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The Problem

Things are changing in the automotive space. Automotive manufacturers are making a push to make vehicles uncrackable. 15 years ago, you could swap out the exhaust on your truck, or turn the pump for some quick horsepower gains without any issues! Recently, emissions devices were introduced to Diesel trucks to lower emissions output. These devices include DEFs, SCRs, and EGRs. These changes forced us to purchase a tuner to either work with emissions or disable them if you want to use a turbo back exhaust and other performance parts. Tuning always comes out quickly after a new motor is released. So why are we two years in and just now getting close to having L5P Duramax tuning available?

The answer? GM has worked very hard to make these trucks virtually uncrackable. By using state of the art security and encryption methods , they made it extremely difficult for most tuning companies to crack the ECMs and TCMs these trucks are equipped with. From what I understand, every truck is equipped with a different key exchange.  This makes it impossible to create one tuning solution that could be implemented on every l5P. What’s worse is that if one manufacturer is doing this, it’s likely the others aren’t far behind. So to you Powerstroke and Cummins guys, enjoy it while you can!

The Solution for L5P Duramax Tuning

So how are we going to tune our L5P Duramax trucks? You can either compromise and purchase a generic tuner that doesn’t offer delete tuning or you have to swap your ECM and TCM. In the last couple of days, HPTuners has announced their L5P ECM and TCM exchange service. You send them your ECM and TCM and in exchange they will send you their modified version. The new, modified ECM and TCM will allow you to tune your truck. Several companies including duramaxtuner.com and PPEI are working on creating tunes for these new ECM’s. According to HP Tuners website, they will start shipping ECMs by September 21st. This ECM exchange service costs quite a bit, at $2500. This doesn’t include the tunes! We are anticipating costs of $4-5,000 to successfully tune your L5P.