Yup, there is also a private group.

I will back away from the podium once again and head out to finally get my brakes done.

 

Sous, you capture my thoughts pretty well with all your NOT statements. And also your opinion of “custom” tunes. I have said similar for years. Although I cut them a bit more slack than you. If they have made the base tune and are willing to tweak for you then I would call them “customized”.

Dude, you’re hilarious!
I have used sigma, but hadn’t heard of six sigma. That’s a bit more open than I’m used to seeing.

Dan, you sum up my thoughts pretty well. That learning curve is invaluable and not easily attained for a casual tuner.

I also feel it wouldn’t be out of my reach either, but not with the time or commitment (lack there of) that I would be giving it. I have experience with tuning dyno cell test patterns. Not the same, but still a tuning aspect. I feel I actually have a knack for this compared to the average joe.... but there’s still a learning curve and learning happens sometimes from your mistakes. Mistakes can be expensive when we are talking about our beloved trucks and our own wallet.

Admittedly I haven’t had time to look through the links folks have shared so maybe I have just missed the info.
Would our current tunes be readable in the Minotaur software?
Or would we be starting from scratch?
If the PHP library is usable as a base then this is much more doable in my opinion. Just a tweak here and there on someone else’s tune.

Great conversation guys.

 

The way it looks to me is that you would purchase a "calibration file" for your specific PCM code. DP-422, DP-402...whatever it is. Then from that you would make your changes.

 

That makes it much much easier than starting from scratch. Thats very similar to my experiences with mcc.

Busy today, hoping to take some time to look into this further and read the psa thread further soon.

I will add part of my motivation for this is hyrda canned tunes on my 2003. I love the way they run and shift in my 2001, my 2003 however There are some changes id like to make =, trans tuning, shift points at varius throttle input, lockup, throttle input, play with timing and pw in small batches etc. I was successful doing this on what im told is a similar platform. Sounds like this is a little more spendy, but not by a ton.

 

https://edgeproducts.com/pro/

This is the product Edge now has that you can load HPTuners tunes into. If you guys want to keep this thread Minotaur and PHP based, this discussion can be moved elsewhere...

It seems that a big hold up here is that Minotaur seems to be a black magic program that few understand. Of course there are also few that truly understand the 7.3 also...

From where I am looking at it, as a new 7.3 owner, this Edge seems like an awesome deal to me. I want data monitoring. I also want selectable, "customizable" tunes. So I spend money for a monitor, install it, spend money for a Hydra, and install. But does a guy really need 15 tunes? I think I could live with 4. So it would be money ahead to go with an "all-in-one" unit. It will cost $100 for a license through HPTuners to unlock the PCM, the HPTuners software is free, and if I remember correctly, what the Minotaur was modeled after. It is a much greater known quantity, probably thousands of people using it nationwide. If the bugs are worked out, the 7.3 PSD is supported now...now I am not sure what all is available with Minotaur, but I believe HPTuner software can also be used for diagnostics, datalogging, etc.

I am just thinking that maybe, with the new software and hardware available, is it time to try something new?

As a side note...Edge does not show online for the Insight Pro to be 7.3 compatible. I called their tech support and they assured me that even if it is not listed, if the vehicle is supported by HPTuners, it will work.

 

Since @KubotaOrange76 started this particular thread, let's ask Chris if he wants to keep it focused on the PHP Minotaur / Hydra tuning products, or broaden the topic to include other tune it yourself products such as what you mentioned.

I am happy to move all the HPTuners posts into a separate thread, or leave them all standing here in this thread to continually compare and contrast throughout the course of this discussion.

I'll be asleep over there in the corner. Just wake me up if you need the keys.

 

After working on my front end brakes today and having some thoughts in my head about this thread, I would like to try and verbalize them (or write them...) here for others.

This is not a military order of "we must" or "you must". We are not in the military. This is not a binding contract order of "we must" or "you must". There are no contracts here! This is simply an idea Chris came up with and some of us feel the same way about it.

If you are happy with your tunes, GREAT! Run those to the ends of the Earth, watch out for the edges you flat Earth people. Some are happy with their canned tunes, but some are not. Some are happy, but see room for improvement. If you don't want to suit up and play ball, that is fine. Sit on the sidelines and cheer or just sit back, drink your beverage and watch the show.

Time involved? Yup, there is time involved. But, there is no deadline for this and there is no suspense date to meet. So, time is negated by the desire to have a better tune. Some people don't have the time to do a frame off restoration, but some do. Some people don't have the time to fabricate and modify a steering gear from a 6.7L, but some do. Some people don't have the time to install a T4 kit, but some do. Some don't have the time to delve into tuning software and that is OK because they don't have to. No one is being forced to do anything.

