There are two main competitors which are considered to be “Full Suites” when it comes
to tuning GM cars - they are EFI Live and HP Tuners. There are plenty of threads
all over the place trying to address “which is best”. A good place to start is probably
over at LS1tech.com
For EFI Live:
- Cheaper ? - Not in my case.. See below.
- You can download the full version of the software and get a feel for it. This is
a major plus over HPT in my opinion. (And a benefit for HPT users, because you can
study an efilive tune, whereas the opposite isn’t true!)
- UK Support from Richard Ingram (efilive.co.uk)
For HP Tuners:
- HPT are far further forward with the gearbox parameters for the 6L80e - as a consequence,
there are several users actively working on tunes for the boxes.
- Of interest for UK users is that Wortec use HPT for all their re mapping.
- I’m yet to determine what product Walkinshaw performance use for their remaps (get
in contact if you know)
HP Tuners sell three products
VCM Scanner - which is just for resetting codes and datalogging.
VCM Suite with either the the standard or “pro” interface. The “pro” interface has
onboard datalogging (No Laptop required) and most importantly additional inputs to
allow you to datalog an output from an external wideband lambda sensor - if you intend
to make any fueling adjustments, a wideband is essential and therefore a way of feeding
the wideband data into your datalogs. The “pro” interface gives you this ability.
I purchased the full VCM Suite which costs $649 + shipping. This equated to £450
(@1.60 fx) plus a further £28 DHL fees on arrival in the UK. So that’s £478 against
£575 for EFI Live Flashscan V2 - both units come with sufficient licences to tune
two different engines and transmissions.
From what I can tell, additional cars will be cheaper with EFI Live because they
charge $99 for a VIN licence, which includes engine and transmission - whereas with
HPT you will need 4 credits (at $49 each) to do the same thing.
UPDATE: HP Tuners have reduced the price of Gen 4 PCM’s. They now consume TWO credits
- meaning its the same price as EFILive. You will need to contact HPT support to
obtain the correct version that consumes two credits.