerbee]

For us, the decision is mostly practical. By locking it down, there is much less recurring "nuisance call" work. Nothing is more frustrating than selling a working, refined product to someone who then thinks he is a tuner. There is no way to service the result with any sanity. I then have to make a decision to alienate a customer, or become an education slave, and we don't have the time for the latter. I don't understand the comment that it is easier to educate the customer...not in this life.

We also don't sell EFILIve to anyone who is not wanting to go through the pain of learning how to use it. We made this decision years ago and it will never change for us.

Just this morning had 2 inquiries.

1. One would have liked to have his tuning platform adjustable from the perspective of "I'd like to be able to change my tire size with xyz programmer".

2. The other customer WANTED the ECM locked for dealer flash protection (dealers do unsolicited routine program updates).

I don't think #1 is possible.

We manufactured a few locking obd covers for the other customers but have since run out.

[GMC-2002-Dmax]

The easiest solution for this is DON'T buy tunes from someone who locks them. If enough people stick to that then either they will quit locking tunes or go out of business. In the gas world locking tunes isnt accepted by most people so there are very few shops or tuners who lock there gas tunes. For what ever the reason people seem to accept locked tunes in the diesel world all the time. Most of the biggest LSX shops and tuners in the country dont lock there tunes but and have all been in business for years but somehow if a diesel shop doesnt lock there tunes people will steal them. I have yet had a single person convince me of a valid readon to lock a tune.

You would be hard pressed to find one of us who are well known and do a large volume of emailed or bench flashed tunes not locking it down.

I lock every tune or ecm I sell, and 7 years later business is booming and I don't see myself going out of business anytime soon because I lock them. With LB7 and LLY autolocking the customer can unlock the ecm at any time with a stock file and my work is now protected from prying eyes or dabblers who want to mess up a perfectly good working tune.

People will steal them, that is a undeniable fact, there is and has always a large population of wanna be tuners who will use someone else's proven tune and try to profit from it. You have the customer who buys a tune and then shares it with his buddies thinking it's OK, well the author of that tune sold it once, if the person who bought it didn't share it then it would not be a problem.

What if the truck goes to a shop and a tech reads the tune out without anyone knowing ??? Is that theft or just "OK" in your book ???

Please don't take this as an insult, but gasser tuing is not anywhere close to diesel tuning, there are many variables that need to be addressed just for the Allison to shift properly, so since shift quality is such an important part of the tuning as well as the ability to effectively light a large single or a big set of twins many of us lock our work down to protect our 100's of hours of work.

I tuned my sons 6.0 Denali and it was not too hard to remove some of the TQ management and bump the timing a bit, hardly what I had to go through to tune a diesel.

But if you want to leave your work unlocked it's a free country, feel free to feed the wanna-be tuners your hard work or lose out on future sales because you don't want to take any precautions.

Good Luck to you,

BTW I need a tuner for a 2010 Chevy E78, how much for one.....???

[minytrker]

A gas tune takes longer to do than diesel, hands down. Making a couple changes on your sons 6.0 isn't hardly tuning a gas. A highly modified gas vehicle could take a whole day to tune for drivabilty and wot. A tune may pick up 30hp that takes hours and hours. In the gas world drivability is what separates most good tunes from bad.
I'm not a diesel guru but still have tuned a lot of duramax's all of which made more power and gained fuel economy and the customers were happy. I own a Duramax myself and messed with it for years.
The diesel world is very different than gas and probably why I never got big into them. I have rode in some with tunes from some very big name diesel on tuners, they were fast but drove horrible. Stuff that's never acceptable in the gas world is almost normal in diesel.
I go on and on and list big name shops that's are known all over US who use efi and don't lock any tunes. If locking is the awnser why don't they all do it?

[killerbee]

Is it possible that you answered your own question?


The diesel world is very different than gas and probably why I never got big into them. I have rode in some with tunes from some very big name diesel on tuners, they were fast but drove horrible. Stuff that's never acceptable in the gas world is almost normal in diesel.
I go on and on and list big name shops that's are known all over US who use efi and don't lock any tunes. If locking is the awnser why don't they all do it?

Anybody can call themselves a tuner. Being "big" is an easily performed internet magic trick.

[2007 5.9]

Creating a 800hp DAILY DRIVER FRIENDLY TUNE is as hard as it gets. I understand that gassers require time as well, and crap tuning isint accepted in the Cummins world..

