Tuning newbie

Ok so here we go. I have been looking around and using efilive tunes for years. Previously had a duramax with dsp5 from duramax tuner, and currently have a 2007.5 6.7L with (Race/Off road mods). After this return from overseas, (5th tour) I decided to pull the plug and buy music own V2. My kids are at the age that they have an intrest in cars and after 22 years on active duty and still hanging in there I'm having even more fun taking them to the track so they can get it out of their system there vs in the streets. I have bought the efilive books from starlite and printed and read over the dummies guides provided by Rich, both of whom have put together a great product that has been very helpful. Unfortunately nothing had jumped out at me that says hey here's where you need to start to get a decent tune running. I have played with the smoothing and blending tables but I'm just not sure what right looks like I guess. No shops around FT Hood know anything about EFILIVE and the diesel shops seem to cater to the soot heads since that's all I see around here are clouds of black smoke with trucks exiting them. I want to be able to tune my truck for the 1/4 mile track and take pride in the fact that I did it while passing some knowledge and bonding off to my children. If anyone is willing to help I am all ears and apreciation. I learn best from doing so I'm just not sure the books are enough though the help me understand parts of the why. Thanks in advance for everyone who at least takes the time to read my rambling.

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your service. If you will start in the Cummins section of Zach's "Basics" book, it will show you where to start to get a good tune started. The books are based on a 5.9 but the tuning principles are same.

Yep there is a lot of info th erected and I have started and made a tune that so far is going good. I have been working on data loging the things I have done, but I still need to figure out how much smoothing is enough and what is too much
And what tables net the most gains. Turbo vane position is still making my head spin. But I Wil keep reading as I have and it will cklick. There are a lot of great members on here who make great contributions to this forum. I look at a lot of things that have been done to the 5.9 to help with my 6.7. I'm running tunes from Kory Willis right now and they are top notch and Kory is a great guy to work with. My issue is I have such a desire to learn and am such a DIY addict that I just won't be happy until I learn this and start running my own tunes which will take time, data logs, and patience. The later of which I was not blessed with.