monte-ss

yes I understand the tuning the eprom and how the highway mode helps in economy but presently I dont have the stuff to burn my own, will hopefully have it all here in the next month or so.

DAVECS1

Not that I defend the purchase of aftermarket Eproms, BUT they are not all worthless. There are Eproms a person could buy that world work very effectively even if the person who designed them did not drive the car.

The following eproms could be produced effectively with just a little information from the car owner.

VATS disabled(or any flag for that matter)
Fan engagment temperature
Closed loop engagement temperature (also dealing with Temps)

Changes like a thermostat can be effective if the proper things in the chip can be changed
Transmission swaps can be aided by just turning of the flag for MSS.

I help people in my area all the time with these types of changes and they are all satisfied. The only thing I make them pay for is a new MEMCAL from GM so I can modify it for the new chip without accidently destroying there stock one.

Grim Reaper

Those changes are not a "custom eprom" in my opinion. It's a simple change - much like increasing the Injector Constant for new injectors. And anyone that would charge for those changes should be ashamed of themselves. It truly is a rip-off for such simple changes.

But, for those that say "I can't afford the equipment, blah, blah, blah", all I can say is "You are missing out big time". You can EASILY make the equipment pay for itself just by proper tuning with the gas you save.

But when people are expecting MORE POWER by having someone else burn them an eprom, they are going to be sadly disappointed. It just won't happen. Sure it may be BETTER than the stock eprom (if they've made changes to their motor), but they are NOT going to get anywhere near the performance they could if they took the time and learnt how to do it.

I truly find it funny to see guys spend thousands of dollars on parts, and then they won't learn to tune their own eprom. And then they wonder why all that money only made them .5 seconds faster? I do better than that on my basically stock engine with just eprom tuning. They may as well have left their engine stock and just spent the $200 on the eprom equipment - they would have been further ahead (and won't even have to get dirty doing it).

90IROCconv

What kind of cable is required to run Craig Moate's software? Can this be setup to run just as a scanner for now?? It will be a while before I can get into burning?

How do we get Craig Moate's software?

90IROCconv

BTW, I am running w2k on my laptop.

ZaphodB

There are several models of cables that will work, and Craig has links to the plans for how to make them at his site.

Yes, you can use the software even if you just have the stock chip - It's a *very* useful tool both for tuning and troubleshooting!!!

__________________
ZaphodB a.k.a Carl Andersson - zaphodb@area51.cc
'89 Camaro IROC-Z 5.7L TPI /w ATI Procharger P-1SC @ 10 PSI, Transgo Street/Strip Shiftkit
Custom ARAP Chip Under Development/180 t-stat, Edelbrock TES Headers,
SLP Airfoil, K&N Filters, Accel 8mm wires, AFPR @ 42 PSI

chevyguy1969

I have read through everything in this post twice and I am very thankful and kinda overwhelmed at the same time. I guess I am like most people on here, wanted to get into burning my own chips but was too scared too. I did have few questions though.

#1 Can you keep your stock chip as a back-up and copy over your stock configuration to a new chip? That way you are not testing and tuning the stock one?

#2 I hear people talking about they burned their own chip bcause they upgraded their injectors, put headers on, and a different set of heads. I do not understand how you know what to change to make your system take more advantage of your upgrades. Is it just a trial and error thing?

#3 I like Craig's adapter and I would much rather buy one that try to solder stuff to my stock "computer" I could not tell exactly by the pics and the info but do you just take out the old chip and plug in his adapter so you can just swap out chips as much as you like? It says at the bottom of the page about "I added a soldered-in gold contact 28-pin socket below the ZIF, and the ZIF snaps into that, so when you get done tuning just pop out the ZIF, snap in the final EPROM/FLASH, and then you can close your lid up with the adapter (minus the ZIF) inside the ECM without any clearance issues at all." Do you actually take the adapter back out?


Thank you again to everyone who has posted on here. I know what I am saving up for to get for Christmas!!! Burning equipment!

Ed Maher

#1 and 3 go hand in hand. Just like you said, moates adapter uses the stock memcal for it's ESC and limp home stuff, but lets you use a different chip. And if for some reason the chip you burnt failed (which is very unlikely) you could swap the stocker back in just by taking out the adapter. Yes, it's that easy and safe.

