InTune Comments & Questions

[SageCuda]

Yesterday I received my inTune (thanks Lew). I thought I would post regarding my experience, along with a few questions.

I ordered the inTune for my truck, a 2008 Silverado, 5.3L auto. Pretty mainstream. I got the package yesterday, everything was there, including the tuner, OBD cable, USB cable, quickstart guide, and very shiny sticker. All good.

I connected the inTune to my pc, a Win 7, 64 bit box. The tuner fired up, connected out and updated itself to the latest and greatest firmware. I didn't register it at the time (lunch break), so when I got back to work, I re-connected it to my laptop, an XP machine. Connected out, did the registration, no problems at all. Yay me.

After work, I went ahead and proceeded to add a tune to my truck. Following the manual, I connected the inTune, sat inside with the doors shut, lights off, etc. Turned the key to the on position, the tuner fired up, and it made a backup of my current settings, then pushed the new 87 octane tune out. My truck beeped a few times, scrolled a couple messages across (stabilitrack off, etc) while it was updating. Everything went quite smoothly. Since I now had a new tune, the option to modify items was available on the inTune.

Here's where I had questions.. nowhere in any of the documentation provided is there a list of what items are available, what they are, or the impact of changing them. Now, some things are pretty straightforward, like tire size or speed limiter off. But when staring at a list of acronyms, there just isn't much to go on as to whether or not to modify it. Now, some people are going to say "If you don't know what it is, don't change it". To that I reply, the tool gives a person the capability to change it, so please provide information as to what the capability of the tool is. Or even a warning - "Changing this will cause spikes in blood pressure, etc".

Another item I noticed in terms of documentation - there are disclaimers regarding connecting the tuner and then turning your key past the On position and starting you vehicle. Which makes sense, but then there is no guidance as to what you need to do when logging data. Plug in and then start, making sure not to do a tune? Start, then plug in? Just pointing out that for those who don't want to damage the unit or their vehicle, this would be a good idea.

As a general observation, for those considering picking up an inTune and wondering about performance, yes, I did notice a difference on the way in to work this morning. No, it was not earth shattering, but keep in mind I went with the 87 tune, and traffic limits the testing potential on my commute. I'll update again with my thoughts after running in this mode for a while, but so far, everything has gone quite smoothly. A little more documentation, and I think I would be set.

[mikel]

Great feedback, much appreciated.

Heres a link tot he adjustable parameters explained:
http://www.diablosport.com/index.php?mo ... lay&pid=98

[06MonteSS]

also, when the intune is connected to your computer, go to the intune drive and there's a pdf document on it which is the full complete user manual for the inTune... should help to answer some of your questions...

[mikel]

also, when the intune is connected to your computer, go to the intune drive and there's a pdf document on it which is the full complete user manual for the inTune... should help to answer some of your questions...

Good call, but thats actually on the cd rom drive (diablosport drive), in the documentation folder.

[06MonteSS]

yeah, that's what I meant...

[SageCuda]

The documentation folder contains the Comprehensive User Manual and the quick start guide, along with adobe reader just in case. Unfortunately, the items I mentioned are not to be found in either one.. just some screenshots showing such things as the menu selections for COT ON/OFF, the tire height, and some options under the tune modification like CAGS, Converter Calibration, Fan Control, and Idle Calibration - no explanation of what these items are.

The link to the Predator information is closer to what I was looking for. I haven't checked to see if the inTune contains more/different options than discussed on that page?

[mikel]

intune/pred/trinity all have the same basic parameters

[SageCuda]

More observations..

Today I did some logging with the inTune. It was relatively straightforward.. plug in the unit, select Scan Tool, select Data Logging, press Record. At this point the display changes and shows you the real time parameters coming from your vehicle. All good. When you're done with your test run, press the back arrow, it asks if you want to save the log file. This can take some time.. I logged my drive to work, around 8 min or so (yeah, sue me~). It took a few minutes to write the 2 MB file to flash, which it really shouldn't, coming straight from memory. Something to look into for the software guys. The Playback selection on the inTune is currently not available.. which is a little annoying. If it's not there, I suggest removing the option from the menu and save yourself people like me complaining about broken functionality until it really is available.

Once I was done with the logging, I plugged the unit into my pc, and pulled the files from the drive - again, no issues here. Now, given that since I'm an engineer, I wanted to look at the data with the viewer, so I opened the inTune's folder to see if the software was there. No.. ok, no problem, check the User Manual. The manual says the viewer may be downloaded from the website. Ok.. head to the website.

Unfortunately, at this point there is a little breakdown. When you go to Support and choose Updates/Downloads, nowhere on that page does it mention the Data Viewer. In fact, there is no mention of the inTune either. So, I checked the Tech Support tab, which has a small FAQ.. 9 questions, none of which include the Data Viewer. The page does point one towards the forums though. No problem, head to the forums. Bingo, separate section for the DataViewer. When you enter the forum, there is a sticky.. DataViewer Release Downloads. Unfortunately, the link in the post is broken.

So I ended up doing a search, and found a post with a correct link. Installed the viewer, no issues, everything came up fine, and I was able to peruse my log to my heart's content. However, I think the folks running the website there at diablosport could save you guys on the forums some headaches by updating the page to include the data viewer as part of the downloads where it should be. That, and update your sticky post~

This weekend I plan on getting a half tank of 93 octane and switching my tune to see the difference. More to come.

[mikel]

Great feedback, again

The lack of an inTune specific downloads page is being rectified in a big way.

Currently the Dataviewer software can be found on any/all Predator and trinity downloads pages.

I will update the links in the DV section of the forum as well.

Thanks

[SageCuda]

Some more thoughts and observations..

The 93 octane tune didn't seem to make a big difference for my truck. The jump from the stock to the 87 tune was very noticeable.. going from 87 to 93, not so much. In fact, using the data logging and doing a couple WoT runs from a stop, my 0-60 time actually went down a touch.

During data logging.. why in the world are you displaying the speed value in km/h?!? Minor, I know, but still annoying.

After data logging, when you've logged for an extended amount of time (say 10 min) it takes quite a while for the software to write the data from memory to flash storage. As a software guy, the thought occurs to me that the code that is doing this is reading and writing in small block sizes (1 byte or word at a time?) in a loop based off of total size, and it is greatly increasing the time needed to save a log. Best have your software guys do a peer review on that code..

Also, it would be nice if, during a patch to the inTune, a changelog would be saved on the unit that tells us what the changes were that we just received.

So far though, I have to say I am quite happy with the inTune and that it works as it should, at least for me.

[mikel]

We plan to allow you to change from metric to standard values.

Again, thanks for the excellent feedback.