I was told my car was chiptuned in the US but I decided to chek for myself. The memcal looks stock but what is this thing?

 

That looks like a stock unmodified memcal to me :-)

Even has the Delco chip and 4 digit broadcast code on there.

Check the stickies up top, I believe its Trax's intro to burning has pics of memcals and I think there are some more at Moates.net

later
Jeremy

 

So the little thing welded to the memcal which is circled is supposed to be there?

 

If anybody knows please help out.
I would really like to know what that thing is on my memcal.

 

Is the loop of wire soldered on only one end? Or is it soldered between two different pins? Hard to see from the pic. I doubt that it is there from the factory, but you never know.

As it is those two chips are the limp mode calibration. There are networks of resistors that program the RFD. Only time they are used is when the main processor system is down and out. This can be anything from an out and out hardware failure to the EPROM checksum being incorrect.

RBob.

 

It's definately soldered to different pins. And it's not just a wire. I don't know what they are called in english but directly translated it would be a resistor... is that correct? I already put everything back in the car so all I have now is this pic, but I think I remember it read 450S on it or something like that. Can't really tell from the pic.

 

Yes, I now see that there is a resistor in place. What is interesting is that there are some other pins on that chip that are also cut. Looks like the limp mode resistors packs have been re-programmed. Did this ECM/MEMCAL setup always run with the SES on? It may be that it is setup to run in limp mode.

RBob.

 

I have no idea.... All I know is what the previous owner told me. He told me it was chiptuned and had a bit more hp than stock. But how can it be tuned if it runs in limp mode? Shouldn't it be "tuned" for the worse if so?
The car has in my opinion little low end torque but alot of power when higher rpm:s.... could this have to do with the memcal operation?

 

There is another question: can a scan tool communicate with this setup/ECM?

Just trying to find out if it really is in limp mode.

RBob.

 

RBob,
Wouldn't it have the Check Engine Light on if it was in limp mode? If so, maybe it's worth checking that the CEL has a globe in it.

John

 

No SES light is on and everything seems to run fine.
Has anyone ever seen anything like this on a stock 89, 305ci, man., gta memcal????