#2 is a more complex question. For something like injectors it's just a matter of changing the injector constant in the chip. And if you know what size injectors you're putting in then there is no real guesswork.

As for tuning for other mods, thats where having a scan tool comes into play. At part throttle, you can look at the BLM (see http://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/show...&highlight=BLM (Could someone explain blm a little?)) for an explanation of what the BLM is) and see how far off your fuel tables are. And as explained in that post, it's simple math to then change the fuel table so that it isn't correcting for that.

Tuning WOT is more of a trial and error thing. It's best to start this once you're part throttle stuff is pretty close so you don't have to keep changing the WOT stuff when you change part throttle. But basically you'll have a table in front of you showing how much extra fuel to inject at WOT and you can move those values around and take it to the track (or g-tech or some other controllable way to see change) and see what it does with different values.

As for the timing curve, tuning it at part throttle is a science into itself that is beyond the scope of this post. At WOT it's just like tuning fuel though. Try different values and see what happens, being careful to monitor for knock.

914Mula

My friend has a Hypertech chip for an 89' Maf TPI. I have a 91' SD TPI. Can I still use this chip as a ZIF and if so do I need to modify it any?

Grim Reaper

No. In fact, the eproms are different sizes. Maf cars use 16K eproms while SD cars use 32K. A MAF memcal may as well be from a Ford as far as SD is concerned.

patrick sieben

Very interesting.

Good to put up a post that is not intimidating to novices and that one can speak freely.

I have a few questions that might get me into programming.

#1 eliminating cold start injector, how to.
#2 Do we only look a blm, int and knock counts for ideal tuning on dynojet?
#3 Changing idle speed, my car runs at 800-900 rpm I would think 700-800 is good for me
#4 What reading should IAC stepper counts be at 30 or so? for optimal idle
#5 What can I change to the chip so that idle is a firm number as apposed to surging a little down to 700 up to 900 and back stable.

#6 Why not send diacom reading to Ed Wright (fastchip) and get him to do a chip for $150,- (I'm asking to be shot here but please with the fundamental arguements)

Thanks

madmax

1. Use an 89 chip (with VATS turned off) or change to SD.
2. Actually, I'd look for a place that has a WBo2 sensor they can hook up during the run, and use that to tune instead. Its much more accurate than the stock o2.
3. Simple change in the prom. Theres a 'desired idle' table.
4. Varies. I have a car thats happy at 70, so you'll need to play with it.
5. Change the timing and IAC parameters. If its hunting around now, lowering the idle speed may not be a good idea.
6. Ed charges more than $150 (more like $350) and he isn't seeing if the changes he made are working on your car or not. That would be a long and time intensive process to get a decent chip. Do your own, you can keep making improvements until you get bored of it.

patrick sieben

Actually he does charge $350 for the initial chips all others $150,- following that one.

To be fair.

cheers

88IROC-LT1

Dumb question.

What if someone was to change thier engine out? Something Like a 383 with a mild cam and a different TPI type intake. How would you know where to start? I don't know what the initial vacuum, fuel needed, air needed, is to be. Should I just find someone with a 383 and have them help me out? Or is there a way for me to learn from what I have read?

Ed Maher

Not a dumb question, and in fact tha answer is a lot easier than you'd guess.

If you have a MAF car, all you need to do is make sure the injector constant matches the injector you're using. That's it. MAF doesn't care what size engine is behind it. It senses airflow, and injects fuel accordingly.

If you have SD you have 2 numbers to change to get your initial starting point. Injector constant, and cylinder volume constant. SD injects fuel based on how much air it thinks is flowing based on manifold pressure and the cylinder volume.
You'll start with a chip thats from as similar a stock combo as you can find, and with a mild cam and TPI the VE curves will be quite close enough to run and drive with. The VE curve is just a % that tells the ECM how well the cylinders fill at that RPM and manifold pressure. That % then gets multiplied by the cylinder volume and you have airflow (which is what MAF measured directly).

The above is a simplification, but is the short of what you need to know when starting a new combo on a new chip.

88IROC-LT1

OK, that makes sense. Thanks

ScreaminDeamin85Z

ok i have had my scanning tool working for several months now and i am just getting time to "play" around and experiment with the learning process. does anyone on here that knows what the variables i am getting mean, and also has a messenger service that would be able chat with me and possibly clear things up a bit? i have a few logs from when i was driving around town.

