HPTune

[ViperGeorge]

If your state has dynamic e-check, you cannot hide the tune

What is "dynamic e-check"?

[Sniper]

Yea, I’ve never heard of this either. I don’t think MO has this.

[No hemi]

Calvo does NOT do hp tuners anymore, My car is a Calvo H/C and is tuned with HP tuners, Torrie @ unleashed tuning did the tuning and car works great, still have a check engine light on but It's epa related, non the less he would be the person to contact to get it tuned right, also I think Cordes performance and you can ask Nth too( Aaron Miller) about this.

[FrgMstr]

Calvo does NOT do hp tuners anymore, My car is a Calvo H/C and is tuned with HP tuners, Torrie @ unleashed tuning did the tuning and car works great, still have a check engine light on but It's epa related, non the less he would be the person to contact to get it tuned right, also I think Cordes performance and you can ask Nth too( Aaron Miller) about this.

Karger (https://www.facebook.com/CalByKarger/) did my Calvo build tuning at a dyno shop in Denton, TX. No CELs. TX inspection worthy.

[Mikey]

Karger (https://www.facebook.com/CalByKarger/) did my Calvo build tuning at a dyno shop in Denton, TX. No CELs. TX inspection worthy.

Says he's in Garland now, which would be more convenient for me, actually

Can your setup run e85? I noticed calvo heads and cam tend to make more than prefix

[Reaper]

Is this why the Calvo heads/cam kit has gone up like 10K? Now on the description for the kit, it says Motec. They used to use HP Tuners on your stock PCM. I really wanted their kit but not for 30K

[FrgMstr]

Says he's in Garland now, which would be more convenient for me, actually

Can your setup run e85? I noticed calvo heads and cam tend to make more than prefix

He may be in Garland now. The shop we could get dyno time on that particular day was not his to my knowledge.

I did not have it tuned to run e85. You might be able to call Karger and ask about that.

Again, my car was setup with 2.5 cats/catbacks, and Belanger headers. Antonio explained I could get another 20rwhp by moving to American Racing headers on it, and of course we had "small" exhaust on it. And it was right at 100F (~140F intake temps) in the shop, so all in all, not really great tuning conditions. Dumping the straight pipes on, it was a noticeable boost in RWHP without ever touching the tune.

The heads did have Calvo's new design at the time, and I think I was the first or second car out of his shop with that.

I did a few drives with Karger to get the car dialed in after we got it off the dyno. Tuning with HPTuners, at least for Viper, was not his favorite thing to do.

If I was going to do it again, I would have just dropped the $10K for the Motec and been done with it. If I ever get back to where I want to seriously race the car again, Motec will surely go in.

Post is here if you want the entire story: https://driveviper.com/forums/thread...orsports-Build

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Is this why the Calvo heads/cam kit has gone up like 10K? Now on the description for the kit, it says Motec. They used to use HP Tuners on your stock PCM. I really wanted their kit but not for 30K

Bingo. Motec only.

[Old School]

One thing I don't like about HPtuners, at least with a Gen3 JTEC+, is that you have to get the tune "blessed" by HPtuners before it will proceed. You must have internet access so it can communicate with the HPtuners servers. At this point it's possible for it to change what is allowed to be tuned in order to follow current EPA directives. Maybe your current tune has no CEL, but after changing something insignificant, that CEL comes on?

[Steve M]

I did a few drives with Karger to get the car dialed in after we got it off the dyno. Tuning with HPTuners, at least for Viper, was not his favorite thing to do.

If I was going to do it again, I would have just dropped the $10K for the Motec and been done with it. If I ever get back to where I want to seriously race the car again, Motec will surely go in.

I'd listen very carefully to the voice of experience here.

HPTuners is a fine tool, but in the case of the Gen 4/5 Viper, it is limited by the PCM it interacts with. It never was ideal, but in general, you could get it to do what you wanted within reason. It quickly meets its limitations at the heads/cam point - at or beyond that you start revealing its warts. Sure, there are band-aid solutions to get it to work, but there are usually compromises along the way, some of which could result in driveability and/or durability issues. There just aren't many things you can edit on a Viper PCM compared to other makes/models out there, and it shows. I can tell you from personal experience that I've seen some pretty fucked up "professional" tunes out there, and the average consumer would be none-the-wiser.

If you want to do things like run E85, I'd highly recommend stepping up to a Motec or something similar that can actually handle that by design. At that point, though, the skill of the tuner really comes into play. I'm not sure any aftermarket solution is going to have the polish of an OEM one...kinda hard to compete with the budgets and resources of one of the big automotive manufacturers. Sure, it might run just fine around town, but will it continue to do so at the top of Pike's Peak? The bottom of Death Valley in the summer time? That may not be important to you until you run into an unexpected situation where it doesn't.

[Steve M]

One thing I don't like about HPtuners, at least with a Gen3 JTEC+, is that you have to get the tune "blessed" by HPtuners before it will proceed. You must have internet access so it can communicate with the HPtuners servers. At this point it's possible for it to change what is allowed to be tuned in order to follow current EPA directives. Maybe your current tune has no CEL, but after changing something insignificant, that CEL comes on?

