curt86iroc

i have very basic mods on my 1990 L98 iroc. cat back, K&N's, shift kit, gutted air box and TB bypass. would it be worth it for me to get a custon chip burned now or wait until more mods go onto the car like full exhaust, ported plenum and intake, heads, things like that.

just to give everyone a time frame, the larger mods like heads and full exhaust will not be done for about a year as i need the car for school and work.

so should i wait or get one now?

wako29

if you would like to do your own, then go ahead and get started right now.

If your lazy (like me) or are afraid to do your own (even more like me) and want one from like PCMFORLESS, then wait until more mods as each chip is like $150.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

Buy the stuff, do your own prom.

-- Joe

D Stroy H8

Each chip is not $150.00

First chip is $150.00, and every edit thereafter is $20.00

Learning to burn your own is great - but PCMFORLESS provides a good service if you want to put it off, or just never be bothered.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

I guess if you have a stock engine, maybe they can tweak the stock calibration a bit.

Its impossible for them to make a chip for a modified motor.

-- Joe

John Millican

iTrader: (1)

Custom chips are worth it. I have seen one of my custom chips cut 4 tenths off of a 305.

If you can't program your own either buy the stuff or pay someone but DON'T get a Hypercrap or other "off the shelf" chip as they are not custom.

wako29

funny, I thought they did the same stuff as if you did your own custom, but they did all the work. Just like Street and Performance does, except they want like $200 each chip, but they say that they want the a bunch of specs, and they will build a custom chip for your needs

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

I've got over 100 hours of datalogging time in my car, with over 40 proms burned and its still not "perfect". I've posted log data thats baffled even the most senior EFI tuners.

What makes you think these guys can make a custom chip based on what you write on a peice of paper?

-- Joe

curt86iroc

thanks for the replies guys. i would like to get into burning sometime soon. i just dont know if i trust myself yet making a chip for my car

wako29

thats the reason as why I don't want to burn my own chips

anesthes:
dude, what is your problem? I never said it was perfect, just that they built a chip for your needs, and I have heard from many people that they do a damn good job. WTH is perfect, anyway? So what if you lose 3 hp because it isn't tuned just perfectly? WOW, you burn your own chips, you can just mention that and say that its a better way of doing it, in your own opinion, than buying a custom one. Everybody has their own opinons. No need to go bragging or saying what I consider unneeded comments. BTW, these comments go for that PCMFORLESS thread as well.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

I dont have a problem. I'm pointing out an issue so others don't make a costly mistake.

It has nothing to do with gaining or losing 3hp. It has to do with driveability. I wasn't even refering to WOT operation. I'm talking about everywhere else.

Get a scanner, and take a long drive. See what your blm/int is the whole time. See if you get any knock retard, etc.

-- Joe

D Stroy H8

Man... just because having an intimate knowledge of your very own logged data is better than someone taking a stab at it - does NOT mean that a mail order tune is useless. PCMFORLESS, Ed Wright, and probably any other chip burning, pcm programming company will GLADLY accept logged data to assist them in your custom tune. You are being a little short sighted, no?

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

No, I just know what it takes to tune a car. Ask anyone who does it.

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=104792


If a ******* with a total of 3 teeth can tune a carb, anyone who can manage to post on this board should be able to learn EFI.


-- Joe

D Stroy H8

I am sure everyone appreciates your link to the sticky at the top of the TPI boards... still, you are being elitist when it comes to opinion. Just because you "know what it takes" to tune a car doesn't give you the right to direct hostility toward other VIABLE options. Peace out, you are INTOLERABLE.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

There is no other option. Wasting money is foolish.

You obviously have a positive opinion about this. I'm not trying to convert you, your sold. I just want to point out to others that getting a "custom chip" will never be right, unless you lend the guy your car for a month or so.

-- Joe

wako29

if your right, then how come there are so many satisfied customers of PCMFORLESS? Burning your own proms aren't the only option.

Oh, and this would be like me busting out with all of my vast knowledge of car motors for no apparent reason, and saying that its dumb to have somebody build a EJ22T because you could build your own and it would be cheaper. Everyone knows this, but they prefer to have it done by somebody else. Not only that, but nobody would care how much I know about motors unless the thread specifies. Get the analogy?

steven90GTA

I was just wondering if any of you think fastchip.com is any good I was thinking of getting one of those for my GTA

A88GTANotchback

man lay off anesthes. hes helping u guys. what hes saying is if u have a comp and TIME!!!!! then u prolly can do it urself after u get what u need. hes not trash talking PCMFORLESS, they do a good tune and ill prolly use them because of there postive feedback and my lack of time and patiece. this anesthes guy prolly knows his car better then i ever will cause il just pay to have it done down the raod when i actually need it but ill have a good tune....his will be just as good if not better, and he knows what goin on with it to.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

How come they have soo many satisfied customers? Ignorance is bliss. People dont really understand prom tuning, they spend money, assume it did something great.