Is it possible that your clientele is of a more sophisticated era and they understand the complexity and time involved with gas tuning whereas they KNOW they have NO BUSINESS messing with your tuning after you send it to them?

In the diesel crowd..majority are young kids with parents money who get them to buy anything/everything they want. So when they buy a tune from me, they get a drivable/smoke-free maxed out tune. If they get it unlocked they go in and they make it smoke (cause they thinks it's cool) post it in YouTube with the tuners name and now I see a "Smoke Tune" I NEVER created.

So I'm a bad guy from preventing this action from EVER happening with my tuning by locking it??

You have your opinion that it's a joke to lock a tune...and I have mine that it's up to the individual tuner to do as they wish, and ill keep on locking my tuning.

[dodgeram082500]

Creating a 800hp DAILY DRIVER FRIENDLY TUNE is as hard as it gets. I understand that gassers require time as well, and crap tuning isint accepted in the Cummins world..

Is it possible that your clientele is of a more sophisticated era and they understand the complexity and time involved with gas tuning whereas they KNOW they have NO BUSINESS messing with your tuning after you send it to them?

In the diesel crowd..majority are young kids with parents money who get them to buy anything/everything they want. So when they buy a tune from me, they get a drivable/smoke-free maxed out tune. If they get it unlocked they go in and they make it smoke (cause they thinks it's cool) post it in YouTube with the tuners name and now I see a "Smoke Tune" I NEVER created.

So I'm a bad guy from preventing this action from EVER happening with my tuning by locking it??

You have your opinion that it's a joke to lock a tune...and I have mine that it's up to the individual tuner to do as they wish, and ill keep on locking my tuning.

Well said....

[saintb6969]

Wow, I did not expect to start a war! but I do agree with both sides. I have tried to tune myself and found that it would take more time than what I have to really figure it out, and the pro tuners have not only the time vested but also a wider based for which to see what works and what doesn't. I have no problem paying them for that effort as long as it works, and it fits my truck unlike a box tuner. On the other hand we buy these EFI Live scanner/V2's for a reason and that is to be able to control our vehicles, we pay the $900.00 for a box that we should have full access to, but if we choose to pay someone else to tune it then they should be allowed to protect their hard work, but not lock out everything else that we as owners of the license pay for. I do not see why it would be so hard to just put in a feature to lock out certain areas without locking out the rest. If I lived around the corner from the tuner with the dyno then perhaps this would not be an issue, but as it is I am over 700 miles from him and his dyno and the turn around time to change one little thing is a pain and basically turn my V2 into a useless box tuner that I am unhappy with.

[700kenny]

Locker tunes are a waste.

[skneeland]

Wow, I did not expect to start a war! but I do agree with both sides. I have tried to tune myself and found that it would take more time than what I have to really figure it out, and the pro tuners have not only the time vested but also a wider based for which to see what works and what doesn't. I have no problem paying them for that effort as long as it works, and it fits my truck unlike a box tuner. On the other hand we buy these EFI Live scanner/V2's for a reason and that is to be able to control our vehicles, we pay the $900.00 for a box that we should have full access to, but if we choose to pay someone else to tune it then they should be allowed to protect their hard work, but not lock out everything else that we as owners of the license pay for. I do not see why it would be so hard to just put in a feature to lock out certain areas without locking out the rest. If I lived around the corner from the tuner with the dyno then perhaps this would not be an issue, but as it is I am over 700 miles from him and his dyno and the turn around time to change one little thing is a pain and basically turn my V2 into a useless box tuner that I am unhappy with.

talk to your tuner, perhaps they would be willing to provide you with an unlocked "starter" tune. if your truck is stock at the moment there is probably not alot they have changed besides smoothing some tables and adjusting some limiters.

i can see both sides of the fence. nobody wants their hard work to disappear and be given out for free, or worse, be blamed for destroying someones engine (although there is nothing stopping someone from loading their own tune, blowing an engine, then reloading the tuners locked tune and blaming that....)

Myself, i could never pay for a locked tune, my personal tunes are living, breathing, constantly evolving entities. I have no problem paying someone for their expertise however(anyone have some good experience with 6l80 and bulletproof mods? quite frankly that thing intimidates the hell out of me, lol)

I dont see a partially locked tuned solving the problem either, eventually most people are going to want to tweak the locked parameters. Basically the best thing you can do is educate yourself, read the forums, take the courses, etc. and learn to do it yourself.

*there are also plenty of people out there that are willing to help you get started on a tune, even if your tuner isnt*