maybe a dumb question, but if your tuner locked their tune, and now they have gone out of business, is there going to be anyway to unlock it?
anyway to unlock efi live tune
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No, that is not possible unless that tuner decides to give you the unlock code which I would bet they won't since they're out of business and as it is their IP (their tuning/their method etc). You will very likely have to buy new tuning.
There is a difference between unlocking the ECM and unlocking the tune, they are not the same thing. Any diesel shop can unlock the ECM, not the tune. If you flash in a factory file it will remove the old file and now be ready for a new tune. The market for tuners has gotten very slim with today's EPA climate/stance.
If the ECM itself is locked SoCal or any diesel shop with a bench harness can attempt to recover it which may take some time.
Correct. So without knowing if it’s the tune or the ECM, at least he knows he has options. My truck had moonshine tunes and the ECM was locked. I couldn’t flash over it.
Also SoCal doesn’t use a bench harness. He replaces something inside. For a $50 extra fee it can be expedited and done that day. I didn’t choose that option and was done the next day anyways.
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Hmmm, last I talked to Gabe they will try to repair ECMs but will also try to bench unlock, that is some good info to know! On your LBZ or LB7? The E35A controller is pretty robust and hard to actually brick/damage than the E54 controller. Usually a passthrough flash from a PC with "assume lock may be faulty" and try common aftermarket keys" checked works.
I've had that happen where only a bench harness will make it work. It has to do with how finicky the low speed coms is from the OBD2 port to the ECM since high speed CAN is not fed to the OBD2 port like it is on 06+.
Unless something has changed, as far as I know, the only way to lock a tune on a LB7 is to lock the ECM with a custom key, bit if you can brute force the key, you can read the tune all day long. On the LBZ and newer, however, you can lock the tune such that it can't be read, but it can be overwritten using pretty much anything, including SPS.
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What EFI has to say about manual unlocking
If you have an auto cal and the tuner went out of business...
Can you use another tuning tool? My rcsb was tuned with hp tuners and I got into the tune by reading it with EFI live, diffrent world I know but still a gm ecm.
You can lock the tune from viewing/edits and also allow it not to be read while not locking the ECM on an 01-10 meaning you can flash over it but can't read the tune out.
I think it would depend if the HPTuner's software locks the ECM from reading which is what EFILive does when the box is checked. It all, I believe, comes down to how the tuner/guy flashing it in sets it up.
HP Tuners can Not tuner lock in the same Fashion. In fact I don't believe they ever got it to function properly. They did copy EFI Live's proprietary Custom Operating systems and can read those tunes out. I have never tried to hook up to a diesel with HP Tuners. My Experiences on the gas side only showed me there sketchy stability during the flash process and even Sketchier business practices along with poor customer service...
So yes my question was specific to the tune not the ECM.
not that I have an immediate need, but I was thinking along the lines of if I wanted to change tire sizes I can’t now without paying someone to completely redo my tuning. Which kinda sucks cuz I have no complaints about my tuning
not that I have an immediate need, but I was thinking along the lines of if I wanted to change tire sizes I can’t now without paying someone to completely redo my tuning. Which kinda sucks cuz I have no complaints about my tuning
You're SOL on that one. You will need to buy new tuning to change the tire size/speedo correction.
For an LB7 I believe you can use the internal bypass pin to do a forced read. I know it works on 99-07 P01/P59 which is the same case, similar board, but the gasser counterpart. I do not know if it has been tried on an E54 though. This is not talked about much, but with all the tuners closing up shop, this video was put out.
Source: https://youtu.be/oGeMK6LvQck
Going to piggyback this thread, maybe someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong? Had a guy with an 04 / LB7 wanting tunes, short story is I tried to license the controller and it came back with the "locked with custom key". Read the link posted above and I thought we could still flash my tune into it, so I clicked on the lock/unlock tab under "Auto Detect" and it stated "unlocked". So I tried to read the file and it pulled a dsp5 file that was lightly modified. Why wouldn't it let me license / flash my file?
IIRC it’s an issue with EFI live. You have to bench flash the ecm and that’ll fix the issue. But I could be wrong. I ran across a couple LLY’s that had that issue.