Happy 2024 everyone

hey all happy new year!

man it has been a lot of years since i decided 'i want to tune ecms'. 2024 will be a really interesting year as we both move into the future, and us gearheads happily linger in the past with our fossil burning antique reciprocating piston engines, with incredible computerized control systems attached.

in 2024, my resolution is i am going to try to start a small business for tuning.

i've found that after decades of doing it, i have developed an instinct with engines and how tables should look, and i want to start making some money from it, although i have a lot to learn about the newer stuff, i feel like my common sense will let me tune anything. when i look back, every tuning project i've approached has been a success.

i set aside a few thousand bucks to buy some gear, commercial software and widebands etc, and i figure if i hand out a lot of business cards and approach people with cool looking cars, i can earn it back pretty quickly

first on the investment list was hptuners, so no matter what the vehicle, i can say 'yes i can tune this but it will cost x dollars'. the licensing costs are definitely a bit insane but their coverage is incredible... they even have my old jeep on their supported vehicles list, and after 4 logs and reflashes, it's been completely transformed.

there is no dyno in my town but i figure once i get some customers, i can approach a local auto shop and offer to go 50/50 on one. in a hot rodder town like this i'm sure people will be lined up for dyno pulls. maybe that'll be a 2025 thing.

what are your your tuning or vehicle project new years resolutions?

Happy New Year steveo

I agree 100% with the HPTuners choice.:thumbsup:

steveo, I may be remembering wrong but are you on vancouver island?

yes i am

Happy New Year ,Congratulations and good luck, as for my project I am finally getting to my engine swap on my 95 truck. we will see how things go, it is going to be a slow process.

Also I cant believe how the wiring harness on a 95 Chevy goes everywhere, I was hoping to leave the engine dressed and unhook harness from fire wall connections and lay across the engine, not happening.

Anyways lets go 2024

Happy New year - yes steveo, you should definitely do tuning. There are very few tuners who will do Gen 2 LT1s; Brandon Strong in Oklahoma will do them, and a few others, but that's it. There are still good people who will pay for good work; those are the people you want to work with.

I've been sucked up into a new job and the usual family/community involvement. My goal is to finish up the two non-running cars I have at the house, build some 4L60Es for people who have been bugging me for them, and go through some 1992-1996 LT1 engines I have at the house, get them into cars and have fun dynoing them.

Stretch goal is to help Tom H finish his '96-97 LT1 flashing tool and then work with Jim_CT_9C1 to flesh out the XDF for it.

A shop near me has a hub dyno, and I plan to make good use of it this year. Why tuners with high-power cars still use inertial dynamometers still boggles my mind. You need the RPM slew rates low enough that transients don't dominate the data.

there are some really great tools out there.

after putting in a gazzillon hours on eehack, flashhack, etc... guys like kur4o, pete, joukoy, antus really got stuff going on the newer engines. universal patcher is just terrifying, i have no idea how it works so well.

today i grabbed my obd x pro, pcm hammer, and universal patcher, helped a kid at work disable pointless codes for his cat and evap on his 4.3 blazer using all free tools

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sherlock9c1

Stretch goal is to help Tom H finish his '96-97 LT1 flashing tool and then work with Jim_CT_9C1 to flesh out the XDF for it.

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... and for me, to finish up on the associated adx/datalogger.

Wishing good luck and success to everyone on all their 2024 projects!

Jim

As someone who has been tuning professionally for 20 years and winding down due to age, my advice to you is it's not a business that you think it will be. Many customers are never satisfied, no matter what happens to their vehicle in the future you WILL get a call from them, it's always the tuners fault, and are you prepared to handle things when things go bad and or break while tuning them. About half of the modded vehicles will have mechanical or electrical issues that need to be addresses before they are ready to tune. It's kind of a thankless business. If you do go through with it get a good lawyer to write up a liability waiver and carry a lot of business liability insurance. And also be aware that the EPA is out there looking for shops deleting emissions from vehicles and HP Tuners has eliminated a lot of the ability to do that in their latest software revisions.