1995 5.7 4WD auto E/OD GT4 Suburban:

I have had substantial gains by retiming the motor from a stock setting of 0° to 8° BTDC. But with the factory settings on the eprom it just isn't quite there. Now it seems I'm going to have to purchase hardware and software to burn my own EPROMs heavy sigh:

What are the reasons an after market chip (Jet stage 2) will not help? I have read many posts in the diy prom forum and while burning my own chips seems obtainable, I'm not sure if it will really be worth the effort, this is a 4wd Suburban for gosh sakes. I understand how ypu guys with 3500 lb cars are needing to get every 1/10th of a second out of your cars at the drag strip, but all I wanted was more torque for towing my boat!!! Now it looks as if i'll have to go back to school to learn how to reprogram my own eprom. I am not convinced that the benifit/effort ratio will be very high for this project of mine. Does anybody out ther burn chips for specific applications for fun and profit?

I am also curious about the specs on my factory cam (difference between what I had and what I now have) Is there a link or does someone know offhand what a stock 95 Suburban would come with, I would think it would be a different profile than an F-body cam.

have replaced the original 5.7 motor with a 355 c.i. split rear oil seal short block, a Crane cam [part # 113931] with intake lift at valve .440" and advertised duration of 266° and exhaust lift at valve .454" and advertised duration of 272°, a pair of 23° twisted wedge Trick Flow heads and Flow Tech shorty headers with O2 sensor coupled to 2 1/2" dual exhaust with dual cats and mufflers and no crossover tube. The motor is topped off with some 8mm ignition wires. The rest of the motor and car is bone stock.

Any way all help and responses are greatley appriciated and are dulet noted.

Thanks for all the previous responses so far

Cheers,
Tedd Edmondson

 

As soon as I posted the above thread, I went outside and my Jet stage 2 chip had arrived on my doorstep and of course across the box it says"If seal is broken, electronic devive is unreturnable". If you read above post ypu already know my situation, TO burn my own or settle and install the Jet chip. Any advice will be helpful

Thanks in advance,
Tedd Edmondson

 

In order to get the most out of the cam, exhaust, and some of the other mods you'd be better off burning your own chips. The problem with burning your own chips, however, is getting all of the information. Traxion's article is very basic and establishes a good foundation atleast for obtaining the hardware, the diy-efi board has a lot of information, and so do the archives here. Unfortunatly, I've found it incredibly difficult to get anyone to ever answer a question of mine (I usually end up dragging my topics back to the top a million times until someone gets so fed up and tells me to either search the archives or do more reading.
Unfortunatly, its kind of your decision as to the benefit/effort that you are looking for, you will almost definatly get better gains out of a chip you program yourself, but it's going to be a LOT more work, whereas the JET chip should get you big gain with simply a pull and replace. I suppose the way I see it is that even if its a Ford Tempo, there isn't any reason why I can't have it smoke another Ford Tempo...

-=-Mike

 

Thanks Mike,

Actually I did some searchs and saw a couple of your posts then did a search on all your posts and read every one last night! So I could follow your learnig curve as you aquired more knowledge. And your posts let me know how difficult it will be to do my own programing. Have you programmed your own chip yet? At times during my research I was very gungho on doing it myself but as I read more and moree I started to get a little depressed, I run my own small business and have two little boys who expect and get alot of time with dad. And as I posted on one of my threads " this is a 4wd Suburban for gosh sakes"

But I would like to do it once and do it right. If I do go through all the steps getting hardware and software and cables and learn the ins and outs will that be it? In other words, If the ecm loses power will I have to do it all again?

Let me know where you are with your Caprice ecm burn.

Thanks,
Tedd Edmondson

 

If the ECM loses power, the chip will still retain your image. Or else you'd have to reprogram it every time you changed your battery.

Burning your own chips does take time. If you're not going for everything perfect, then it won't take as much time, naturally. Some people just spend a day every once in awhile to purposefully collect data and burn chips. I prefer to run my data collection while I drive to college (10 miles away). And sometimes I'll edit the chip before class and test the changes on the way home. I've burned around 45 chips so far, and most of the time I looked at the data and burned the new chip while sitting in my recliner watching Speedvision. Then I just test it the next day.

If you do go this route, get a spare memcal (around 40 bucks) and keep it in the glovebox for insurance. You never know when you'll need it.

 

burn

 

if i need to run off the a spare (FOR WHAever reaosn, wehter they be good or bad) i just tke the stock memcal off my craig moats adapter and plug it back in...

 

Tedd, I'm actually waiting for my extra chips to come in before I start burning, I've got a prom eraser, but I don't want to erase one of my only chips. I forgot who I ordered the chips from, but so far its taken them like 4 weeks just to send me five proms.

Don't expect to be able to sit down, even after all your research, and be able to do the perfect burn. You should try to work yourself into everything slowly. What I'm planning on doing is first disabling the EGR (not actually disabling the EGR, but rather stopping the computer from triggering the error code for it). After running that chip to see how the car runs, I'm going to go through and begin changing the BLM's (what the car reads as being rich/lean on average at a certain RPM and MAP reading. Unfortunatly with all the modifications on the car I run really lean in certain spots, while other sections are right on or rich.

Like you, I run my own business in the summer, but luckily I don't have a wife or any kids, so I have a bunch of free time to work on the car. The women aren't my type since they're all looking for a drug dealing daddy for the kid that belongs to the guy locked up in prison for beating his mom, so I usually only hang out with some of my friends at night (sorry, thats my rant about pittsfield). After you get done with the research and get comfortable with the process of burning, I think you'll be able to burn everything in a flash, its just the learning curve thats steep.

But, since you said you aren't expecting the thing to do wheel stands, it might be up to you. Its something handy to have, I've already got a list of kids who want me to burn chips for them, so the equipment will get paid off quick.

Make sure that if you do decide to burn chips that you get a good piece of software to analyze how the suburban is running now. For the camaro's, caprice's, vette's, and most any other GM people on this board use WinALDL, and then they only spend about $5 on a homemade cable.

Anyways, I gotta go, keep us informed with what you decide to do,
Mike