Real World Results: How Unlocking its Factory ECM Improves the C8 Corvette

One of the very first factory ECM tuned C8 Corvette examples hits the street and immediately shows why it’s such a desirable product.

For years, multiple aftermarket companies worked to crack the C8 Corvette’s reportedly “unhackable” ECM so that it could be tuned, a practice that’s been quite common in the automotive world for years now. However, this seemingly simple task was made quite difficult thanks to GM’s efforts to encrypt the ECM and make it difficult for hackers to access. Regardless, someone always finds a way, and that someone is HP Tuners, which just began selling the world’s first factory ECM tuning solution last month. In this video from Late Model Racecraft, we get to see one of the first tuned C8 Corvette examples take a test drive, too.

This customer’s tuned C8 Corvette started life with a variety of bolt-ons that include a Halltech cold-air intake and a stainless steel exhaust system, but when HP Tuners announced that it would be offering a tuning solution, the owner jumped at the chance to enhance those upgrades. That process is fairly simple – owners must remove the factory ECM from their vehicle and ship it to HP Tuners, after which they unlock it and send it back, ready to install and dyno tune.

The beauty of having this capability is that when we add aftermarket upgrades to our vehicles, we need to change the parameters to compensate. For example, adding a free-flowing air box also requires adding fuel, which this process completes with ease. LFR also discusses the fact that it’s necessary to get fuel trims in these cars dialed in properly to ensure that they run and drive smoothly with no stuttering along the way.

On the dyno, the tune alone added around 15 horsepower, which is nothing outrageous by any measure. However, the point here is that it enables the C8 to run smoother and feel faster – thanks to some throttle manipulation – as well as better accommodate future modifications. Those that want to add serious power to the mix can obviously opt to go the forced induction route, and as one might imagine, LFR has several of those in the works as we speak. However, for now at least, it’s nice to see that even naturally-aspirated cars can benefit in a big way from this brand new offering.

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