(Words by Jefferson Bryant) Late model engines, particularly GM LS and LT series, require complex tuning to get the most out of them. Even with an aftermarket ECM that has a setup wizard and “self-learning”, the reality is that if you want to get beyond the most basic setup, real tuning is required. Here is where things get dicey—tuning is super complicated and the average gearhead has absolutely no business even thinking about tuning their own car… Psshaw, that’s just bollocks! EFI tuning is not that hard, you just have to start with the basics.
Don’t let your engine look like this from a poor tune! Learn how to tune with a course from The Tuning School.
Whether you are tuning a stock ECM with HP Tuners or an aftermarket system such as a Holley Dominator or Terminator, the basics are the same. Air comes in, fuel is injected, sparks fly, exhaust and gobs of horsepower come out. It really is that simple, and tuning is just dialing in the whens and how-muches of those main components. Everything else is less important. Start with the basics, and you will figure out the details as you go.
Having performed a number of LS and LT builds, we used our HP Tuners software primarily to unlock ECMs to save some time and cash, leaving the actual tuning to a few nearby tuners. As they got busier, we realized that we should be doing this ourselves and so we set out to get some education, after all, the entire point of what we do at Red Dirt Rodz is teach fellow gearheads how to do the cool stuff we all want to do, right? After countless hours scratching our collective heads, reading page after page of tuning forums that didn’t make much sense, we got serious and booked a trip to Tampa, Florida.
You may recognize the name “The Tuning School”, they are the premier training school for beginner, novice, and professional tuners. While they offer online and satellite courses at various events around the country, we wanted to attend class at their headquarters. Tucked away in a sleepy little neighborhood outside Tampa, The Tuning School classroom holds about 15 students at a time and has a full-service dyno for high-octane tuning.
Our class had about 8 or so students of varying experience levels. Most had some tuning experience, and a couple, including our future tuner Ben, had zero experience. That’s the beauty of The Tuning School, it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a pro, you can learn from each other and gain knowledge from hands-on experience. Shain Gotham, a classmate in our session, is an excellent example of a typical TTS student. “I wanted to get a good handle on HP Tuners” Gotham told us, “I am better at hands-on, seeing, doing, and writing things down really helps things stick for me.” Many gearheads are just like Shain, you need to see it and do it for it to click, and TTS helps make tuning techniques stick.
“As a manager at a mechanic shop, I deal with lots of ECMs. We do resets, recalibrations, etc., but we also need to know how to retune a car that we installed a new exhaust, headers, intake, maybe a cam. Our factory programmers only deal with stock calibrations” Gotham explained. “I need to understand how best to use HP Tuners for performance applications so we can complete the install and not have to send it out to someone else.”
Before attending TTS, you get links to series of primer videos to get you up to speed and ready to learn. “The best thing you can do before attending a class is to watch all of the prep videos they send you” Shain Gotham says, “It gives you a better base to build on, I am really glad I spent the few hours watching leading up to the class, because I learned a ton just from the videos, and then when we got into the classroom, things I didn’t understand clicked.”
Deciphering a datalog requires knowing what is important and what isn’t. TTS helps you set up your software to maximize your efforts.
One of the first things they teach you is that with MAF-based tuning, like the GM LS and LT, everything starts in front of the engine, including the transmission tune. The MAF is the Alpha, the beginning of all it, as airflow determines horsepower. Every other major parameter in the ECM refers to the MAF sensor input, as you can only make as much power as the air coming into the engine. In the LS swap world, MAF sensors tend to be somewhat mishandled, too small intake tube, wrong position, too close to the throttle body, etc. All of these mistakes cost you horsepower, and if you do not properly tune the MAF initially, your end result will not be as good as it can be.
The course lasts two days, with the first day being mostly book learnin’, and the second day is DYNO DAY! Our class was able to tune on a 1600-hp supercharged C6 Corvette with an LS7, it was a great experience, and we left with not only a mind full of knowledge, but several guidebooks to help us retain it as we go home to tune on our own stuff. TTS is not just an LS and LT course, they have classes for Dodge, Ford, transmission tuning, even side-by-side tuning for Polaris and Can-Ams. Each class is dedicated to one engine family and one tuning software, typically HP Tuner, Dynojet Powercore, or Holley.
TTS owner Bob Morreale is the real deal, his passion for horsepower and tuning lead to the creation of The Tuning School. He will make you a better tuner or turn you into one.
The Tuning School owner, Bob Morreale, is usually on-site for in-person classes, which means that you get access to one of the greatest encyclopedias of tuning. The TTS team always keeps it light with plenty of jokes and back and forth banter. “Learning how to use software is fairly dry, especially of you have 105 octane for blood” Morreale says, “Sitting in a classroom with a laptop and book is boring AF, but the banter back and forth, interacting with the students, it is very fun and lively, but our instructors also know how to contain the conversations, keeping class moving forward.” In our session, there was nary a dull moment, even when we had our noses buried in the guidebook. Our class was taught by Brett McClelland, an 11-year turning veteran who is not only a teacher at TTS, but also runs a tuning shop in Tampa Bay, FL. Brett was masterful at taking these very complex subjects and breaking them down so that even beginners like our aspiring-tuner Ben could understand and follow without needing a PHD in engineering.
A single online course will cost you about $750, while in-person classes run just $2k. The in-person classes are the best option if you can find one near you, we travelled 1400 miles to Florida, and it was worth it. Once we got back to the shop, we were able to put our new skills to work, getting the Gen V LT1 in our 1971 Buick GS lined out so we could break the motor in before strapping the Procharger on and doing some dyno testing.
That’s where a lot of folks get concerned when it comes to tuning. You don’t need a dyno to tune a car. If you were tuning a carbureted engine, would you go book dyno time at a shop? No, of course not, that’s for race cars. You would adjust and drive, adjust and drive. EFI tuning is done the same way. In fact, what works on the dyno isn’t always what is best for the street. You might be giving up a little bottom end that feels better on the street for a for ponies up top where you rarely use it (we are talking street cars here, not racers). The instructors at The Tuning School show you how to set up your datalog PIDs (individual parameters), how to run a datalog, and how to interpret the output so that you can make the appropriate adjustments.
You don’t just learn about tuning at TTS either. These guys are very serious about what they do and the main purpose of attending TTS: to make money tuning cars. Government regulations have certainly shut down more than one shop, not to mention the massive fines that have been levied, particularly in the diesel world. This is not lost on Morreale and the instructors at TTS. One of the best pieces of advice given in our classroom was not about technical tuning, but rather safe business in the current climate. Establish a logbook or binder with details on every tune, every build done in your shop. Like most of us, you likely work on “non-road vehicles” (hint hint, wink wink), so you need to protect yourself by noting each vehicle with off-road components and tunes so that you don’t get hammered with fines should a customer be found on the road without emissions equipment. This is important for your business, it is not political or “big brother”, it is CYA stuff that you should be doing in your shop regardless of the work you do.
You won’t leave The Tuning School a master tuner, that takes lots of time and lots of tunes, but you get access to the master tuners at TTS, who will gladly help answer questions long after your training sessions have ended. If you are looking to build a tuning business, enhance the skills you already have, or just want to be able to tune your own cars, TTS is the best place to learn.
