Intakes, Exhaust and Tuning

[hopVIP]

I've had great experiences with a few specific manufacturers and am looking to buy parts from them for my new truck. Any comments, opinions, experiences or thoughts would be appreciated. I'm looking at S&B, Carven and still comparing tuners. Any thoughts?

 

[Cross88]

I’ve heard Greene racing is pretty legit for tuning. But I believe as of now, with having to get an unlocked pcm for our trucks the options are minimal. I’ve only heard hemifever and Greene racing. I myself am looking into Greene racing.

 

[popcenator]

I had both tunes on my 2012 and both were great. They performed about the same but felt a little different daily driving wise. The tunes make the truck really come alive. I'm a moreso Greene guy because I was dealing with transmission issues that he went above and beyond to help out with. His customer service is outstanding, and never left an email unanswered. HF knows his stuff as well, just didn't respond much to my questions.

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[Cross88]

I had both tunes on my 2012 and both were great. They performed about the same but felt a little different daily driving wise. The tunes make the truck really come alive. I'm a moreso Greene guy because I was dealing with transmission issues that he went above and beyond to help out with. His customer service is outstanding, and never left an email unanswered. HF knows his stuff as well, just didn't respond much to my questions.

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That’s my big thing, is I want a good daily driver tune. Something to give me a little more power, better towing but mainly the drivability. My plan is just a drop in filter, muffler swap (maybe a rear resonator delete. Would you say Greene racing is better for a daily driven/drivability aspect?

 

[popcenator]

That’s my big thing, is I want a good daily driver tune. Something to give me a little more power, better towing but mainly the drivability. My plan is just a drop in filter, muffler swap (maybe a rear resonator delete. Would you say Greene racing is better for a daily driven/drivability aspect?

Both are great for daily driving. They set the trucks up for the best of both worlds, performance and drivability unless you specify you'd like a more aggressive tune. You can then have them fine tune things, like of you want a more aggressive shift schedule or something. I have probably 200 or so emails with Jay just having him adjust this or that because I'd get bored of not messing with something, but in all honesty it's a great tune out the gate. I had a normal tune and a race tune that turns all traction control/ABS off with a more aggressive shift schedule.

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[hopVIP]

Great insight guys and I'll look into Greene. I would like something with shift on the fly capability and a few tunes to select at any time. But that may not be possible yet as mentioned. Quadzilla tuned my '01 Cummins and it's a beast when turned up from normal driving. I wonder if they're going to get into the Hemi tuning anytime.

 

[Orion10182011]

Disclaimer: Below is based on experience with a GM vehicle...

I tuned my 07 Vette myself. On a mostly stock engine the only thing a tune will really do it lower the stock commanded AFR at wide open throttle. It's overly rich for safety. They may also bump timing up but that requires higher grade of fuel. The stock ECM and O2 sensors can compensate quite a bit for minor mods +-25% fueling. CAI and/or Cat back no problem. I even bought a Diablosport uploaded it's tune then downloaded it to HP Tuners and compared it to mine. I may or may not have copied their timing table to my tune...

When my warranty is up on the Ram I will get the ECM unlocked and start learning how to tune Mopar. Can't wait...

 

[Bee7_ivan]

So far so good with my carven catback

 

[SpeedyV]

Disclaimer: Below is based on experience with a GM vehicle...

I tuned my 07 Vette myself. On a mostly stock engine the only thing a tune will really do it lower the stock commanded AFR at wide open throttle. It's overly rich for safety. They may also bump timing up but that requires higher grade of fuel. The stock ECM and O2 sensors can compensate quite a bit for minor mods +-25% fueling. CAI and/or Cat back no problem. I even bought a Diablosport uploaded it's tune then downloaded it to HP Tuners and compared it to mine. I may or may not have copied their timing table to my tune...

When my warranty is up on the Ram I will get the ECM unlocked and start learning how to tune Mopar. Can't wait...

