With EFI how do professional tuners protect their tunes? For example duramaxtuner and McRat? If they are charging for tunes, whats to say they arent going to give the tune to their buddy or someone else on the site? Just curious.

Honesty and integrity of the purchaser. The only way I know of to lock a tune is to program an ECM and lock it when you program it (which as far as I know isn't even possible on the Bosch ECMs).

oh ok, basically don't screw the guy who gave you a good price on a tune and may give you tunes in the future.

Just curious how much does a single tune (race tune for example) cost from a professional.

With EFI how do professional tuners protect their tunes? Just curious.


price just went up ;)


It really depends on how unique your combination is and your how diverse your needs are.

Nick

I put a different signature in each of my customers tunes, then if that tunes makes the rounds I know who it came from.

We really can't stop sharing, just ask to respect the work that we've put into it.

makes sense. When i splurge for EFI and the trans i will definitely come your way Rob. Your tunes in other members trucks are pretty impressive. I saw a guy on a Trans, lift pump and EFI running 12.8 (StockHP)

i wouldnt give out tunes to other people because thats just wrong everybody deserves to get paid for there work. the farthest in sharing i would do is letting somebody try it before they purchase a tune from that professional but no more than that. this is kinda like going to work and come pay day the boss tells you i dont have your money you just then put in your time to give it away.

You gotta charge a friend if your going to use up a license on your V1 or V2. anyway you cant stop reverse engineering with EFIlive tunes I dont think. Might as well just go to the class on tuning.

To me, we owe a great deal to most of the vendors on here and it is in all of our interests to do our best to take care of them in return. Is some of the info they share posted with the intent of drawing a few more customers? I'm sure it is in some instances, and that is good marketing. If I see Vendor X posting good info and being helpful at every turn, I am going to give them my business based on their integrity if nothing else. I can feel pretty confident that they are going to treat me right. I am big on that. If they treat me right, I will treat them right back and it all comes down to that in the end.
We're lucky we have a lot of these guys on this board and I hope we continue to get more and more. Service is sorely missing these days...taking care of the customer. We're lucky in this day and age to have a forum like this where we can see many other people's experiences and learn from so many.

Let's help them continue that and not ruin a good thing, and I would imagine that 99% of us feel the same. Alright, I'll shut up now. I know I'm not saying anything new....BUT, Thank You vendors!!!!!

I understand why some tuners lock their tunes. They spend a ton of money and time finding a tune that works and don't want it handed out free. They deserve to be paid for their time and effort.

I have been accused of sharing tunes and private info which could not be further from the truth, and I'm happy to prove it. I personally like to do my own tuning but it's a huge advantage to have a great base tune to start with, so I bought a McRat tune and then the one year tuning library from Nick at duramaxtuner. This gave me a great base to start with and my current tune is quite removed from either tuners offerings, but it works great for me. I personally would not buy a locked tune for the simple reason that I cannot tweak it. I am the one spending hours driving the vehicle and there's no advantage to having efi in my opinion if I can't make changes to it.

Bottom line, I wouldn't buy a locked tune system for myself, but I absolutely understand why they do it and support their right to do so.

Jody

I understand why some tuners lock their tunes. They spend a ton of money and time finding a tune that works and don't want it handed out free. They deserve to be paid for their time and effort.

I have been accused of sharing tunes and private info which could not be further from the truth, and I'm happy to prove it. I personally like to do my own tuning but it's a huge advantage to have a great base tune to start with, so I bought a McRat tune and then the one year tuning library from Nick at duramaxtuner. This gave me a great base to start with and my current tune is quite removed from either tuners offerings, but it works great for me. I personally would not buy a locked tune for the simple reason that I cannot tweak it. I am the one spending hours driving the vehicle and there's no advantage to having efi in my opinion if I can't make changes to it.

Bottom line, I wouldn't buy a locked tune system for myself, but I absolutely understand why they do it and support their right to do so.