Money involved? Yup, but when looking at the price of the Minotaur software and looking at what each "tuner" charges, well that can be somewhat negated as well. Just the other day Eswift mentioned he has spent well over $1000 on tunes, and even then had to fight GH many times in order to get to his happy place. This is not the first time for this sort of thing and it will not be the last. In addition, if someone with Minotaur software ever gets a different set of injectors, they no longer need to purchase new tunes and fight with a tuner to get them sorted out which further negates the money involved. I am not a rich man, not by any means. But if I can save money in the long run by spending a bit more up front, then I will. Take my T4 turbo as a prime example.

Jason (RacinJasonWV) and I have different thoughts on what a custom tune is, and that is OK. I don't mind his opinion or him sharing his opinion. I disagree with his opinion and that is OK. I am a man of action. I do not like to sit by and watch "experts" send out tunes that do not work, then we tell them what is going on, then we wait, then we get a tune update that does not work, then we tell them what is going on, then we wait, etc... Dan V mentioned "Minotaur's Tuner Page on Facebook" and I responded with there is a "private group" as well. You would be surprised by the names in that group that have posted in the past that were referenced as "experts" in another FTE thread the very same day.

Again, if you don't want to change your tunes, then you don't have to. No one is forcing anyone to do so and no one is asking anyone to pay for anything financially or with their time they don't want to.

Chris (KubotaOrange76) had an idea and there are others on the FTE alone that are of the same thought process. Clearly there are others on other forums as well based on what I have read and what Chris has quoted from other forums. Maybe something will come of this, maybe not... The Duramax community has software like this that they share their lessons learned and notes amongst themselves. Does the Cummins community have something like this as well?

As for starting from scratch with the tunes, that is not how it is at all... It is not like PHP hands you the software and says "good luck"... That would not be good for their customer base, products, services or reputation. They offer 1:1 courses at the PHP building, which is 60 miles from my couch. They could not expect to teach someone tuning from scratch in just a few hours, that is not realistic.

Does anyone really think that Finnishstroker bought Minotaur software and learned how to tune his 7.3L with "homemade" modified injectors from scratch in the time of a couple of weeks? I do not... I believe there is a baseline tune or tunes and he found what needed to be tweaked (IPR, ICP, FUELPW, Idle, etc) and did that until he was happy with it and then moved on to the next thing that needed his attention. Would years of experience have come in handy, sure. Maybe he would have spent hours or minutes instead of days, but come on, let's be real about this.

We are not designing a ship to go to Mars! We are talking about making tweaks to a tune that we as an owner, driver and customer feel there is a need for. Make a tweak so that your transmission shifts 100 RPM sooner or later, make a tweak for FUELPW so that you are not running near 5ms like I was in this thread. Despite my truck running well and cool with no smoke, I don't like seeing the near 5ms FUELPW and would like to change that. Frankly, I am on the edge of going ahead with this or just saying screw it and leaving it alone because my truck runs great. I would like to be part of an effort to educate the FTE community on Minotaur software, just like I was a part of the PID Charting Tool and the T4 kit becoming more popular here in the 7.3L PSD community. The Minotaur software is not for everyone, that is clear and that is OK.

I just had my truck out today for a drive in the sun after completing the brake job and was calling it the "race truck" because it was running very well and very quick. Even when towing it has cool EGT's, plenty of power, no smoke and maintains speed on cruise control when towing heavy. But, I would like to see if I can change the IPR DC and FUELPW and maintain the same level of performance. Maybe I can, maybe I cannot, maybe I will, maybe I will not...

If we can get a few people involved in this so we can compare notes and lessons learned, I might make that leap of faith with them hand in hand while others sit back and watch the $h|t show or the success we are having.

I will leave it for now with this... SkySkiJason, who I consider a master mechanic when it comes to the 7.3L told me this in person recently after driving my truck.

Although, try as I might, sometimes I cannot leave well enough alone...

 

Pondering making a faceless facebook account to join, but dont want to take the time to do that if they wont accept my request anyway. Man i hate what facebook has done to the forums.

Im good with leaving it in there, Im not picky, just dont want this thread to turn into a huge 100 page pissing match like the one i linked on PSA thats hard to pull all of the useful info out of.
I haven't had much chance to read into things today because of that annoying work thing getting in way. I briefly looked at that edge link and watched a few parts of the youtube link but rna out of time. I was looking to try and understand where it provided the tuning platform. It comes off to me like an ez-lynk/auto agent cloud based platform? I dont know what you would have to do to get access to the dealer side to make the changes When i get time id like to dig more into it, unless someone can answer that for me.

