Desoldering has always been my weak point. From what I've found searching, there isn't an adapter made to read the factory bin without desoldering the chip from the memcal first, right?

If something were to go wrong, would I be screwed as far as getting another bin to start tuning from again? i.e. Is there a bin stockpile somewhere? Is there a way to identify the factory bin before I remove it to make sure I have something on hand that can make the car run before I even attempt chip/memcal removal? Or are there only a few to choose from anyway according to year/drivetrain?

Sorry if this is to "newbie-ish" for anyone. I'm just getting started tuning this style of ECM and like to have all of the information first. There's almost to much information in here for a new tuner it seems... I've been searching this forum for four days before I gave up to post this question!!! :lala:

 

Wrong. Just use an extension header (something with long pins on it that will make contact with both the programmer and the EPROM itself).

 

Your going to want a fail safe, chip, ie one that's unmolested, just in case what can't go wrong does.

Buy a second memcal, and work with that one.

Moates sells a little deal for piggy backing the memcal to a new adapter that gives you access to changing proms easily.

I lost track of how many memcals I tried desoldering, and in the final tally would have been cheaper and alot less aggravating to have bought a couple of his adapters.

search some here, and you'll find his site.

 

You would have to make one of your own, but its not that difficult. Just time consuming.

 

It's good to see others endure the same pain in climbing the learning curve. I think I'd now take Grumpy's advice and buy a Moates adapter, but I built an "extension header" like HighHopes and Madmax posted above. I then sucked the binary out before I butchered any Memcals.

The pics below are from the wonderful Promintro article by Traxion on the tech articles on this site.

Extension header:


You can then plug your Memcal into your programmer and read the bin off so you don't burn your bridges.

 

Thanks John, that adapter is exactly what I was looking for so that I could leave the stock assembly alone. Any detailed instructions on building one myself?

I ordered the Moates Memcal adapter yesterday, to be the one that gets modified/burned/etc, but I didn't find find any type of adapter to read the bin from the stock memcal. Am I missing it on his site, or is it just something he has not listed yet?

 

Bahhhhhh, nevermind. Found the exact portion of the article you were talking about. Carry on... nothing else to see here... move along now folks...