ok, getting ready to put a motor in my car. Looking for about 450 hp, but I want the drivability, durability to be as good as oem.
Building the motor (or buying a crate motor) is the easy part; seems getting the intake/injection/tuning right for the new motor is the hard part. I assumed that keeping the factory tpi would be best for the drivability and durability, so....
I have started reading this forum so I can learn to burn my own proms, do my own tuning, etc..... yes, it looks complicated and some of you have told me it will be the hardest part of my motor swap.
I was talking to a buddy tonight and he asked why I would mess w/ the oem tpi and prom burning stuff when I could buy an aftermarket intake/fuel injection system that I could tune on the laptop w/ no chip burning, etc... needed (Accel DFI, etc..). Made me wonder............. is there a reason I should be burning chips instead of flashing a aftermarket computer??
I'm new to this and am trying to decide if I can get the power out of the tpi system and if it's worth it. Can you guys give me your thoughts to help this make sense? thanks

 

I use OEM ECMs in my swaps, because they are inexpensive, and reliable, with many features you don't get in aftermarket alternatives. I also tune on the fly, with an EPROM emulator, so no PROM burning for me, until I have a tune that is good, which I will then use a PROM for.

With all the tuning equipment added up in cost, it comes out to far less than aftermarket offerings, with more capabilities in most cases.

 

I think I have $150 total in my Burn2, chips, a ribbon cable and a remote board that I have on the dash. I can burn and replace a chip in 2 minutes.

 

I work on more than just one car. I have been converting several lately, with many more planned down the road. By using GM OBD1 stuff my tuning equipment is for the most part a one time purchase, not so with aftermarket (or to some degree OBDII). Plus most of the aftermarket stuff is VERY SIMPLIFIED and often times dosent run very well. With SAUJP, Code59, and the $0D-MPFI-MAF code upgrades combined with TunerPro and an emulator you have MOST all the capabilities of the aftermarket stuff, with pick-n-pull prices and real GM component reliability.
Also one area that also stands out for the Delco ECU's is the idle quality and part throttle drivability that is generally programmed a lot smarter than most of the aftermarket stuff (with some exceptions).

One of the biggest differences may be that to do run a '730 or similar will require you do use your brain a bit. So to set up your car you can attack it with brain power, a little elbow grease and time. With most aftermarket setups you solve your problems by throwing money at it. I prefer the first, and have more respect for those that also do so.

And finally, I may be wrong, but I feel that OBD1 advances are happening at an ever increasing pace. It was all real slow at first, I lurked for years on DIY-EFI and later here. A lot of people worked real hard for years, and shared most of what they could with the community. The knowledge base has been growing exponentially, and is now beginning to a new era. I would say we are in a sort of "EFI Renaissance period" right now. The hard work of the pioneers is paying off and a new phase of development is emerging.
I never had the chance to meet the guy, but I'll bet "Grumpy" would be real proud to see the recent advances that have been made with the OBD1 stuff.

 

Ditto, but I haven't bothered to burn an EPROM.

 

Yeah, my Datsun has yet to see an actual EPROM, the Ostrich is a "permanent" install, but for other people's vehicles, like my Boss's '62 Suburban, my Grandfather's '71 Chev pick up, a friends' '67 Chev pick up, and a few others I program EPROMS for them, since they don't own Ostriches.

 

cost, support community, "ease" of adding my own code, letting everyone know that my relatively ancient $25 ~1987 designed ECM better controls my engine than someone's 2 year old toy that cost over $1K... the list can go on and on.

even though i can't say i ever chatted with them, i'd like to think bruce and ECMGuy would be pleased with our continued interest and advances.

 

ok, I'm getting sold on the idea again.

I am looking at the Golen 383 450hp crate motor. I'd like to think I could drop that in, do some work on the stock TPI intake, etc... and burn my own chip to make it run as good as GM got the factory motor to run. Is this possible or am I dreamin? (This is why some buddies were telling me to go w/ aftermarket injection/ecm systems... they said it'd be to hard to get the stock tpi to ever run right again).

Does it make any real difference if I were to build a 350 versus a 383 from a ecm/chip standpoint?

 

maybe back in the day, when tuning was done exclusively with hex editors and aftermarket ECMs didn't exist, driveability would suffer.

But thanks to the pioneers of GM OBD1 hacking, today we know that not only are the aftermarket units generally less sophisticated than GM's hardware from the 80's, we know that with enough work, we can quite literally add almost any functionality we can think of to the GM ECMs; something that can't necessarily be said about most aftermarket units, megasquirt being an exception due to it's open nature.

but maybe i'm biased.

 

HAHA, I love people that have the "aftermarket is always better" mentality.

You'll be able to get the OEM ECM to run the engine every bit as well, and likely better than just about any aftermarket system available. It may not idle glass smooth or be "finished the tune" in a day, but neither would an aftermarket system. Tuning any engine, be it with the OEM ECM or aftermarket does take some time, it also depends on just how finikey you are, in how long it will take.

