I have an 87 bird with the 165 maf, 32b mask. I have been running my 383 for the last few months on a hypertech chip that came with the car, and for the most part, it ran, just had little power. A few weeks ago I bought a new memcal, but instead of getting one from an 87, I got one from an 89 with the 6e mask. When I got it home, I tried to plug it into the computer, and the car reved up once and died. So I tried a custom prom, plugged the mecal into the adapter and put in an ARAP bin, did the same thing. I played around for a little while, and figure out that if I turn my timing controler up to 15*, ONTOP of the 8* mechanical advance, I can get the car to "idle" but it drives like ****..... basically the primary question I am asking here is, should the 89 memcal work in my car? or do I NEED the 87?? if the 89 should work, does anyone have any ideas what could cause this? Nothing with the timing or anything was changed between the old hypertech chip and the new memcal.... any idea?

 

The ARAP is a .bin to begin tuning with.
A quick archive search will give you what all needs changed to make it compatible.

 

I believe the ARAP bin started the fuel cut-out for VATS. Before that it was just a starter kill. You will get fuel pulse as long as the starter is energized. Also, it sounds like you are running in limp mode. A car with VATS fuel cut-out will run without the prom in it as the VATS programming is in the prom.

 

I know about the arap being a starter bin to tune with... I was asking is the mecal from a 89 is interchangable with the memcal from an 87 on the 165 unit??? any ideas why I would need SO much timing to keep it alive? I am pretty sure I de-flagged vats, but I will check again

thanks for the help so far