OK, So.....

I've always wanted to get in to tuning my own shiat but never really had the sack to do it since my Camaro was my DD. Now that I'm a lot older (12 years since my first Z28) and my newly acquired Z isn't something I rely on for commuting, I'm ready to jump in.

I have a new laptop (well, the wife's for school at least) and have done alot of reading here, LS1tech.com, carputing, tunercats, HP Tuners and EFI live.

There are soooooo many options it seems. To be honest, I wouldn't mind getting something that wouldn't be locked to one VIN (or even a couple) since it looks like there are a few programs like that. But I def don't want to get into doing it for a living either so I can't see forkin out the $2000 for some of the setups.

I don't mind doing mail order tunes, but if I plan to mod later down the road (which I know I will be) I'd like to not only save the $50-$75 a pop for a remail of a new tune, but would like to make the changes myself and really know what is taking place in the motor.

From those of you already in, which road would you direct me down and what would you reccommend I pick up?? I see a few nice options, but some are saying good for 94-95s and mine is a 96 so that is no good. Then there are a few others that look really great (HP Tuners) but I can't seem to find anything other than LSX software.

Thanks and take care all,
Ivan

 

Best bet for the '96 is to find someone with a used version of Tunercats. Look on monodax.com.

 

..looks like its a dead link or something is up with the site.

I'll try again later but thanks for the information.

Take care,
Ivan

 

Try these sites. They offer basic information that you should be able to use to get started. Other than that, do searches for specific problems and you will find a lot of information.

http://carputing.tripod.com/LT1-edit1.doc
http://carputing.tripod.com/AKM_lt1netfiles/LT1Edit.htm
http://para.noid.org/~lj/PCM%20Tutorial/PCMtutorial.htm
http://members.aol.com/InjuneerZZ/ScanMast.htm
http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/LT1Edit/LT1files.htm

 

Some have converted to OBD I. Seems to be a straightforward option. TC and a scanning software should be no more than $250. Sorry haven't bought the stuff for a while now so only assuming.

 

I started at age 10 working on small 2 stoke and 4 stroke motorcycle engines which progressed thru the years... basically everything I had was broke so I had to fix it before riding it.

This progressed into teen years, into cars, tuning playing modifying, learning how engines run lean or rich and too much timing vs too little timing..

without all this basic engine knowledge I dont know how I would tune electronics with something you have to upload, check the reaction of it, then modifiy, re-upload, etc... over and over and over......

 

http://www.monodax.com/forums/