ok I have the option of doing stage 1 or trifecta tune. which one would yall think I should go with.

vince from trifecta has some really good tune packages for the HHR and they are undetectable for warranty issues. plus I am the warranty since I work as a service tech at dealership I bought it from.

now stage 1 comes with some sensors but speaking with other guys you really don't need them. Is that correct? but I have the part numbers for the sensors so I could just order them seperate and do the tune with trifecta.

plus my club is a trifecta dealer so I can get it tuned really cheap.

 

I would go Trifecta, it's cheaper.

Talking with Vince, with someone wanting to know about a Trifecta+Stage 1, he said you wont notice much of a difference

Plus with all of the "stage 1 problem" threads, I would just go Trifecta...all depends what you feel like.

I went with Trifecta, but I'm not going to do anything else to the car.

If you plan on more later, you might want to Stage 1 it, and when the warranty is up/don't care anymore do an HPTune or something

 

why do you say that? I have HPTuners with datalogger as well so I really have 3 options to go with.

if I do Trifecta I can do it and the Hard pipes

if I do stage 1 it will be just stage 1


so I think I may go with trifecta. and order the hard pipes on monday.

 

Sounds to me like you'd already made your decision.

BTW, while i think trifecta is a great option, I think the jury is still out about it being undetectable. We only been told about ONE test. IMO, not enough to prove it is stealth. It may be, but I wouldn't base my decision on that. But it looks like you've get plenty of other reasons.

Honestly though, if you have HPTuners, why not just use that?

 

I did the stage kit with hp tuners on top of that. The stage kit is good for the sensors and you can push more boost that way.

 

If someone has a problem and runs into a smarter than your average bear tech, the code will be found and you're SOL. With the advertising that it's 'stealth' you can bet someone will pick up on it and take a harder look.

 

ya but if i am the service tech doing the work on my HHR then I wouldn't void my own warranty. plus if they were going to send out a warranty claims person to examine the car I could always flash the ecu to stock before they come to the dealership. so stealth or not I think I would be ok.

 

They can see (if they're looking for it) how many times you've re-flashed your ECU, and if those re-flashes weren't done by a Chevy dealer, they will assume you've had an aftermarket tune done and they can deny your warranty based on that.

I've got a Superchips tune which can be flashed back to stock at any time, and I hope that's enough to get warranty work done if it's needed. But if they deny my powertrain warranty when I break something and it's not an obvious manufacturing defect, then I'm not going to argue too much. If you wanna play, you gotta pay, and the dealerships have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to warranty coverage - there's some pretty aggressive ECU tunes that could easily burn out a stock turbo or bust a transmission with a lot of hard driving.

 

ya but at the dealership I can use my tech 2 with sps off dealerworld to flash any ecu back to stock. takes a matter of minutes. and all they will see is that a gm dealer reprogrammed the ecu.

lol benefits of working as a service tech at a chevrolet dealer.

 

If I remember correctly, it keeps the last 10 flashes. I believe specifically a hash/checksum will need to be deleted, if possible. Also the same info for the flash just loaded, again if possible. Yeah, it takes a matter of minutes, that's the beauty of it. The bad part is it remembers, and I don't know how easy it is to make it forget.

Not trying to talk anyone out of it, just be aware of the liability. I just don't care to read where a person loads a non-supported program. Beats the car a little bit, breaks a part and complains the dealer won't take care of them.