Question for the experts. My car is bone stock with 15k miles. Is there any benefit to replacing the chip with a tuned chip? My exhaust, intake and even air filters are still the originals. Will I be able to get better performance, mileage, etc out of a tuned chip for an '87? I have gotten performance tunes out of newer vehicles that greatly improves responsiveness and such, but was this an issue in '87? If there is a benefit, what will I see different and from what kind of chip? Thanks.

I would tend to think that you could squeeze a little more power out of it via tuning. Not by buying a pre-tuned chip, but by actually custom-tuning to your specific car. The stock GM tune is probably going to be pretty conservative -- they just needed a tune that would make good power in any car, any temperature, any altitude, etc. Also, you can tweak some things to your liking, such as fan on/off temps, RPM/speed limiter, etc.

I thought the older chips were read only and were not programmable. Or are you suggesting that I program my own?

With my limited knowledge of the programming features (said none!), I thought it might be better to buy one. I thought that the programmers would have had plenty of time to master the '87 programming.

Can you point me towards any threads in this forum that could teach me about building the cable, what's needed as far as programs for the computer and where to learn about the data that gets pulled from the ECM? I'm willing to learn, but I don't even know what questions to ask when searching. Thanks Ward.

Go here http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/di...guide-book.htm
Read and then read it again, until it starts to sink in and then
read it again

i don't know if getting stock ECM will give these but burning proper chip can Give better performance (up to 10-15HP) and better mileage on lover RPM's, if logged with WB O2 you can get vert good tune

best reagrds

Some of the off the shelf chips will often just advance your timing curve, maybe add a slightly richer mixture, and often turn on your fans earlier which will help the car run cooler and faster. I run a Jet stage II chip with 160 thermostat and I can honestly say the car does have a little more snap to it then just the stock chip. But thats about it. Did not improve mileage or shave a second off the quarter mile like the chip company's want you to think.

You can run a off the shelf chip and get some performance out of it. I would recommend one of Ed Wrights chips. They tend to have a little more aggresive edge to them and are at a good price.

http://www.fastchip.com/Index.htm