I've been trying to link to my ECU for a long time now and today I finally thought I would get Diacom to work on my 88 IROC.
I've done all the cbls and freeware.
I found a big problem with my lap top parallel port and got that fixed today. I tested the lap top on my parents 91 caprice and it worked perfect right from the get go but when I tried it on my 88 it wouldn't link in ALDL mode only Diagnostic mode. It linked up after waiting about 30 seconds and it was giving me data. YEAH! I turned the car off and exited Diacom for some dinner. When I went back and did the same thing the car barely ran and after a minute I could no longer stand the rich fumes. I turned off the ignition then I noticed that there was a crapload of error codes the first was a 51-faulty or improperly installed eprom.

Here are some of the others.

45 - rich exhaust
54 FP - voltage malfunction
23, 22,15,14,13,12 WTF?? Can the car even run with all those codes.

I removed the cable and started the car and it ran ok again but was really rich and the RPMs fluctuated between 500 and 1500 for about 2 minutes. Then it idled around 750 and 800 and was back to the same old ok tune. The SES light never stayed on but with Diacom linked it was flashing like I needed the fire extinguisher agian.

I did remember seeing a bunch of data like 48 knock counts and my TPS at idle was .70 a little too high. So in that moment of data reading I did retain some useful info but DAMN.

Linking to the ECU is only the first part of getting this car tuned.
I hope thats the hardest part to this EFI tuning.
Tomorrows another day and I'm hoping for more motivation then.

 

Diagnostic Mode puts the car into limp-home mode, as if you'd put a paperclip in the ALDL. I wouldnt run it like that. Have you looked at your ALDL connector? Do you have an orange wire in Pin E or Pin M? If its in Pin E only, then connect a jumper to Pin M, or just try removing Pin E and putting it in Pin M.

 

Well that explains why it ran so bad. I doubt if I would have been able to "limp home" in that mode. It ran BAD.

I have Nate's HPP adapter now and it works great in the 91 Caprice.

 

All that rompin,stompin horsepower waiting to be unleashed on the quiet, sleepy little hamlet known as Lost Almost, oh, I mean Los Alamos. Just a matter of time till you're burnin em from the Chevron to the big hotel!!

 

did you try the datamaster software for the 165? It works in windows 98 great. I've never had a problem linking up. But it has disconnect a couple times. So if that doesn't link up then something is definitely wrong with either the cable or laptop.

http://www.ttspowersystems.com/dm_dload.htm

The beta is at the bottom of the page. It has 20 free runs.