Jody

Well said. :cool:

Since all I have done professionally for the last 10 years is aftermarket engine calibration work (tuning), this thread very interesting to me. The idea of a 'copyrighted' tune is great - a couple of problems that arise are of course how it is originally derived, who paid for the original development, etc. Even after sorting out who 'owns' the work, any enforcement is very hard.

My market is pretty far removed from this forum, but some of the issues are direct parallels. I used to see my work come back across my dyno all the time from other shops - it can be maddening. I made a bit of a career change to pro racing years ago after doing quite a bit of thinking about my profession. Tuning street and hobby vehicles for a living is very tough - my competition is every DIYer out there. The 'import tuner' market I was (and somewhat still am) in is primarily a group of folks that would go out of their way to steal a tuners work rather than pay for it (this diesel group appears to be a very positive opposite). That other market suffers as a whole from this lack of consumer integrity - most of them will never even understand it. They complain about lack of professionalism all the time and can't ever see the root of the problem.

As stated by others in this thread - support your vendors. It is in your own best interest in the end. If a market is prosperous, good professional people will be the rule rather than the exception. I'm new to diesel ownership and not a vendor in this arena, but from what I see so far there are some really good ones. Make it worth their while to stick around.

WOW, I love you :)

Basically, I hate locked ECM's so I won't do them. So I do tuning on the honor system and it works pretty well.

I don't put signatures in my tunes, but they tend to be designed different than most tunes are.

My tuning sales turn around and fund our product testing and racing program, which in turn improves the breed. Why break your truck, when I can break mine for you? :D

Next test is Diamond Eye downpipe, and Banks "true" RamAir system. Then the 1059 Suncoast and the PPE GT42 "Magnum" charger.

Concerning "copyright":

You no longer need to file copyright, but it helps prove the date of authorship. You cannot copyright someone else's work either. And patents cover "functional" mechanisms, trade dress covers appearance of products, and copyright covers what's left over. Unless your tuning mechanism can be patented, don't count on copyright protection, since GM is the original author. Perhaps a handheld can be copywritten, since it ALL is authored by the tuner, but a GM flash image or ECM cannot be copywritten if it contains any GM content.

GM doesn't need a "copyright" notice to enforce their copyright. It could be argued all of us "image" tuners are violating GM's copyright.

I agree with all that are saying protect the rights of the tuners. I was just curious how the system worked because I know I will be using EFI in the future and I don't trust myself to not F' anything up even though I understand a decent amount about the trucks. I would rather let someone else who has hours and hours of tweaking, drive time and drag testing and tuning under their belt build my tune.

There is way too many things in there to adjust to know what to change and to what degree while being safe, keeping it reliable/driveable etc and squeeze the full potential out of the vehicle.

Why break your truck, when I can break mine for you? :D
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EXACTLY!

I would rather let someone else who has hours and hours of tweaking, drive time and drag testing and tuning under their belt build my tune.

There is way too many things in there to adjust to know what to change and to what degree while being safe, keeping it reliable/driveable etc and squeeze the full potential out of the vehicle.

That's what made me purchase EFI Live from a site vendor...

Same here, I feel like I owe anyone on here that replys to my questions whether they be about EFI Live or anything else.

Everybody who knows me knows that I work on anything and I get questions ALL DAY LONG. So I know how much work it is just to answer questions, especially when you get to answer the same ones more than once!

I also purchased my EFI Live from a vendor here.

I thank all of the EFI Live vendors and users on this site for their help and advice, especially the ones who have destroyed BIG $$$ to "learn the hard way"(I just wish I could have been there to see it)

I will continue to recommend this site and it's vendors to my customers!

That's what made me purchase EFI Live from a site vendor...

Likewise. Now, if I could just find some time to start tweaking and tapping that knowledge :rolleyes: & money for the mods that will have to follow. ):h

I dream of koalas fighting the Fabric softener bear

C.A.P - what are you smokin?

KOALAS????

Likewise. Now, if I could just find some time to start tweaking and tapping that knowledge :rolleyes: & money for the mods that will have to follow. ):h

Ready when you are :D