I have an '89 RS with 305 TBI. I switched to a open element and have a spintech cat-back. Other than that, everything is stock.
I'm interested in burning my own chips. But, I have a few questions before I spend the money and time:

What kind of performance changes can I expect, with the right tunning of course?

Is it worth the moeny and time spent?

I was going to put n2o in my car, but then sadly found that in CA it is not street legal, so I'm looking for something easy to start with to compensate.

Please add any other info and help and tips on this matter. Thank you very much for your time!

 

The best thing that I have found is running diagnostic software to see what my engine is doing. From that, I know what areas of the chip program I will need to address.

How much performance improvement can you expect from burning your own chips? I don't know and I doubt that anyone here can accurately predict that. The so-called performance chip companies will tell you things like "up to 25 HP improvement", but the "up to" part saves their butt a lot of times. I know several people, including myself a long time ago, who invested in "performance" chips and were sadly disappointed.

One thing you will probably notice if you hang out for very long is that the people in-the-know will expect you to do a lot of investigation before you post questions. Look at Traxion's article and go to every link he references. Then go to every link referenced at those link, and so-on. Do searches on this board, a lot of the good information doesn't show up in the two pages you see here.

Good luck and enjoy the freedom of tuning your car the way it should be tuned.

 

I am almost positive playing with your prom is going to also be illegal in your state. It's splitting hairs but if they are going to be checking the car for nitrous they may also decide to open up the ecm. I know you could easily replace a prom but a nitrous system isn't that hard to undo either. IMO, if you're willing to do one might as well do the other or not do it at all.