HP Tuners is a great system if you want to really get into tuning. The capability to change just about anything you want is great, from flex fuel cars to modifying the PCM Operating System for high boost applications beyond the factory PCM limits. However, there are so many tables in the Editor to change for that you need to really understand how things work before you go changing stuff around. The Scanner part of HP tuners is where I would start just to get a feel for where things are at with your engine right now. Not only will this give you practice at datalogging and how to change the display and make histograms/graphs that you can play back and review later to see what is going on, but will also help you verify all the sensors are functioning within an acceptable range to start with. In the end, you make a change to the tune, then use the scanner to see if it helped. In general, you can scan what the knock sensors are doing by logging "knock retard" to get a clue when/where you have too much timing. You can use the 02 sensor data to some degree for idle and small load, but since they are narrow band, they can't track wide open throttle. You need to get a wideband 02 set up for that, but then you tune the fuel mixture using the wideband scanning results. You can go to www.HPTuners.com/customer center (you may have to set up a password), and there is a vast repository of tune files, especially for GM cars that folks have posted for anyone to look at. Sometimes you can find a tune file that fits your needs, like a modified tune for an otherwise stock engine. You can look at as many you want to get ideas and use the "compare" function in HP Tuners Editor to see how they differ from your stock LS1 tune. You can spend two credits and license the tune to put in your own car, but do so at your own risk. I would not do this unless I really looked over the whole tune and figured the risk was low that it will cause any problems, but some folks throw a tune in their car "sight unseen" and get lucky. Be sure to "save as" your stock tune and don't mess with it unless you rename it so you always have a clean stock tune on a flash drive or C: that you can fall back on if you get into trouble. There are many folks who also use the handheld type tuners where you answer some basic questions about things like what octane gas you are going to use and let the handheld tuners put something in your car PCM that is more performance oriented than stock. It is not going to "fit" your particular car as well as what HP Tuners could do if you spent time, but the handheld tuners get you something better than stock right away and you don't have to learn how to tune.