__________________
Brandon ....
"ScreaminDeamin 360"
1989 IROC 350 60 over, TRW forged 9.83:1 pistons,Hooker Comp headers, crane cam 222/234 .497/.526, crane 1.6 RR's, ported plenum, home made ram air, 24lb SVO injectors, crane AFPR, all going through 3 inch mandrel pipe and a flowmaster. T-56, Pro 5.0 Shifter, McLeod clutch, LT4 PP, Jamex Springs, MAC Sfc's
Newest Pictures
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http://ScreaminDeamin.cz28.com

alloy

This is a great thread. I too have been in the prom forum and am very intimadated at what I read. I'm a decent mechanic and am more comfortable with rebuilding an engine or trans. (just finished my t5 and it's a dream to drive) I do CNC work in my machine shop so I work on my computer every day, but getting into prom burning is a scary thought to me. Especially after reading the one post about some who supposedly "knew" what he was doing and blew an engine trying to create a good chip. I had a chip burned about 10 years ago by Turbo City in CA. The first one was so bad the car wouldn't make it out of the driveway. The second one was much better, but I feel it can be improved upon.

Can I read the chip that's in the car now and go from there?

Thanks-Dan

monte-ss

dan, thats the best way to start, actually about the only way to start otherwise you would have to figure all the tables from scratch and as they say there is no point in reinventing the wheel. if you have a good scan program, then read what your current chip has in it, scan the car when driving and change what you think will help, Im still in the learning stage as well, just finally getting all the stuff to start doing it. it is a bit intimidating but with a little bit of common sense and just taking it one step at a time then you shouldnt have any problems, most the guys on the DIY forum will help out no prob but its better off to try to search any topic you want to know about before asking any questions is what I get from reading a lot of those posts.

alloy

Monte-ss Since I don't have the stock chip anymore, if I couldn't start by reading this chip, then I wouldn't even consider trying to create a new chip with some kind of baseline to start from. I don't have a scanner or anything like that now. I wish I had a scanner because I have a horrible stumble now and wish I had a scanner to diagnose this. (see my "TPI stubling badly" post) I'm very interesrted in programming my own chips, but I need to fix this stumble first. I don't want to start changing the chip in a car that doesn't run correctly. If someone doesn't come up with an idea on how to fix this, I may have to go and pay someone to scan the car and find this problem. I hate doing this, but I may have to. I just spent the better part of a week's spare time going through my T5 and putting new valve stem seals on, and now I can't drive the car. Very frustrating!! If you have any hints or tips for me about chip buring, please email them to me. Maybe I can help you in return somehow. Thanks-Dan

pyro

my 85 iroc is the first computer controled car I have ever owned
so carb tuneing and timeing issues are kind of second nature to
me however it honestly did not occure to me to tune the prom for the same types of tuneing since i didnt know I hadn't really tried to do anything with the car.
this is very informative
now the main question I have is.

how much power can I gain over stock hp. and tq. with minimal experence on prom burning

another would be is it posssable to have a beginners bored to maintain this open learners forum

thanx you may have now convinced me that onbord computers are not a bad thing

alloy

Pyro, I like your idea. The prom forum is very informative if you are experienced at prom burning, but for us "newbies" it scares the hell out of me thinking about messing with the chip and possibly losing an engine due to a mistake. A "newbie" prom forum where no question would be considered a "dumb" question would be great. This would keep the simple questions out of the "advanced" forum. And the experienced guys coming into this newbie forum would be the ones willing to take the time to answer basic questions for us. Glenn, one of the moderators in the TPI forum has offered to help me with getting into prom burning. This is very nice of him to offer to do this. If there are a few more people like Glenn that would be willing to help us we would have a great beginners forum for prom burning and modifaction.

Just thinking out loud here, but if web space is a problem for a newbie forum, I have plenty available for something like this. I would guess I have about 200-300 megs of space left of the space I purchased. I have no clue on how to set something like this up, but if someone would help me I'd be happy to try and get something like this going.

Thanks-Dan

88irocz28

I :hail: you all for starting and keeping this thread alive. Like most other newbies the PROM board is all greek to me. I have a vague idea but certainly not enough knowledge on the subject to undertake burning my own EPROMs.

