maybe i've skipped or missed something but i've been reading everything i found about the prom burning for the past 2hours or so and the diy burning seems to be way past my level.
i'm building a 355 tpi for my 1992 5spd trans am raised compression big cam and i'm having the vortec heads ported getting bigger valves and haveing some bowl work done, i'm also going to be putting 4.11's in the rear and i need a chip to give me my top performance is there any companies that custom burn chips for my aplication? like the piggy back system that the diy section talks about? a friend of mine found a chip like that for his 1993 lt1 firebird and it seemed to work pretty good for him so i think thats what i'm going to go for. thanks in advance for any information that will be given.

 

Ed Wright at http://www.fastchip.com/ is one of the best.

 

I purchased a custom Ed Wright chip when I first built my motor. With that custom chip, the motor ran so rich that the exhaust fumes made your eyes water within the first 15 seconds of standing next to the car (in open loop AND closed loop) the BLM's showed pig rich everywhere. There was WAY to much timing in the timing and timing adder tables. All he did was change injector constant and jack the fueling and timing tables way up. Needless to say, I was NOT happy. They wouldn't even give me a partial refund and I even offered to pay for shipping to ship the chip back to him! This is when I decided to learn to tune my own PROM. Don't waste your money is my personal experience and opinion.

 

I have to agree with 1bad91Z. In general, most guys who have any serious modifications that bought a "mail-order" eprom found them quite lacking. Worst, once they got into eprom burning and saw what was done inside, they were often pretty shocked on the limited number of changes they actually made.

I think MAF cars may have a little better success with a "mail-order" eprom than an SD car. In either case, you really need to dial in the Air Fuel Ratio in WOT and that is where both fall flat on their face IMO (unless you get a tune based on a dyno with WB results).

But WOT in only one aspect of the tune. Yes, you can hope to have it run in "closed-loop" and have the ECM correct any "sins" in the tables. But, on some engines, you are better off running in "open-loop" and that requires "hands-on" tuning.

Bottom line, the more modified the engine, the more you need a custom eprom tuned "hands-on". Most guys got into eprom burning because they had similar experiences as 1bad91z - wasted a lot of money on a "custom eprom", the engine never felt like it was running right, eventually had a "falling out" with the "custom tuner" and then just bit the bullet and decided to learn for themselves.

The money they usually waste on their "custom eprom" often pays for most, if not all, of the equipment they need to begin tuning their engine.

The mechanics of burning an eprom is simple and can be demonstrated & taught in less than 15 minutes. It's the actual "tuning" part that is more difficult and most "tuners" spend a life time honing their craft. But, even the average guy can vastly exceed ANY "mail-order" eprom if he is willing to spend a little time reading & researching.

It's the old 80/20 rule - 20% of the effort obtains 80% of the results, but it takes 80% of the effort to obtain the final 20% of the results.

Ditch the "mail-order" eprom and learn to do it yourself.

 

That's the first bad thing I've ever heard about Ed Wright. I'd like to hear his side of this story.

 

Ed Wright is one of the good guys, but you have to be willing to give accurate feedback so any problems can be corrected. That goes with anyone that does it by mail. Some people don't have or want to put in the vast amount of time to DIY.

 

I heard a few complaints on the DIY Prom Board - not as bad as TPIS though. I think they have probably the worst reputation.

Generally, the complaints with ALL custom eprom writers occur with the more radically modified engines with large cams. And the real problem is, those engines need someone to tune it "hands-on". A lot of "tuning" involves hearing the engine run. It's amazing how just playing with a little fuel and spark can make the same engine sound so different.

 

I have also had a bad experience. I went with one of there off the self chips at first when my motor was stock and I accually went .6 slower in te 1/4 14.2 to a 14.8 I switched back to stock and it went right down again. I returned it and about a year later I built up a motor with heads and cam and purchased a "custom" chip. That ended up being a POS too. I worked with him and in the end I ended up going to LSRacing who was able to dial it in for me.

 

I completly agree with the Reaper on this one. Do it your self and youll be suprised how much easier it gets after you get the stuff in front of you and see how the car responds to the changes you make. Plus the money you will save and the knowledge you gain is woth a whole lot, at least to me it is anyway.
$.02

Seth

 

where can i go to order a diy kit? and the diy sticky on this site says for my computer i need to make some part to plug into my chip in order to burn it or something like that, can i order everything i need so i can just plug it all in and start tuning? for some reason i can't find the page i was reading but it said something about you have to take the stock prom and solder something to it so it pretty much becomes a piggyback. i'm really confused when it comes to the whole prom burning stuff, so please help.

 

www.moates.net

Get the autoprom if youve got the money, it burns chips, emulates and datalogs all in 1 unit. Also you will need the G1 adapter for your ecm so you wont have to solder anything. Go check it out, Craig will take good care of you

Seth

 

do i also need a zif? and can i just pull my stock chip out and burn that? so the parts i need are:
APU1 AutoProm Package: USB Version-http://www.moates.net/index.php?cPath=51
G1 Memory Adapter: TPI ETC..-http://www.moates.net/index.php?cPath=25_36
?my stock chip?
?my basic laptop?(toshiba satellite)
is there anything else needed to do the whole diy chip burning?
and thanks for all the information you guys have provided to me so far, it has really helped me out.

 

All this stuff above, points out that you can NOT tune a car thru the mail, especially a highly modded one as stated above. But, then, some people have no recourse, so they take their chances.

My advise is to find a tuner shop within driving distance and set up an appointment, and expect to spend at least the entire afternoon. To tune a car properly and get the max out of it, you got to have the car.