I agree with you. To answer your question, when i had my 6.7 cummins, cummins forum had a dedicated tuning forum, where i met some guys and we exchanged alot of tunes and shared our knowledge. Of course veritcal scope bought them and ruined it like every other forum they buy. And then theres facebook..which i dont do.

Ive still got the tunes, but not the truck or tuner. I did what you said above, started with a base, compared what was changed in a stock file vs a "performance file" and made small changes to fit what i wanted to timing, shift points, tc lockup, duration, turned off certain features etc etc. also cleaned up spikes etc. Its time consuming, but not that hard. I was happy with my end result, even made a lope tune just to see if i could doit before it was the cool thing.

Getting into pushing the limits of performance and the hardware is a different story.

Im planning to save up the $ and buy into this. Not sure how soon yet.

 

I was tagged couple of times here.
I dont consider myself as an tuner or not try act like one.
Just have basic computer skills and had the frustration for tuning being the biggest factor in my Injector saga..

I had thoughts of starting a thread called:"Tuning for the Boneheaded",but have had lots of thing going on.
The idea would have been to learn and understand together the Minotaur software and tuning tweaks..

Basic Minotaur purchase includes PHP tunes from the standard library.

You can not modify other tuners files,they are encrypted.
Basicly if SD owner goes anything besides stock ADs or stock ADs with bigger nozzle,he has to start from a scratch.And with hybrid injectors add more in to it.
​

In my case standard PHP tunes are for split shot injectors.
Imagine that I have DIY single shot hybrid injectors and i have to start the tuning with split shot baselines..??

OBS truck owner has a way smaller leap to tuning.
SD owners first task is to learn how to shorten the injection pulse width.

About timing,i havent really messed with injection timing.
I feel like in HEUI theres so much more in to it.
ICP,PW,MFD..Big changes can be made with zero timing tweaks..Pull too much PW and gutless turd or with too much PW(split shot tune for example)you have a smoking freight train that sure has some ***** in it..

There are so many tables and things to be taken care of that I dont really like to compare tuning a HEUI to other platforms(though i havent tuned anything else than HEUI)
For example EOT,shaky or rough idle when hot..?
Perfectly running engine when cold perhaps..?

​I tried to copy a PW map from SuperchargedPSDs YouTube channel..
Took screenshots from standard single shot injector PW maps(those did not really help in my case).
I have eyeballed through that PSA 101 tuning thread and quite a few others too..
SuperghargedPSD has helped me via PMs..

As far as I know Charles at PSA was Pocket here at FTE.
I have sended him PMs with no respond,i think i read that he had sold the 7.3 and moved to the never platforms.
Since cleatus12r has banned himself from the FTE,SuperghargedPSD is the only one besides me from the active members that has used Minotaur.
And he has moved on to the 6.7 and his cool supercharged 7.3 OBS with DIY hybrid B code injectors is pretty much retired..?

That is a problem that we have to reinvent the wheel,though the knowledge is/was here..

PHP Minotaur education video?
What a joke!
I dont use Facebook and my wife left a request to the PHP private group with no response and i have forgotten it since.
PHP Customer service was great when i purchased Minotaur!There was Angela(Bills wife) on email,i called him "The First Lady" and tried to get discount with no luck..She was taken though for the compliment!

I also feel like that current tuners have only made little tweaks to PHP standard tunes to call them their own.
Every revision i got from 1023 and Dan K had little or no effect at all.Feeling like no real,i mean big changes wasnt made at all.
For example if 1023 tune dies trying to recover to idle.
Revision exactly the same,was there made any changes??
I do have "crap shoot" DIY injectors,but why didnt they add ICP below idle rpm so that engine cant die.
That was my trick,add ICP below idle area more than there is ICP in the idle itself..🙊

​​​​​​​Sorry for the long post,not Finnish at all.🤡
​​​​​​

 

@FinnishStroker , thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to address some of our thoughts, we sincerely appreciate it.


I was aware of the other companies being encrypted from talks with other tuners in the past, thank you for confirming this though.

Got it! Good information to have.

What about using the Titan Unlock PHP extended library of tunes as a baseline, is that something that you see as a possibility? For example, if someone had 160/30 single shot injectors and had the Minotaur software, would they be able to use the Titan Unlock PHP extended library for 160/30 single shot injectors as their base tune to tweak parameters from there?

