Somewhere around the late 2010s, engine controllers stopped being open. If your vehicle is newer than that, the honest first question is not “how much power” — it is “can anyone write to this controller at all, and what does the answer cost.”
Why controllers are locked now
Manufacturers began cryptographically securing engine controllers in the late 2010s — partly cybersecurity regulation, partly warranty control. A locked ECM ignores anything that is not signed by the factory, which means no calibration tool can touch it in the state it left the assembly line.
Unlocking is a real bench service performed on the physical controller. It is not a software toggle, it has its own turnaround, and on some platforms it must be done once per controller — which is why a replacement ECM starts the conversation over.
The three states your controller can be in
Every vehicle in our catalog is in exactly one of these states, and the vehicle page says which before you pay:
- Open — older platforms, broadly pre-2017: the interface writes to it directly and no unlock line appears on your order.
- Locked, unlockable — most late-model platforms: an unlock service is required first. The unlock is in our price. The module goes to HP Tuners on our account and comes back by air, and that return is billed once per order — $100 for 2-day air or $140 for next-day.
- Locked, permanently — a small set, most prominently certain 2018-onward GM Gen-5 controllers, cannot be unlocked by anyone. That is a hard stop. We say so on the vehicle page rather than after an order.
The state of our catalog, computed live
The table below is generated from the same catalog that prices every vehicle on this site — it is not an estimate, and it updates when the catalog does.
What it means for your order
Two practical consequences. First, the quote: a shop quoting a locked-platform tune without an unlock line is quoting a job that cannot be performed as described — the unlock is not optional, by us or by anyone. Ours is in the single figure on the page. Second, the turnaround: an unlock adds bench time before the calibration can even begin, so a locked platform is never the same-week job an open one can be.
If you are not sure which state your car is in, the vehicle page will tell you in one search — and if it says the controller cannot be unlocked at all, that answer just saved you from paying someone to discover it.
707
vehicles in the catalog need no unlock
68
need the unlock service first — included in our all-in price
0
permanently locked vehicles are sold here. They are not in the catalog at all.
Where the unlocks live
- Chevrolet · 16
- Dodge · 16
- GMC · 10
- RAM · 9
- Jeep · 9
- Cadillac · 5
- Chrysler · 3
Computed from the same catalog that prices this site, so these figures update when it does. The permanently locked platforms — most prominently certain 2018-onward GM Gen-5 controllers — are the reason a vehicle you expected to find here may be absent: we do not list what cannot be built.