I have thought about going to the 165 but it seems like a real PITA to do the switchover. I haven't seen a real good procedure on how to do it. I'm also not sure that there are enough advantages to warrant doing the switch. I know it is supposed to be easier for tuning but there are people tuning the 870 so it must not be too bad.

 

well One problem I have found on the 870' With help from this fourm is that if the Factory Prom is labeled HLK it is a bugged prom and needs updated to a HLM ACDelco part 122740 $48.89 From Rockauto.com Second is the Very slow ALDL Baud rate makes Data logging a PITA. THIRD is the fact that the MAF Burn of Relay Is PiggyBacked to the ECM See Pic

and if it goes Bad You will spend any where form $350.00-$500.00 for a new one. This was solved in the 1986 and up models with Two Relays which are a thousand times Cheaper. Now it just depends on How into this you are if you don't Upgrade parts and arent looking for to have the fastet car around you can program the chips for the 870' But It makes sense to me to switch to a 165'. As for a good description of the Change over go here http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~davis/z28/ecm_swap/

Well that is my .02

 

TunerCat doesn't provide a provision for verifying the upload. You just have to 'trust' it. Don't worry though, there's checksums imbedded everywhere in the transmission so success is assured unless there's a hardware issue. So yes, when you 'Program Romulator' the AutoProm is loaded as needed.

 

Thanks, I may reconsider making the change. The biggest PITA part that I see is having an eprom in there that isn't for my engine. Most of the ones that I found were from a car with a 350 in it. If I could find one from a 305 would it run without a lot of tuning? I plan on doing some tuning but I don't want to start from scratch when I have never done any tuning.

 

just the 8192 baud is worth the swap to a 165 over an 870... it makes it infinitely easier to tune!

Either way, though the AutoProm supports your setup (870 or 165).

 

Cool.

What bothers me though is that TC doesn't indicate that its synchronized unless you select "Program Romulator". Even if its synchronized, when you select "Read Romulator", it says "The file stored in the Romulator is no longer valid".

 

this is a known issue and will soon be resolved. Don't worry too much about it, though... it has to do with the fact that TC "auto-disables" the checksum, and upon read, tries to reset the original mask value.

 

Just curious, what's the fix gonna involve?

 

Yeah, what Mark said. Don't let it bother you...

The fix will be a firmware update. You'll be able to download it and reflash your AutoProm to the new firmware.

By the way, and I'll tease here, the TC syncrobyte thing will be nothing compared to some of the actual functionality boost on the new firmware. I'll leave it at that, a tease.

This week...

 

Does anyone know if the Prominator will support the 870? I'm sure it will support the 165.

 

I asked that about a month ago and from what I was Told The answer is YES.

 

One other issue comes to mind also, although I haven't spent much time investigating it.

With the AutoProm, you're supposed to be able to emulate and log data simultaneously.

If I have the AutoProm online and try to bring Datamaster online, I get an error message that com port 1 is unavailable.

FYI, this is being used on a 7060.

 

Only one program can access the COM port at a time. Therefore, only a single software program would be able to do the simultaneous datalogging and emulation. That program is TunerPro RT.

If you use TunerCat and DataMaster, then you can only do one or the other at a time.

 

I'll remember you said that.

 

If you use TunerCat and DataMaster, then you can only do one or the other at a time. [/B][/QUOTE]

Makes sense. Just me not understanding the literature

My first attempt a chip burning was a failure. I tried loading a known good bin to the supplied chip numerous times. The truck wouldn't even start! Guess I should be patient and wait for the upcoming upgrades for the use of TunerCat with AutoProm.

I rechecked the info on the bin and checked that I had the chip positioned properly in the AutoProm and the PCM.

Any WAG's?

 

If your truck wouldn't start with the chip you burned, the TC fix will not solve your problem. They are unrelated.

You need to make sure you burned the chip correctly, including making sure your offset is correct, that your adapter (if using one) is setup correctly (jumpers), and that the chip was actually burned correctly (do a verify, or read the chip and do a compare using various tools including a hex editor, windiff, etc). Make sure the checksum was calculated when saving the bin (you can disable the checksum and see if the truck starts, if so, bad checksum).

These devices and software packages (regardless of the device or software) are not "magic". They still require knowledgable users...

 

Any news?

 

Yes, some news:

1) Haven't been too hard after the synchrobyte thing since it doesn't impact functionality significantly, but it's on the list.
2) New firmware update is being worked, which has several new features such as variable-speed communications for faster upload/download and automatic hardware/software configuration.