I am trying to order a custom chip from fastchip and they need the calibration code from my orginal chip. thing is I cant find find it. I did buy a new one last year to try and get the car doing and since then I have changed over to a 350 and bought a 350 chip. Now I need a custom chip. I am 99%sure I have an exact replacement chip but why is this code so important. I have changed EVERYTHING on my car. Plus the ECM was replaced by the previous owner. How can I get the numbers and codes that I need to give to fastchip.. This is a 1991z28 tpi orginally with 305tpi t5, now 383 HSR T56.

 

i think it can be looked up on tunercat web site for free(30days).
i think you need the year make model of car the 350 chip came from? not totally sure on this one. maybe someone will jump in.

 

When I swappd the 350 tpi in I went to the dealer and just bought a chip for a 1991 z28 with a 350 in it.There was only 1 I think for it since you could only get the A4 and 3.23 gear with the z in that year

 

With what you've spent on chips you could have done your own correctchip. Rather then settling on what someone else thinks your car will like. Most the aftermarket guys do just enough to kinda please folks so they don't have to do much work or risk much tune wise. Often all the really do is lower the radiator fan turn-on point.

 

Ive bought enough chips? I have only bought 1 chip so far for my z. this is the first custom one I am looking into. I would love to burn my own chips but I have NO CLUE on that stuff at all. I go to the prom boards and try to do some research and I am lost in the sauce with that langauge. So, I have no choice but to have a custom chip burnt for me over the internet to get my car as close as possible and drivable. I am looking for a tuner in my area that knows what they are doing with TPI cars so he can fine tune my car but I am having no luck.

 

You listed Ed Wright and then Fastchip, or are they the same thing?, your use of two different names is what's misleading.

You have the same choices everyone else has. If you don't want to learn to tune the engine, then why bother working on it if your just going let some guy guess at what the tune is?. Which is all anyone is going to be doing unless you spend alot of money on a dyno, or find someone that really understands what they're doing.

Tuning takes time, time is money, so to pay someone to get your car correct is going to take alot more money if someone is in business, and looking to make a profit.

You might look at the thread that just got locked where a guy was looking for help to get his custom chip right. The PRO, , that was charging him money couldn't get it right.

If you can access the Internet, chip tuning is no more dificult. Just takes spending some time to learn something new.

 

Fastchip is owned by ED Wright. I want to learn the chip burning but I just dont know where to start. Im gonna take a look at some other Tech articles on here and see whats up. Ireally dont want to learn on my car though in case I mess something up.

 

I wouldn't get to intimidated by custom self-tuning. Sure, the experts on this board get into it pretty heavily with stuff that goes waaaayyyyyy over my head sometimes, but you don't need to know all of that complicated stuff right away in order to get started. All you need is a good understanding of how an engine works.

Working the fuel and spark tables is the simplest way to begin since, for the most part, it follows the same sort logic as tuning a non-EFI engine (just orders of magnitude more precise). Then you can branch out into the acclerator enrichment (electronic accelerator pump), power enrichment (for WOT), etc. These are all very basic functions.

This is how I started. With this, I got the engine running satisfactorily to make it driveable and enjoyable. Then, out of sheer curiosity and a desire to make the car run better, I simply started branching out into other areas (with good help from the guys here) that are more complicated in order to fine-tune it. It's all just a matter of getting your "foot in the door" so to speak.

We're all here to help anyway once you get started.

 

There's a bunch of stickies at the top of the board, that cover a multitude of subjects. Jump in and start reading, yes, there's alot to absorb, but you gotta get you feet wet for it to start making sense.

Once you get some background info., then things will begin to make some sense, but until then it's just an exercise in tryping.

Go slow, make small changes, take notes. Being logical will keep you out of trouble. Once you start in, and start gathering notes, then you can note trends, and things get rather apparent about what the engine likes. The big trick is tuning to what makes the engine happy instead of thinking that adding timing and fuel automaically make a car faster.

 

A pretty lucrative way of thinking if you're Jet or Hypercrap.

 

According to Caldata, it could be one of 4 BCC's depending on whether it was built for federal or Cal emissions.
I will email the report to you. Open it with notepad, and turn off word wrap.
Ben.

 

Yea, I think you've bought enough chips. Grumpy is right.

Hate to say it, but you dont need to know much about the language to burn your own. You do need some equipment you probably dont have however... but in that you get to tune, fix problems, and upgrade when you modify your car whenever you feel like it. Maybe you havent seen the stuff Trax wrote? Like this post? https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=216664

But in a nutshell you need the following (some are my recommendations on where to go instead of trying to figure out which to pick):

Spare chip for your car (in case you screw up)
Flash Prom AT29C256
Soldering iron
Solder
ZIF socket
Pocket Programmer (prom burner)
TunerCat and the right Definition code
Some sort of scan tool. Check out Moates and Datamaster. Totally useless to even buy a custom chip without this anyway.
Laptop computer

Hopefully I didnt leave anything out. There are many other paths to travel and maybe when you get more comfortable with it you can go that direction. If you go to Craig Moates' site you can see all sorts of interesting stuff for programming... some of those might interest you if you want to go that route first.