In my case (with a GMC truck), I worked with Black Bear and did a ride-along tune. The truck was “mostly stock”, but we removed all engine management and probably 75% of torque (transmission) management, in addition to adjusting timing to my truck’s tolerance, changing shift points, and smoothing out a couple of noisy sensors. We did a lot more than simply adjust wide-open AFR (although that was definitely a consideration).

I never messed with my Corvette, though.

 

[Orion10182011]

In my case (with a GMC truck), I worked with Black Bear and did a ride-along tune. The truck was “mostly stock”, but we removed all engine management and probably 75% of torque (transmission) management, in addition to adjusting timing to my truck’s tolerance, changing shift points, and smoothing out a couple of noisy sensors. We did a lot more than simply adjust wide-open AFR (although that was definitely a consideration).

I never messed with my Corvette, though.

Many tuners desensatize the knock sensors(only thing I can think of that would be called "noisy sensors"). Which isn't really a good idea, mine were desensatized for a while then after more research I put them back to stock. Turning off torque management improves performance no doubt, but it's there for the longevity of your transmission. Your trans needs the power to be pulled momentarily while shifting. If it don't get this the clutches friction surface takes a beating. But turning it off or down adds like 2 tenths in the 1/4 mile.

I did up the shift pressures though. That's actually good for your trans.

I've been trying to research tuning Mopar and so far the only thing I can really find is that the ECM uses a Neural Network, with is a form of Artificial Intelligence. Pretty cool but daunting to think about tuning.

 

[SpeedyV]

Many tuners desensatize the knock sensors(only thing I can think of that would be called "noisy sensors"). Which isn't really a good idea, mine were desensatized for a while then after more research I put them back to stock. Turning off torque management improves performance no doubt, but it's there for the longevity of your transmission. Your trans needs the power to be pulled momentarily while shifting. If it don't get this the clutches friction surface takes a beating. But turning it off or down adds like 2 tenths in the 1/4 mile.

I did up the shift pressures though. That's actually good for your trans.

I've been trying to research tuning Mopar and so far the only thing I can really find is that the ECM uses a Neural Network, with is a form of Artificial Intelligence. Pretty cool but daunting to think about tuning.

First, I'll give Justin some credit. His company (Black Bear Performance) has been one of the top GM tuners on the market for at least the last 15 years. And a ride-along tune with a true expert provides far more value (in my opinion) than any canned tune when it comes to getting the most out of your specific vehicle. A self-performed tune is as good as "self", of course

On the sensor issue, IIRC, Justin isolated a couple of frequencies that just didn't make sense and flattened those out. It wasn't so much to change performance as to clean up irrelevant jitter. You could call it "selective desensitivation", I suppose.

As you pointed out, you would never remove all torque management; it's there for a reason. And as I said above, we left some of that in place. The factory was just more conservative than necessary. We did increase the shift pressures; thanks for reminding me of that. I also ran TranSynd in that truck, as I had it left over from my Allison (I called that stuff "liquid rubies"—you'll understand if you've ever bought it). We changed shift points and torque converter lockup speed mainly to force it to lock more often during my commute. I had a lot of 45 mph stretches, but lock was factory-set around 48 mph. We changed it to 42 mph, and it made the truck a much better cruiser between 45-50 mph (i.e. not dropping in and out of lock constantly).

We removed all of the engine management, since that's basically just throttle response relative to commanded input. It's almost unbelievable that in stock form, you could "floor it", but the computer might not truly command full throttle for 60 seconds or more...that's how conservatively that truck was tuned from the factory. Imagine pulling a heavy trailer uphill, needing to accelerate to get out of a bad situation, etc. Adjusting that to a <1 second delay gave me nearly instant throttle response. Guys on this forum might think of that as having a Pedal Commander combined with a physical throttle linkage...oh boy!

Between this "light" tuning on a factory 6.0L with 4.10s and a custom-routed Magnaflow exhaust (due to Quadrasteer), my '03 GMC really woke up. I wish I had done the same (i.e. a ride-along tune) on my old 8.1L/Allison/4.10 2500HD.

On the Mopar front, I'm a newbie. I don't have any immediate plans to tune this truck, but I'm watching (reading) about others' experiences. If you get into it, please share what you learn!