PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

So it was mentioned to me that a vehicle tuner might be a nice investment for the car.
Thoughts?
experiences?
good? bad? etc.

vehicle:
2001 SSEi 84000 mi
stock

Depends on your goals with the car. It takes quite a bit to learn how to tune yourself.

NOS4Blood70 is correct, it takes a lot of time to learn to tune yourself, if you simply looking for a tuner, I would say the only one that comes to mind is HP Tuners. the DHP tuners if you can find one and the software had issues with bricking PCM's due to too much chatter on the serial (comm) line....requiring a work around wiring wise or an off-board to make them flash the pcm without bricking it, to my knowledge that issue was never resolved before DHP went belly up.

My observation on this is as follows.

1 The transmissions can barely handle the power that the engine puts out as it is. I have one sitting in my yard as proof.

2. if you turn off the traction control all the car does is sit and spin the tires from too much power and no good way to get it to the ground.

3 if you turn traction control back on and hammer down it will lose traction and just rob power from the engine to maintain that traction making a tuner useless

You can actually tune it to get traction and not shut fuel injectors off (bad juju on SC motors) there is an additional table for retarding timing instead but it was zero'ed out from the factory....I modded mine that way. as far as getting it to the ground having a limited slip diff, is a must if you're putting any power down....my old car ran 12sec 1/4mi on a 2.8 pulley, intercooled, running 14+psi boost. Your are correct though the 4T65E/4T65E-HD is the weak point of the vehicle. if you want to play, you just have to plan on paying (now or later).