While on the subject, I would like to know if the 5.7L TPI memcal/prom combo that came hooked up to my 5.0L TPI can be modified to work with optimally with the motor. It's a Hypertech unit, and IIRC, Traxion's article said it's more desirable to have one of these aftermarket chips because they can be reprogrammed without having to unsolder anything like the stock memcal. I tried the prying the PROM off the memcal and it came off without much difficulty. Another problem I am having is that the chip is for an auto trans while mine is a manual now. Low RPM drivability is a real pain with the motor stepping up the idle by itself when it thinks it must downshift. It throws the car into a fit until I press the clutch.

In other words, I would really like to get into PROM programming now that I have my own computer (desktop). If I can do it with the existing chip and $200 worth of chip burning equipment. I'm ready to start right away :rockon:!!!

__________________
SOLD: 1988 IROC 305 TPI - 5 speed :rockon: - Gutted airboxes - 160 degree T-stat - Advanced base TPS voltage - Relocated IAT sensor - Momo steering wheel - Flowmaster muffler - Taylor SpiroPro wires - Accel cap and rotor - Ported plenum - Throttle body bypass - ZR1 rims w/ 265/40ZR17 Michelin Pilot SX tires - Eibach Pro-kit 1.5" drop - New paint

New toy: 1994 Trans Am 6-speed - 160 degree t-stat - Energy Suspension transmission mount - Homemade CAI - 265/35ZR18 Bridgestone Potenza S-02 tires on 18" polished 5-spoke Eagle Alloys - B&M Ripper shifter - gutted cat - Otherwise all stock

"You call that music? Sounds more like a goat sexually molesting a banjo."

5SIZ

I got a questionf or all of you, going from MAF to SD.

I have seen this thread in the PROM boards but the question I wanted to ask wasn't answered in that thread, anyways since I have an 87 and I wanted to go SD, would I only have to get a memcal from an 89-92 setup with SD, or would I have to change the entier ecm???

Also, the only reason I am thinking of going MAF is because I heard burning proms for a maf car is damn near impossible or a lote harder to do, is this true???

__________________
"know your roots"

New Project: 1991 v6 camaro, I want to hear a whissspooooh when I drive it.

The Hot Rod, 1985 TA: 4 bolt 350, ported and polished vortec heads with 3 angle valve job and screw in studs as well as guide plates, 1.6 roller rockers, cam, edelbrock vortect performer rpm intake, edelbrock 650 cfm carb, 1" 3/4' headers, custom exaust, etc. etc.

kyrenegade

Its nice to see a interest taken to help out the newbies. We are numerous and for the most part want to take the time to learn and understand the workings of TPI and burning proms. I removed my old 305 TBI engine back in summer of 2001 and built up a 350 TPI. (Speed density out of a 91 Z28) The engine build had the following.

350 bored .30 over
Sportsman II cylinder heads with 2.02 and 1.60 valves
Competition Cam for modified 350 TPI
Keith Black flat top pistons.
Flowtech headers to 3"exhaust out to a flowmaster 40
Accel external fuel pump (flows at 42psi)
Removed all AIR system.

I read for weeks on all the threads, purchased Eprom burner and AutoGalaxy Scanner, Craig Moates Zif asocket adapter and tunercat with my mask file.
First off I disabled VATS, changed the fan temp turn on/off, and changed for the 30lb injectors I installed.
The car idles real rough and the vacuum is 7- 8. I have let the car sit all summer because I had got to the point where I ran out of things to check and was tired of getting nowhere fast. Where does one go from here? I just would like to get the car running decent.

I posted some of the problems I was having but the car still runs rough. Heck I dont even remember were I left off its been so long.

Sorry for the long reply but you gave me some hope with the post.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Chris

nomind

I saw this question earlier, but no one has answered it. Can I do this same thing to a different car (90 Thunderbird). I know that it can be done, but will this same software do it, and how do I know what definition file will be needed, or would I need to search for someone to do that specifically for my car.

Thanks for all the info, it's great for the people that want to get into the PROM burning, but are scared to.

IDOXLR8

so how much to have all the stuff to burn and edit a chip for ecm# 1227730?