[1]There’s an arms race going on between the industry giants with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars annually who design the hardware and software that power factory engine management systems, and the small teams of dedicated aftermarket engineers striving to crack those systems open and reveal the delicious code inside. One company that’s been especially successful on that front, particularly in terms of General Motors applications, is HP Tuners [2].
[3]HP Tuners’ VCM Suite offers comprehensive late-model GM coverage, and the company is adding new staff to tackle a wider range of Ford and Dodge cars and trucks as well.
We caught up with HP’s Jay Payson at this year’s SEMA show to see what’s new, and he told us that they already have customers tuning the new C7 Corvette Stingray with their system. He also told us that the E92 ECU that controls the Gen V V8 engines under the hood of the Stingray and the new 2014 Silverado has some interesting secrets hidden within.
When we asked him if he’d seen the leaked photos we revealed last month [4] of a supercharged LT1 variant wearing Corvette logos on the intercooler, he said, “There’s support for boosted applications in the E92, so I’m not surprised…” When and if we see a blown C7, HP will be ready to squeeze more power and torque from it. In the meantime, Howard Tanner of Redline Motorsports [5] just put down the first 10-second pass in a 2014 Stingray, using HP Tuners to tweak the ECU:
Don’t think that HP is just about GM, though – they’ve recently added two new engineers to their staff, one of whom is working exclusively with Ford applications. They’ve also made headway on Viper tunes, and they are hard at work on the toughest problem in flash tuning today – Chrysler’s current engine management system.