I've recently started gathering all the parts to make my own ALDL cable to hook it up to my laptop. So I did some research and discovered my '87 2.8 L V6 has the 1227302 ECM with a 160 baud rate. I found this schematic showing how to build the cable, and since my laptop does not have a RS232 DB-9 serial port I'm going to buy this serial to usb converter. Hopefully the circuit will work with this serial/usb converter.

While I'm waiting on the package, I found this interesting thread on how to swap out the 1227302 ECM with another one.

But I couldn't figure out why someone would want to swap out their ECM? Is it just for a higher baud rate? Better performance? I tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything that specific on the benefits.

 

Aha! It worked!

But is there some other program other than winALDL that will work with the 1227302?

 

Tuner Pro RT may work. Although, WinALDL is decent for the 160 baud ECMs.

Several reasons to swap to a different ECM. The '7302 is not well supported. So if you make engine changes and need to do some tuning, you won't get many answers on where calibrations items are located and what they do.

Another reason to swap is to get away from the 160 baud ALDL to an ECM with 8192 baud ALDL. This provides a lot more data, which goes a long way when tuning.

RBob.