Is it worth buying HP Tuners?
 

I’m toying with the idea of getting hp tuners for my 4.3.
My truck is a 2001, and mods include a CPI cam, cold air induction, and magnaflo y-pipe/full system. The truck has a newly rebuilt 4L60e with corvette servo and shift kit. Truck is set up zq8/street 2wd. Rear is 8.5 Eaton posi.

Has anyone had any luck with hp tuners? My overall goal is improved performance and fuel economy as this is a daily driver.

Thanks for all replies 🙏

I haven't had any personal experience with tuners on the 4.3L V6. In general on car talk shows on the radio, I hear a lot about the Diablo tuners for cars and light trucks. That seems to be the hot one right now. Please let the forum know what results you are having with your performance mod's.......... I tried to Google the Diablo Predator 2 for the 2nd Gen S-10 Blazer and they don't have one. They do have it for the older full size Blazer with the V8.

There's really no comparison when you're putting something like a Diablo up against a true full tuning suite like HP Tuners. The handheld tuners, although super useful for people that really don't like to play around with fine settings, would just rather hit a few buttons and be done, work GREAT, they only scratch the surface of what you can do with HP Tuners.

However, I've never played around with HP Tuners and a 4.3. A good buddy of mine has it and he uses it on his three Silverado's because he's always doing SOMETHING to them... one n/a 6.0, one procharged 5.3, and the other he just got and is only a stock 5.3 at the moment. I've considered buying the credits to let me hook his HP Tuners up to my Blazer to play around with the 4.3, but I figure I might as well not bother with the LS3 in it's future lol

There is so much you can do with HP Tuners or EFI Live that it's just ridiculous. They each have things they can do that the other can't. Another one worth consideration also is the Tech 2 for GM products. That limits it right from the get go but it will do a lot. You see used ones for sale once in a while for a decent price. If I was going to purchase a Tech 2 I'd probably get a Chinese version, they're about a third of the cost of HP Tuners or EFI Live. If you're wanting something that will cycle the ABS neither HP or EFI will do it. You'll need to check into Snap-On Solex or the Tech 2 for that.

Thanks guys for your response. The quote above is absolutely true. Since my initial post, and lots of research, I bought the HP tuners MPVI2 Pro (the only way to go for “tuning” IMO). This will be a learning curve for sure, but being a backyard mechanic for 30+ years and ASE L1 certified helps a little.

Regarding my first post question “is it worth it?”I can say now YES DEFINITELY. Soon I’ll be taking a tuning course, and adding a wideband to my 4.3 so I can make some log-files and tune the engine properly.

Regarding my 4.3, it’s an ‘01 L35 (no rust southern truck with 60k original mikes). I recently did a frame-off restoration, and replaced just about everything that goes wrong with these things “while I was in there”.
Cam is now a CPI cam, LS6 beehive valve springs, magnaflo y-pipe with gutted cats, magnaflo straight through cat-back, and a true cold air induction.
Trans is 4L60e, completely rebuilt, corvette servo and transgo shift kit.

Overall mods are mild, but LTFT was consistently +7 both banks most likely due to the higher lift/duration cam, so it can definitely benefit from some tuning.

Oh, almost forgot, 2wd with recently installed 8.5 Eaton posi rear with .308 gears for highway driving. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll change the rear ratio. Cruising at 70 is nice taching only 1800, but 3.42 or 3.73 sure would make it more fun around town, not to mention a quicker ratio would definitely make better use of the warmer cam.

Thanks for the update! Good info here, and for a mild upgrade, it's a good list!

I actually just bought VXDIAG VCX NANO last week, should be in Monday, and I'm super stoked about being about to emulate a Tech2 on my old laptop in the closet.

Once I get it set up and start playing around with it I plan on making a thread here on the forum about it and some of it's possibilities with the S-chassis.