I am planing on puting a 87 maf tpi setup on a roller 350. I have been reading and it looks like it would be best if I learned to program the chips my self. I need to know what I will need. I know I will need the pocket programmer. What else will I need. If I need anything else what are the prices and where do I get them. Can you reprogram your stock chip, or do you have to just buy new ones. Also, can you download the programming for a certain engine. For instance I have a 305 system. It is set for the smaller injectors and 305 timing values. Is it possible to download the stock or other 350 programming so I can start with it and modify it?

Thanks a lot for any help

Ben Brohez

 

The biggest help would probably be reading the link at the top of the page. I am fairly new at this stuff but Traxion's article helped me a lot. Tells you just about all you need to get started.

Ryan

 

Ben,

I've been looking into prom burning for a couple of months now, but I've not burned one yet. I am buying the equipment as time and money permits, but it's not real cheap. It is, however, cheaper than buying a so-called custom prom and having to send it back numerous times. Then you finally find out it will never work for your application and you end up resorting to buring your own chips. I feel very lucky that I found this board before I wasted my money on a "performance" chip. I am also very greatful to everyone here for putting up with me. You see, I don't have a Third Gen vehicle, I have aretired 1991 farm truck that I'm modifying.

The best thing that I've found is to start with Traxion's article, then look at every link he references. Then look at every link referenced at those web sites. So-on and so-on. The more information you start with, the better. Do searches at google.com, etc.

Here's what I am using and the approx cost:

-TTS DataMaster engine monitoring program = $95 from Andrew Mattei. This lets me know what my engine is doing with fuel and spark so I can better understand what I can/should change. It works great on my NT 4 laptop.
-OBDI ALDL cable from Andrew = $95 (could have built this for less, but wanted to make sure I had a good, working cable interface). This hooks up to the diagnostic interface in the car (truck in my case) and feeds engine info to DataMaster running on my laptop. If you don't have a laptop, you can buy a real cheap one and run Diacom (which is more expensive than DataMaster). Diacom doesn't require Win95, Win98, WinNT so it can run on a less powerful setup. Or you can buy one of the all-in-one engine scanners. I like the software approach because I can export data to Excel and plot various data.
-I plan on buying a Pocket Programmer
-EPROM eraser with timer from Mouser Electronics = $50
-TunerCat BIN editing software and "$85" ecm file. Total for TunerCat and ecm file = $90

You can re-program most stock chips, however, I plan on keeping my stock chip and programming others, just in case I want to go back to stock, or mess up real bad and need a working chip. My truck uses what is called a Mem-cal. It has the chip and other components on a "daughter board" that plugs into a slot in the ECM. Look at Traxion's article for more info. I bought 2 new Mem-Cal's for my truck ($35 each) so I have one that I'll keep stock and onther that I can work with. The new Mem-cal came with slightly different (updated) programming than my original Mem-cal and the truck actually runs much better. I may use the original Mem-cal for burning new programs also.

Best thing to do is read Traxion's article several times and explore the links.

Also, I do a lot of searches on this board when I have specific questions. Usually there are answers out there.

Good luck.