Your analogy is lame. Their's always the right way to do something, and the "quick way". The fact that your actually debating this just proves you have absolutely no idea what your missing.

Burning your own proms *are* your only option. Either leave the car stock, or get into prom burning. When you start modding a EFI car, things can get really fouled up very quickly.

Explaining this to you is useless. Your stubborn and don't understand. I'm not responding here for your benefit. I'm hoping others read this and don't spend $150+ on something that could potentially make their car run worse, or even ruin the engine.


-- Joe

D Stroy H8

Man, Joe. Can I call you Joe? You are blowing it out of proportion. You are misrepresenting the service PCMFORLESS provides. Talk about "lame analogies" you have gone and created a false dilemma.

Bottom line is, burning your own chip is the best option. I agree there for sure. The second best option is using a knowedgeable service like PCMFORLESS or Fastchip. They will not make your car run worse... they have to much experience to accidentally de-tune your chip, and thier reputation rides on making good chips. One staisfied customer may be ignorant, but hundreds of satisfied customers... well the rule of numbers. Just because someone cannot burn thier own chip doesn't mean they can't tell if they feel an obvious change in characteristic performance of a car they drive everyday. Really - you are telling me (and many others) that we don't know **** from shinola when it comes to the way our car acts.

The problem is, they aren't going to get it '***** on' - but the size of that problem is relative to your needs - there is a whole lot of objective stuff you are skipping when you say that people are just out and out WASTING MONEY. It just isn't true.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

Let me give you an example:

I did a chip a few days ago, that my car has been running great on. No knock, perfect blm etc. In all counts, it was "the chip".

Driving saturday morning, the temperature and relative humidity drasticly changed. I got knock counts everywhere.

Upon acceleration on an on ramp, I got 6 degrees of knock retard, but the ECM didnt pull back fuel because PE is open loop. So what happened is the fuel blew the spark out, the car almost died, then the exhaust ignited the fuel. To make a long story short, it wasn't a good experience.

Whats the moral here? Unless you live in an area that has the same climate and weather conditions from day to day, you can't optimize a chip. GM did a good job making the chip perform "well" so the car could operate year round. The PE spark and fuel was not too agressive, and most of the ve/load data kept the BLM's and o2 inline.

The problem with a performance chip is, you start optimizing for given conditions. When climate changes, the car runs much worse than it would have with stock settings. So now you have to keep going back and making alterations to suit.

Obviously if you diy, its not an issue. You can burn a ton of images and swap 'em out as you need to, or make minor adjustments.

Beyond this point I just made about climate/weather changes, no company, engineer, or all around smart guy can guess what the motor needs. On a car like mine, even finding a baseline to get the car driveable is difficult enough - forget having some guy try to figure it out 3,000 miles away.

As far as blowing it out of proportion? no way. What may work really sweet one day, could totaly foul things up the next. Detonation, overfueling, etc. These all lead to motor damage. And i'm not talking drastic changes in the bin either. a few degrees of timing, and a fre % points off on ve and you can blow a hole in a stock piston.

Last, I'm not saying you don't know your ****. I'm sure you'd notice a miss, backfire, etc. I'm saying noones butt is calibrated enough to tell a true difference. IF you wanna get a "real" custom prom done, bring your car to someone who'll do it on a dyno, with a wideband o2. It will prolly cost $1000 before your done, and you risk the chance of the tune only being "seasonal". But its the closest you can get to diy.


-- Joe

wako29

okay, if you can get me some good tutorials off of websites, or better yet, videos, I would really like to start buring chips. All of the ones off of the sticky or anywhere else are old links and don't work anymore.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

Whats wrong with the Sticky's in DIY-PROM ?

https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/tech/promintro.shtml
works fine. Thats prolly the first thing to read.

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=209438

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=200256

When you get into trouble, search or pos on diy-prom and someone will be able to give you a hand.

Once you've read that, let me give you *my* take on prom burning.

Once you have aquired the pocket programmer to read/write proms, you have a ton of blank chips, and software; the first thing i'd do is pull your prom, or download a fresh bin.

Once you have it, open it up in either Tunercat, or TunerPRO (free!).

Get used to the software. The first things you'll want to tinker with will be the easy stuff. Idle speed, when to turn fans on, rev limiter, injector size, disable/enable things like EGR, AIR injection, CCP, etc.