I suspect this would be plausible if someone is able to use the PHP tunes for stock AD injectors, but would like to get your take on it as someone who has seen the Minotaur software in action and put to good use.

History has taught us that even a 250/200 injector will run on stock split shot AD injectors tune. It will not run well, but it will start, idle and drive. So, you taking the stock split shot AD injector tune and making it your own is not too far off base. This relates to my question above about the Titan Unlock single shot injector tunes though.

I briefly looked for the YouTube channel you referred to for @SuperchargedPSD , but was unable to find it. I will search some more and link it here if I find it, but do you have a link to the YouTube channel you can share with us?

Some of us are willing to work at designing a new wheel that is community built and inspired. We are capable of learning from each other and have done so many times. If we share our knowledge and lessons learned, we can be successful, I believe this in my heart. If someone is not interested, they don't have to join us. If someone is deterred, they don't have to join us. If someone is afraid of the unknown, they don't have to join us.

Yup, it is a big joke, on us though... For anyone that has not seen it, I have linked it below.


This was my experience as well when I was in contact with them last year about the Minotaur software. Angela spoke to me for quite some time and I spoke to Bill about it as well, but not for as long and only once. I expressed genuine interest in the Minotaur software and some classroom 1:1 time since I am so close to their brick and mortar location.

 

I will go tuning school soon. Plan to spend some 1 on 1 time with Bill and drink from the fire hose, then go try to unpack what I learn, then return to Bill when I have ‘good’ questions.

My goal is to tune MY truck to make me happy.

 

Sous

Good thinking on using Titan library files,but as far as I know,it is not possible because they arent binary files which are used in Minotaur.
Basicly they are encrypted files too.
What im saying,only usable files for tweaking are the ones that comes with the Minotaur purchase for specific HEX code.
​​Im not 100% what im talking about on this,i have to dig in to it..🐒

I had a thought of contacting PHP and ask for a basic single shot tune for my PCM,but never got in to it since i got figured out how to smoothen that idle.


Link to a channel you asked,Sous.

Sous,from your writing i have the impression that it is relatively easy to convert an split shot standard injector tune to an single shot hybrid injector tune.

I was nearly throwing my axe in to the dwell on the tuning journey..It was frustrating,you thinked HEUREKA! that must be the key but tune made no difference at all..
I made hundreds of test calibrations,yes hundreds just for the idle remaining smooth.
Then hundreds more for driveability,power,shifting,etc..
And im still in the learning process,had few months even not touched in the laptop,last week i opened it and might have found a way to circle around boost fooler..
Because i have deleted mine during my T4 project..
There was a MAP delay section that had 2 seconds in it,it can be tweaked up to 30 secs,i think it is the delay time for PCM overboost code.
But cant test until i have that turbo together,again..

And being foreigner i have no person to talk face to face here in Finland about 7.3 tuning.
I dont know single person besides me who has tuned with a Minotaur in our country.

 

I think it would be beneficial to have a list of some "theory" of what affects what. Like if you command more HPOP psi, that affects SOI (advances). And these are the part of the learning curve I was speaking to.

 

Great information @FinnishStroker ! I for one appreciate you sharing your experience and removing a bit of the mystery behind the tuning of the 7.3L. Apparently I have seen a couple of videos from that channel before. I went to the videos page and I have viewed several of them in the past. I have noted the page this time and again thank you.

Your thought on extending the MAP delay to fool the boost fooler is what some of the other tuners do as well, we know that for a fact.

You are a pioneer, a trailblazer and someone that will not give up in the face of adversity!

Thanks again for the advice!

@SkySkiJason Let me know when you get a date set, I just may join you at the PHP shop if it works out that way (budget and time taken into consideration) and you don't mind.

This is the key thought that I may not have conveyed above, even though I wrote a novella worth of words. I don't think any of us discussing this here are interested in purchasing the pro version and tuning commercially, but I could be wrong. I know that I am definitely not interested in that. I am simply looking to make my truck run more efficiently so that it can live a long and healthy life. I think I am close to that, but not quite there yet...

 

I studied all of that and read the threads posted above back when they were live. I decided I did not have time to dedicate to learning more. Currently committed to making time and as Sous says I have ‘secured the funding’ to invest in training. Bill is only 1.5 hours from me.

I believe @FinnishStroker ia correct. All library files, etc are locked/encrypted. It’s not as easy as tweaking someone else’s tunes. However, a couple tuners have told me they can get a good idea what the other guy did by studying data logs.