Doing the actual changes isnt all that bad, record some data from your car, and start making basic fuel adjustments where it needs it. Thats it. The more you play with that, the more you will learn about other things to change, where, and when. And when you have a problem that you dont know what to do, post it here and someone should be able help you out.

No way to learn without trying first you know.

 

I disagree with MadMax for some cases.

If you can't find a used memcal, it is probably better to buy Moates "Automotive Memory Adapter" + ZIF, since the existing chip plugs in... saving you from buying another memcal from the dealer, any worrying about soldering.

Also, TunerPro is another (free download) option for PROM editing.

 

I already have 2 proms for my car. both are the same. One is from the car and the 2nd is a spare I bought from the dealer to try and diagouse a problem. The prom is for the 305tpi combo though. Am I looking at a spending a LOT of money on this stuff. I dont need the BEST equip to start with, just the bare essentials to get me going and driving my car. I also do not have a lap top. Do I need it for on the fly scanning or canI use my home computer? what is required of the computer to handle all this software? Sorry for these questions. I know that some are ansered in the tech artilces and I am heaeded over there AGAIN to read through it.

 

yea, you need a laptop. I got mine on ebay for 200 bucks. a pentium 233mhz machine running w98 so I can use CM software (free, but donations are appriciated). The prom burner, Tunercat software, and a chip adapter and 256c chips. Go to craig moates website for teh addapter (40bucks?), chips, and a cable to connect to your car.

I'll try and find the link later, or do a search on CM website..

good luck!

 

thanks Im reading a real good tech article now on getting started. I see that there are more then one method of burning proms for the car. what method seems easier for me with the speed density setup I have? this is the article Iam reading https://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/t...omintro.shtml. I understand it it until the methods of changing proms starts. Iwill try and see whats up with this equipment i need. Is there a place that sells it all in one setup? I dont want it to be difficult to change out proms and I really dont want to solder stuff. if i have to do it once then thats fine and I think thats all I have to do if I get that ZIF(?) thing. is this reallyneeded or os there some other way this can be done? I like the 3rd method the best. but is it for me?

 

There are numerous ways to go about doing this, if you visit www.moates.net you'll find all sorts of toys for programming your car. And thats just one place where you can get stuff, there are a LOT more out there... thats why I tried to narrow it down to a more simple list. I'm not even following that list myself, I just think thats a good easy starting point for getting your feet wet. Maybe if you're a bit more comfortable you can start with something else first, cant hurt. There is some really slick stuff out there these days... like Prominator, Autoprom, and who knows what else I may be omitting. Those are more like an all in one deal, maybe you can take a look and see what you think.

As for the laptop and scanner, as I said its pretty much a waste to even get a custom chip without being able to datalog your car. If you can borrow one for some testing it'll make it a little easier for someone to do from 500 miles away, but its going to be somewhere between wrong and right, like halfway between. Going without is pretty pointless, may as well call Summit and order an off the shelf chip or three of some sort and see which one you like better. Yes... thats like shooting in the dark, but so is programming without knowing the outcome. I suppose if you were really good at test+tune, plug reading, and had a dragstrip and nice roads at your disposal, you could do without but that just seems more difficult to me and its leaving out a very useful tool.

 

ZIF: Zero Insertion Force

It's like a regular chip socket but has a lever that you lift up to open the 'jaws' in the socket. Place the chip in the socket and the jaws clamp down on the pins.

Oh yeah, Moates.net is pretty much a one stop shop for prom tuning, except for the chip burner itself.

 

i took my ecu to a small computer repair store and had them solder socket in. i did not feel i had enough experience to do myself.

 

Ed Wright (Fastchip) did a number of chips for me before I started burning my own. I have to say that Ed Wright does do a good job but keep in mind that he does not drive the car everyday and cannot see what is going on so the chip is not going to be perfect. However, I think It might be a better starting point if you have a lot of mods then to jump into burning your own with no experience though. It's frusterating to jump into and you can't even get the car to idle. But if you have a better starting point(Ed Wright chip) then once you figure out how to burn a copy and make some changes you can dial it in better. That's my opinion and experience. Your gonna have to decide if it's worth the $300 or whatever he charges now to have a better starting point.

 

you know Greg, I was thinking of that. I was gonna get the faschip and run the car this season on that chip and learn the fundimentals of prom burning over the winter season. I'll then burn a complete copy of the Fastchip to have as a spare like you said. that was there I have something to go back to incae I mess up. Im still thinking of both options here. its a hard decision and I want my to drive my car this summer.

 

For the price of your faschip, you could about afford the stuff to do your own, and be 6+ months closer to have a really good chip.