Burn your bin, drive around, see if you like these minor changes.

Once you start getting used to the software, you can start really digging around the bin. The first obvious change is your VE/LOAD tables - this is the main fueling table for part throttle/cruise. On a speed density application its measured in KPA, for MAF its measured in LOAD. Basicly what you want to do is drive around with a scanner (Moates, TunerPRO) and log your driving.

Once logged, you can look at your lean and rich points. You want to see BLM and INT to be as close as 128 as possible. For almost all your part throttle/cruise, try to get the BLM to 128. If the BLM for say any given RPM vs LOAD is too low, then the car is too rich. If its too high, the car is to LEAN!.

This process is a near-endless loop. Once you get it right though, you can start attacking timing for cruise/part throttle. As you add timing, you may also have to increase fuel. Its a learning curve, figuring out what the motor wants.

I have not even mentioned "performance" tuning at this point. The first huge step in DIY-PROM is getting a good "baseline" tune. Once you've done that, theres a ton of guys in DIY-PROM that will be happy to give you a hand.

-- Joe

nick418

i have very basic mods on my 1990 L98 iroc. cat back, K&N's, shift kit, gutted air box and TB bypass.


sorry im a deff newbie into the thirdgen scene as well as cars, what do you mean by Throttle Body Bypass???

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

On TPI cars, GM routed coolant through the throttle body. What it did was heat it up on cold conditions.

THe bypass reroutes the hose to keep the coolant out of the throttle body.

To give you an idea of its effectiveness, a 30f temp difference of my mat resulted in having to reduce timing by 6 degrees. Thats a lot. You want cold air.

-- Joe

wako29

okay, thanks for the list of stuff to look at. But, see, my problem is that I can't drive my car with the stock PROM, do some changes, see what I feel about them, etc. like you said.

I am doing a complete swap into a '86 Caprice Classic with a 350 GMPP crate engine and a TPI system off of a '86 TA. The TA idles at like 2200, and just generally doesn't run right due to the PROM/wiring as a lot of the wires are cut (I'm not complaining to much. Got the whole car for $300 ). Anyways, I'm getting a Street and Performance wiring harness (includes pretty much EVERYTHING as well as the 1227727 computer which mounts in the engine bay). So, I don't want to even trust the PROM out of my TA because a) it might make my cherry motor idle at 2200 again or something else might be majorly wrong and b) because its for a 305.

But your saying that I can just download the stuff for a stock 350 motor, burn that in a hurry, just to start up my car and drive it around before I start messing with the performance side of everything? Nice.......

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

Yep!

You'll wanna start AUJP.

Read this: https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=238965


-- Joe

wako29

well, I am not going to be able to do the swap until at least the end of summer, as I have decided to do a $1500+ sterio system first.

However, I am building everything up right now. Already have all the major stuff, only major component to buy is that harness ($650). Its just a BUNCH of $100-$200 that is killing me

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

$600??

Man. Im in the wrong business. I should be selling TPI harnesses and ecms..

-- Joe

wako29

well, I've done a lot of research on this and that is like the best harness you can buy hands down. I have talked to a few people who have bought them personally, and were very pleased. You know how everyone claims that thier harness is plug-n-play, but it isn't? Yea, this one really is. Plus, unlike all the other harnesses, it includes EVERYTHING, which I want, since my whole harness is pretty f-ed up.

jeez, your toys start owning YOU , or at least it starts seeming that way

88TPI406GTA

OK...here is my real life experience for all..

about 3 years ago, when I first got the GTA, the stock 350 was shot and the first incarnation of the 406 was a tpi version...I used an Edelbrock baseplate and the rest was an all stock TPI setup with 1 5/8" headers.

I had info from this website, but was too "scared" (I guess is the right word) to actually pursue and burn my own chips.

So what did I do? I went to Fastchips.com. I paid $350 to have them burn a chip for my MAF car and the car ran...I think that they provided the changes that I was looking for...or so I thought at the time.

After getting into Prom burning, I realized that they did make significant changes to the PROM, changing flags for emissions and reducing the spark in the main tables, to allow my 406 to run. It ran, but not really well. I don't fault Fastchips.com at all, I just should have done it right from the start and learned this at the beginning.

That $350 is forever gone...and could have paid for my prom burning equipment plus extra left over.

This whole argument is not analagous to say replacing a water heater where the end result is the same whether you do it or you have a plumber come out. Why? Because the chip tune differs on each INDIVIDUAL engine and no mail order chip is EVER good enough, unless you have the $$$ to keep having changes made.

Joe is 100% correct...in fact, check out his thread on DIY-PROM which is a great starting thread after you start burning...kind of a "find the course" for tuning...