Am I ready for tuning with efilive? New and experienced tuners opinions wanted!

[Jedmeister]

G'day All,

I'm looking for guidence on whether I dive into learning to tune my own car now or later down the track.
Here's where I'm at,

Car is a 2012 SSV Sportswagon (6.0 L77 Manual)
Only mods are 3" cat back and K&N airfilter in stock airbox
stock tune

My plan was to buy a v2 scanner and start playing with the cars tune under the guidence of a mate who has many years efilive experience (twin turbo LS1 conversion in an 80 series landcruiser wagon, self tuned on the street, has run 12.98 1/4 mile!)

After building a bit of n/a tuning confidence over the next 12/24 months, putting a turbo system on the car and making some real power (fairly stock engine/low boost).

5+ year plan is to build a stout engine, up the boost and run 10 second 1/4's.

Here's where I get cold feet,
I called the efilive distributor (that specialises in holden tuning) and tell him what I want to do. Nice bloke named Steve, he tells me that he's happy to sell me a V2 but that he always warns customers that are looking to tune the more modern (post LS1) LS engines, that they aren't as simple to tune as the older LS1's. The tables are linked/blended by formulas/algorithms and changes to one affect others (or something to that effect) and it can take a lot of trial and error to get the desired result. He said "you can learn how to do it but you'll be looking at a considerable time investment to become proficient (1000 hours!).

I'd love to hear some opinions, especially from nubies to tuning that have had success tuning modern LS's

My dilema is that my car needs a tune, but I dont have a heap of cash to spend over the next 6-12 months. I also have a young (and growing) family, so can't spend hundreds of hours in the shed at the moment either.

Can I learn to tune myself with a reasonable time investment or am I better off spending my v2 scanner cash on a professional tune and waiting until I have more time and money?

Thanks heaps,

Jed

[joecar]

Hi Jed,

The LS1's were easier to tune, but they still had a lot of interactions between tables that were only partly understood.

The later ECMs (E38, E67, E92, and others) have a lot more going on and are somewhat harder to tune... they still have some of the basic tables, but have many newer tables and many more interactions and more gotcha's.

Tuning is the same type of activity as rebuilding your engine or transmission (requires lots of setting up, lots of understanding, lots of experimenting, lots of time, lots of self learning with practically no learning aids)... if you don't have much short-term time it may be better to get tuning done by a shop that is very familiar with your vehicle.

If you have more long-term time, it might save you money to learn to DIY (like you would rebuild your own engine)...

either way, it's not easy to always judge what is good for you... I know a few people who started off in one direction only to change course a few weeks later.

[joecar]

oh, and you do need a very good understanding of how the engine burns air/fuel to make power, this is vital in preventing your from destroying your engine.

[ScarabEpic22]

I would suggest signing up and taking the basic overview class from HP Academy, they have a good quality training program IMHO that outlines a lot of basics and theories. The basic overview is free, you can determine what you want to do from there. They tend to use more standalone controllers vs factory ones, however all of the concepts apply regardless to engine management system used.


FWIW, I do not have anything to do and am not associated with HP Academy except that I have purchased a few of their training courses as a refresher.

[Jedmeister]

Thanks for your reply's gents.

Ive taken your advice into account, spoken to my diy tuner mate and decided to buy a licence to use his scanner to do some logging and have a look at the tables with his help and we'll make a decision on whether puchasing my own scanner is going to be the best decision in the short term.

I'm a mechanic on large twin jet turbine engine helicopters during the day and while I dont "tune" those engines, i do a lot of outside the square trouble shooting.

I downloaded the efi live software and manuals around a year ago and have read through the manual front to back (with limited understanding I'll admit, i've zero real world experience), ive read everything i can find on the subject in books from the library (unfortunatly mostly outdated), spent countless hours reading everything I can find on the internet and have been through the overview program from hp academy as well as some of the more indepth webinar material on their site (introductory gold membership).

I've done my own mechanical work on every vehicle ive owed since I was 14. I'm no genius but im not a mug either.

With the plan for my car to be a long term evolution, I really dont think that multiple visits to professional tuners is going to be a cost viable option and as the sort of person that HAS to understand how everthing works (at least to a basic level) I'm really just going to have to go down the road of learning this art myself.

Thanks again, joecar and ScarabEpic22, for your imput and I look forward to your future advice and support once i get my teeth into this thing!

Cheers,
Jed