As I tried to express previously, things have changed. At some point in the not too distant future, I can see an aftermarket engine management solution being the only viable option for tuning.

[Sniper]

All I am getting is a head/cam package and I would not get that if I had to pay $22000-$30000 for it.

[Mikey]

I'll need to call around tomorrow as my Tuner hasn't been answering my texts.

What benefit does an arrow pcm have with heads and cam considering that's what vioer exchange opts for

[Sniper]

My tuner said there will be no problem tuning my car, no restrictions from hptuners.

[Steve M]

I'll need to call around tomorrow as my Tuner hasn't been answering my texts.

What benefit does an arrow pcm have with heads and cam considering that's what vioer exchange opts for

You would have the benefit of a product developed by the people that can access every last part of the OEM computer, and based on the knowledge of people that truly understand how it all works and what the engine can and can't take. It was developed as a full package, so you know it'll work. I've been around long enough to remember the tuners trying to do the same thing with HPTuners, and it was a bit rough. They've worked around it, but not without some band-aids like tossing in larger injectors and not scaling the injector flow rate tables accordingly to get around the PCM's torque calculation limitations. I've seen others zero out the knock sensors completely because they couldn't figure out how to keep the PCM from pulling timing. And those are just things I'm aware of...

Will you leave some performance on the table? Maybe, but there's always a trade of durability vs. squeezing every last ounce out of an engine. I can tell you that there's very little you can do to affect part throttle driveability with HPTuners, so if you go with a donkey dick cam to get a nice lope at idle, you might end up with some nice surging and bucking to go along with it that they'll have a hard time tuning out.

How willing are you to risk an engine by using someone that may or may not know what they are doing? Are they willing to replace your motor if they blow it up because they were a little too aggressive? There's more to tuning a car than just getting the AFR in line and adding some timing in the right places to get the best WOT numbers on a dyno.

[Mikey]

I've heard of Johnson lifters failing, I'm curious as to why Calvo still uses them

[Sniper]

Sneakysnakes lifters failed which caused him to purchase a new motor. I believe he used the prefix package

[No hemi]

Is this why the Calvo heads/cam kit has gone up like 10K? Now on the description for the kit, it says Motec. They used to use HP Tuners on your stock PCM. I really wanted their kit but not for 30K

Yup, Now it's Motec, which is way better than just HP tuners, but IMO overkill for a H/C setup.

[Voice of Reason]

Just to confirm tuners who use HPTuners are either unable or unwilling to turn off downstream O2s when someone is running headers and high flow cats? I’ve been running a Prefix PCM for 7 years with my headers and HF cats and always considered taking my stock PCM and having Torrie tune it. I know I’m leaving some power on the table vs a custom tune, but at this point if that means I’d have to look at a check engine light I’ll just stick with a little less power and keep my sanity.

[13COBRA]

Just to confirm tuners who use HPTuners are either unable or unwilling to turn off downstream O2s when someone is running headers and high flow cats? I’ve been running a Prefix PCM for 7 years with my headers and HF cats and always considered taking my stock PCM and having Torrie tune it. I know I’m leaving some power on the table vs a custom tune, but at this point if that means I’d have to look at a check engine light I’ll just stick with a little less power and keep my sanity.

Unwilling.

[Mikey]

Just to confirm tuners who use HPTuners are either unable or unwilling to turn off downstream O2s when someone is running headers and high flow cats? I’ve been running a Prefix PCM for 7 years with my headers and HF cats and always considered taking my stock PCM and having Torrie tune it. I know I’m leaving some power on the table vs a custom tune, but at this point if that means I’d have to look at a check engine light I’ll just stick with a little less power and keep my sanity.

The shop nearby said they can turn it off, it's "for offroad use only". I think it's mostly remote tuners that don't want to mess with it

[Old School]

Many tuners using HPtuners have switched over to using the RTD+ instead of the MPVI2 or MPVI3. The RTD+ (remote tuning device) only allows your tuner to edit the tune, not you. If you want to make any changes, you need to go back to them.

[Mikey]

Many tuners using HPtuners have switched over to using the RTD+ instead of the MPVI2 or MPVI3. The RTD+ (remote tuning device) only allows your tuner to edit the tune, not you. If you want to make any changes, you need to go back to them.

Just realized I have an RTD+ but will be going to a different shop. Would they still be able to use this to dyno tune?

[StrokerAce]

I've only had tuners with HP Tuners on any of my vehicles. I had the rear 02's tuned out with both in person and remote tuning. Removing knock to me is dangerous.

I wonder why the stock PCM is so limited.

[Mikey]

I've only had tuners with HP Tuners on any of my vehicles. I had the rear 02's tuned out with both in person and remote tuning. Removing knock to me is dangerous.

I wonder why the stock PCM is so limited.

Did you buy the dongle? I didn't know there was a difference between RTD+ and mvi2 when I bought it

[Old School]

I didn't know there was a difference between RTD+ and mvi2 when I bought it

Yea, the RTD+ doesn't allow you to use the editor.