Originally Posted by jdawg04 4.8

well from my understanding of a custom tune it is you would contact one of the tuners we have some that are sponsors of the site. You tell them what you have done to your truck like gears, intake, exhuast, headers, electric fans, etc. and also you would tell them what your looking to get out of the tune like gas mileage or performance. The utner then will reprogram a PCM and mail it to you and you the tuned PCM, install it place of the stock PCM and in most cases you mail back the stock PCM.

Tuning software like HPtuner LS1 edit and i think there another popular one gives you the ability to tune your own PCM through a laptop. You would need to take the time to learn how to use it properly but the software is about the same price as a custom/mail tune maybe a little more but in most cases you can tune multiple LS based engines with it.

As far as whats the best im sure everyone has there preference and likes and dislikes about one or the other. But to me it wouod seem buying the tuning software and learning yourself would be best. for example say you get a Mail/custom tune then you add or change the cam your truck may not run good or at all until you get another tune for the particular cam. With the software all you would do is hookup the laptop and software and start tuning.