When I first injected my Datsun, I had it drivable within 20 minutes of the first start, running well within a couple hours, even though there were at the time, some un-known mechanical issues that hindered any great progress, but I drove it over an hour to the car show the next day, on just a few hours of tuning. FWIW, this is in a 1973 Datsun 240Z, using a 1227749 ECM (similar to the 1227730), running Code59 (www.code59.org) running a 1981 or 1982 (as far as I can narrow down the year based on casting numbers) Nissan L28 I6, that I added the injection and a turbo to.
Once I fixed the two major mechanical issues I had (locking out the dizzy and making the IAC actually functional by cutting the TB gasket), the engine ran even better, and has only improved since then.

So yes, you will be able to get the engine running well with the stock ECM. Some factors that will effect idle and drivability are large cams, and massive porting of the heads, but these would also effect aftermarket ECMs as well. Also, if you are using a solid lifter cam, this can effect the Knock Sensor, and pick up "false knock", just from drivetrain noise, so you may have to disable the KS in the tune as well, if you go that route.

 

I'm reasonably confident that we here have better tuning tools than the even factory tuners had back in the day when these ecm's were new.

 

That motor may exceed the capabilities of the stock TPI and possibly ported as well. anyone know flow limitations off hand? Personally I would lean to proproducts efi single plane but that is just me. Good info here as well for tuning system and aftermarket ECU... dynamicefi.com

 

Read the articles we, on the west coast have done in the TPI section.

I really wouldn't recommend a 383 with TPI, it's hard enough to get enough air to feed the 355.

Don't get me wrong it can be done, but we are getting 400RWHP from the 355
with the mods in those articles.
Still retaining good street manners and good gas milage.

HTH

 

It will be hard at first to get driveability as good as stock due to your lack of tuning experience. Its not all that easy for beginners, and takes time to really get a feel for how it all works. I'm not there yet but feel confident in tuning anything..just takes a few years of practice and alot of reading. But some big cammed setups just will never idle as smooth as stock or run as well as stock. Just a completely different animal now with heads/cam/inches/etc but you can get them to be very smooth for the powerband they will be in and reliable (start up fine on cold days and hot restarts with no issues)

So if you can put up with that and can learn fast, you will have no problem getting the motor to run well by burning chips. If you dont want to do that, you can go aftermarket and have someone tune it for you.
Thats the big advantage of aftermarket. FAR greater number of people know how to tune FAST/BS3/etc vs 80's TPI stuff. If you converted to LS1 OBDII stuff, you can have someone tune that for you since there are MANY LSx tuners out there.

Its all MUCH more expensive tho over factory 80's GM stuff.

 

I'm not there yet either, on a TPI'd 400 block with just about everything modded, cam, AFR heads, 730 ECM with A prominator chip set and Tunerpro RT throttle body, ported and siamesed pipes and plenum. There's a lot of technology there, and not a carburetor in sight.

It was a challenge, it was/IS frustrating. I never gave up, simply realized I needed to learn more. I'm still learning. I'm not in the grave yet. It's been a long time coming but I'm almost where I want to be with my 1993 Caprice wagon, "Shammoo" the beast from hell.

There aren't likely to be many in my city that have accomplished what I've been able to do. I'm proud of that. Most local motor heads are simply flabbergasted and amazed, and few come near what the people on this forum have done, or even begin to understand it.. When you talk about BLM's and ECM's to them, you see that vacant thousand yard stare starting to form in their eyes.....


If it wasn't for the guys on this forum who pioneered and led the way, and who were kind enough to take the time to answer all my questions, I would have an expensive 4400 lb lawn ornament (and a divorce). I owe them a mountain of unpaid debt in gratitude for all their help. To honor that, I try to help the Noobies when I can. Others helped me and I feel I owe it to them to try to return the kindness.

Dave Buchholz.


P.S. I forgot to mention that I'm an exceedingly cheap bastard, and I'll be damned before I'll pay someone else to do it.

 

Amen to that.

 

+1

 

My favorite part of the old stuff is the fact that a human can read through the entire program and get a working idea of what's going on. Newer programs are huge and need low level assemblers for anything beyond simple patches. And alot of the aftermarket stuff is encypted.

 

Yeah, they get exponentially larger with each new iteration of PCM. The '411 code Im messing with now is way larger than what was in the blackbox vortec PCM. That was easy compared to the '411. The newer calibrations are HUGE.

 

I gotta say this looks pretty intimidating. I guess what GM had a team of engineers doing we all do on our own, right?

Dyno Don, after more reading on this forum, I think you are right and I am now looking at the 355.

 

There is a TON of information on how to tune in this forum. When I joined, I had only a rough idea on what to do and what to look for, now I'm doing allright and even have a Ford MAF and injectors powering my Firebird :P Granted, bl85c and Tequilaboy did much of the leg work on that one but the basic bin has to be tuned for your car and that can be a pretty steep learning curve. Once you get the basics down, its all down hill from there and gets easier. It might look intimidating, but once you start reading, it doesnt seem so bad.

 

I am running the Dynamic EFI set-up. I can burn any time and any where I want. Its a Great way to go. Ive turned my 383 stroker in too a monster with good fuel economy.

Scott

 

I'd be willing to bet that many of us would like to know more about what areas you modified and how you modified to get better mileage out of the system. We are always grateful for any added wisdom in that regard.

I's handy to know what really screwed it up as well.

Dave "lakeffect"