okay guys, I am seriously thinking about buying the equipment and start burning stuff myself... My knowledge about cars is average... I just don't understand some of the engine reading stuff (like vacuum, cam lift, spark table, etc)

What I do understand is all of the other stuff.. (the easy stuff)

I did some mods on my car (as you can see in my sig..) and I need to burn a new chip otherwise bad things might happen. A few things that I beleive I need to tune are for these reasons:

1) No EGR. I installed a lingenfelter manifold with NO EGR. (blockoff plate and all that..) So now from what I've been hearing, it has changed the mixture and the computer NEEDS to know that there is no EGR there so it won't adjust it as if the EGR WAS there... So if I leave it like this I might have cylinder heat temperature that might be too high and may result in higher damaging temps...

2) Changed gears from 2.73 OPEN to 3.73 POSI. The mechanic told me that the computer will need to have its shift points recalibrated (since the gearing is different) Not sure if this is true.. but we'll see what you guys say..

3) My engine has been heavily modified... From the bottom to the top... (crank, rods, pistons, cam, rebuilt+ported heads and valvetrain, manifold, runners, plenum, etc) It WAS a 305 before... Now it's a whole new level.. One thing though, I didn't do the bottom end, the guy who I bought the car from did!!! He seems to not know the cam specs or anything or how much theh eads were or ported or any other specifics... I know that the cam has a HUGE effect on the chip burning... But all I know is that it's an "OVERSIZED" cam but I don't know how much.. What would you guys recommend for this? I don't want to adjust things and make a mistake so if I only know that it's oversized can I still make a chip without knowing the exact specs? (right now, the hypertech chip seems to work okay... And it was DYNO'd at 270HP and 353 TQ at the motor... with an adjustable fuelpressure regulator...)

Anyways, he quoted me at 450$ for a new "custom made" chip and said it was somewhat important that I get it burned for those reasons above... But if I can get my own equipment and get stuff done (with the help of you gurus, ofcourse!) then maybe I would be better off? Or should I just leave it to this guy to rip me off? lol... And I still don't know what to do about the cam specs...

Thanks guys for reading!
Later,
-Marc

 

I am no expert by any means, but my input on the trans shift points needing to be changed in the chip, on a 6E mask which yours would be if using shock computer (165) , the chip has nothing to do with shifting the 700 r4 trans. Adjustment of the TV cable and internal parts of the trans dictate shift points.
Are you getting the check engine light on? If not, and egr is not installed, the new chip installed has it disabled.

 

So are you saying my new 3.73 gears will require a TV cable adjustment in order to shift properly?

... And is having no EGR on my engine dangerous for detonation??? I hear things like it raises cylinder temperatures to possibly dangerous levels!

Scary...

Thanks!!
-Marc

 

You will eventually get a check engine light for the egr. And you may also have some running problems in the future do to the lack of a egr etc. For less than $450 you could buy all the tuning equipment you need to do it yourself and that would probably inculde a used laptop if you dont already have one. This is the way to go. You will beable to tune for any future mods, get a better tune for your current setup and go. I highly recommend about learning to do it yourself. Its easy if you start mostly stock and work up from there. Check out Moates.net for equipment and The stickies on this site for Lots of info. Just my 2c's

 

thanks so much for advice!!! I appreciate it.. I've already been sucked out so much money from this garage..

I'll continue reading all the tuning FAQs on this site and hopefully I will understand better!

My main concern is that I am upgraded cam... Can I use stock chip settings and only change "NO EGR" setting on the chip??

Thanks!
-Marc

 

You will need to change a few of your settings, egr and probably a few fueling/timing changes to get it to run riight. It wont take to much though. How much cam are you running??

 

Yeha I don't know my cam specs... The guy who did the engine was the guy i bought it from... He *THINKS* it's a GM "E" Cam.. I don't know if that says anything to anyone?? I don't know the exact lift/duration or any of that..

Wow it runs like crap.. idling issues, almost dying... unstable idle, goes up to 1300 at idle... when i put it in drive from park it jumps... and check engine comes on after i drive a few minutes...

Seems like i would really need to know my cam specs right?

Thanks,
-Marc

 

I dont think you need the cam specs. You just need to begin learning the art of tuning. First step is to acquire a laptop, download a datalogging program(winALDL, Tunerprort, etc), and build buy a ALDL cable. That will give you some info as to what your sensors are seeing and show you fueling corrections being done (BLM). From there you can consider changes in the tune. Most of us use Tunerpro to make those changes in the .bin.
Note the stickies above. Lots of good info there.