Hey, had a thread up awhile ago about getting my car tuned through Trifecta or going to a local guy who has HPtuners. The answer was obvious, HPtuner. My car has an Intense tune now. For some reason Intense locked the PCM and would allow the HPtuner program in. So now i have to go to the local Chevrolet dealer and get the case re-learn done, and hopefully when that happens he can get into it and fine tune it...

had to vent somewhere, my car has ran like crap for a while and i thought it was going to be sovled tonight! Anyone else think it f'd up for them to lock the PCM? i understand they dont want anyone looking at their maps and stuff or just want people using their tunes, but still? come on

 

That sucks man! I've heard of other companies doing this too. I tried to read my friends tune on his g6 gxp and it was locked by Vector Motorsports. Hate to say it but you will either have to send it to intense to see if they will unlock it or get a new PCM to get tuned. Hopefully there is another alternative someone know about.

 

a case relears isnt going to unlock the pcm, once its locked, only the person who locked it can get back into it. i dont even think the dealer can reflash it at this point. i think your best bet is to find another pcm that hasnt been screwed with.

 

he researched it some and said that if i got the CASE re-learn done that he should be able to get into it? hopefully... im really pissed that they lock their ****, if not im going to call them and tell them to send me a stock PCM and i'll send theirs back.


Hmmmm how much do they run on here? i mean id much rather have a custom tune...than just that? and why would'nt the CASE re-learn be affective now? the tune is still on there?

 

The Crank Angle Sensor...E? (lol) relearn is usually performed after you swap PCMs to align the crank with where the PCM thinks it should be or something around those lines. It doesnt give access to the PCM in any way unfortunately.

 

Well hell, you still think the tune is good? if i got it relcranked or whatever?

 

No man, you either need to send it to intense or get another one. No way around it.

 

why the hell would they lock it? any company that locks the pcm after a tune is ****.

If i pay for a ******* tune, it's my ******* tune, the tunes work like **** when you share them for the most part cause every car is different, if a company is so greedy they would do something like that, they can suck *****. I say everyone start avoiding anyone that does it, and send the business to places like zzp or anyone else who leave them alone.

 

dude that blows! I would be pissed too. How can a company lock something that you own. What are they trying to hide their shitty tune from people seeing it?

 

i think it has to do with them thinking their tune is so good they don't want people to share it between each other and it will bring more business to them, but I can assure you that it will do nothing but cost them business.

Let me look into this a bit further, I may be able to get a device that can pull the raw data off the ecm and see how it's been locked, so they can be cracked.

for now though, everyone just boycott the people who lock the tunes.

 

Why dont you just buy an unlocked ecm... and then tune that one?

No need to crack anything...

 

i think the deal is that they are locking their binary files. not the ecu itself, OP can you be more specific on what is locked?

 

They lock the tune so that, your local tuner can't copy it. Then start selling it for $50 less and make money on thier work..

 

All i know is when he pulgged up the HPtuners prgram is pulled up a warning box or whatever and said it could not find the VCM and to make sure that HPtuners is plugged up? we made sure everything was hooked up about 4 or 5 times and did the whole process. He ran the CEL code and it came up as a..... **** i cant remember the code...

 

the ecm is sort of touchy, i never had an issue with hptuners except for when using it on the cobalt. think it has something to do with multiple buses or something.

i posted a similar issue thinking it had to do with an 06 powerpack in an 05 ecm car. this fix worked for me:

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/show...light=hptuners

 

you should still be able to full write over the tune.. but you wont be able to read the tune.. i know ALOT of tuners that do read locks

 

their tunes are **** and they ARE avail if you know where to look anyways

 

What is an application key? i can try and show that thread to the guy with the HPtuners...

How can he write over the tune if he cant get into the mapping?

 

application key is his hptuners application key. he should know what to do if you show him that.

 

I thought it gave an error showing that it was locked, if it was locked.. not a "can't connect" error?

 

Agreed, they are two different things with two separate messages.

OP which one popped up?

 

he clicked search or whatever to find the VCM, a little window popped up after about 20 seconds of searching and said that it could not find the VCM please try again and make sure everything is connected... we did this about 4-5 times?

 

I dont believe it is locked then. IIRC it will tell you that it is locked. when the window pops up

 

then what would be the problem? how could he get into the mapping?

 

if you have the car unlocked in HPtuners you get a tune from someplaces as a base then edit that and choose write entire

stupid question but are you making sure your car has the accessoy power on and the laptop is recognizing the hptuner cable?