Thunder--Fine tuning a truck is very difficult! You can do major damage if you are not very carefull. There is a local guy here in the Pheonix area that does around 90% for the ls1-lt1 base cars and trucks.(Nic) He is very reasonable in price. He does all the tuning no my truck and I am very happy. (PM me and I can get you his #)
It sounds like you I are having the same problem on the converter. I dont want to spend alot on a 60 converter because I know a 80 is in the future. The heat that we have here is extermely hard on auto tranny's, and putting a high stall will only increase internal heat and shorten the life of the tranny. That is why you have got to put the biggest cooler on you can. I am going to do the TB converter now just to get me by because of its lower stall and size heat should not increase to much. Then a PI3200 when the 80 goes in.

 

So then I guess the big question to answer is whether or not I will go to the 80. I was thinking initially that I might be able to squeeze by with the 60 cause I didn't want the extra cost, weight, or power rob of the 80, but I didn't think about the heat here, and I just recently started to consider the happy juice to top everything off. Given my current lack of funds and the fact that I should be saving for a house, I guess I should wait on it and plan for the 6.0 instead of for now. It's just gonna be sooo hard to not spend money

01_5.3_RCSB...PM sent. The two big reasons I want to learn to do my own tune are first to be able to make adjustments as I see fit on my own time, rather than have to schedule a time and pay extra, and second, I guess its just a personal pride thing. I want the truck to be my own work and not have to depend on anyone in case something goes wrong (and also not have anyone else to be mad at if it's not perfect)......but there is something to be said for not breaking anything during the learning curve. Although....I think that once I got past it I would be much happier. I guess I'll have to think more about it.