I have a story..................

I'm a retired construction electrician who purchased my Low Mileage 91 Z/28 in 2001 when I was still working. It's a run of the mill 305 auto with Sport suspension. The first couple of years I worked on the handling......... Weld in sub frame connectors (Global West), Full poly graphite kit with new ball joints, tie rods, drag link, strut tower brace, ect. A Full set of KYB adjustable shocks/struts, Global West rear lower control arms, and Panard bar. You get the idea. Next was the 4th Gen T56 conversion........ A must for Auto Cross. There were a few more odds & ends, Aluminum drive shaft, Aluminum rear diff cover with bearing cap support, and a set of aluminum rear brake drums. I was happy with the car, and all that was left was the power plant. I sourced a low mileage 91 aluminum head Vette motor, and freshened it up with new rings, and bearings. I installed all new valve train.......... new springs, roller tip rockers, push rods, timing chain, valve job of course, lifters, and a Lingenfelter Cam. Almost forgot.......... Shorty Headers, and Full Free Flow Exhaust, (no cat).

I sold the 305, and was ready to install the 350 when I bought an Adventure Motorcycle........... It was 2007. For the next 10 years the "Z" languished while I rode 50,000 miles of Back Roads, and Off Road Trails. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done!

Just last Friday, after spending "Weeks" remembering where everything went the Z/28 Drives Again!!

It started the first time I turned the key, and has exceeded my expectations!

I decided to post my story in the TPI section because I'm running a stock 350 manual transmission Chip, and I need a "tune" I have many questions for the group, but my first is, Who is the best Mail Order programmer? I hope, one day, to do my own programming but really need someone who can take the specifics of my setup, and burn me a base line program.

Thanks in advance! I appreciate any "positive" feedback. CBob

 

Sounds like you need to datalog. The vette l98 would be a good starter tune but to refine fueling you should datalog. The mask is $8d. You can download tunerpro rt for free at tunerpro.net. You can always look into dynamic efi ebl p4

 

For a stock L98 Vette engine, Tuned is right... just grab the AXCN calibration for 90-91 Vette with manual trans (I can e-mail it to you if you want or simply go to my website and download from there http://ultm8z.com/DIY%20Tuning.htm). The timing is a little more aggressive, but overall the Camaro and Corvette calibrations are essentially the same. You may notice a little more pep with it.

If you go to moates.net, you can get a chip adapter, some 27S512 electronically eraseable EPROMs, and a PROM burner and you're ready to tune.

Tuned is also right that you'd at least want to datalog with TunerproRT so you can see what your changes are doing. Just need a laptop and a ALDL adpater cable. You can also see if the engine is at least running well as it currently stands.

For tuning software, you have a couple of choices... Tunerpro is free (though the programmers do appreciate contributions). I use Tunercat out of preference (though it's not free, but I've been using it for years and am very used to it). I have dabbled in Tunerpro as well and it's also very good software. I use TunerproRT to log data though. Logging data has the added benefit in that you can e-mail it to folks who may be helping you tune, which they can use to see how things are responding.

Also recommend to start reading the stickies in the DIY PROM section on this board. A treasure trove of info (I've been tuning for ~20 years and am still learning from that section).

Once you start getting your feet wet, I'd recommend getting a wide band O2 sensor. You'll need one to start tuning the Power Enrichment fueling. GM ran these cars extremely rich (my friends '91Z dips into the low 11's for AFR which is ridiculously rich). There's probably some power to be gained by leaning that out into the 12.5-13.0 range. However, what you program into the ECM often isn't what the engine actually gets, so you need the WB O2 to see how the engine is responding. The ECM doesn't pay attention to the O2 sensor in power enrichment mode (it only dumps in a pre-programmed amount of fuel) and the factory sensor won't even accurately report AFR at all. So the WB is a must for this.

Any rate, I think you're in a good place to start off using a factory calibration and make small changes to learn how to tune. I don't see you as a candidate for a mail order chip at this point. Just remember to keep track of your changes on each iteration as it's easy to get lost and lose track of what changed (especially if the car responds negatively).


You'll also want to get an emulator (possibly sooner rather than later). Makes life WAY easier when you're making changes. Removing and replacing chips these days is really stupid when emulators are cheap and essentially turn your EPROM memory ECM into essentially a flash memory. With my Ostrich 2.0 from Moates, I can literally come to a red light, make a quick change in TunercatRT, and then without even shutting off the engine, download the new calibration to the emulator (takes ~5 seconds) and then simply start driving when the light turns green! No stumbling engine or anything during the download. Once you have the tune where you want, you burn one chip and done.

 

Thank You both for the input. I should have said the my prom is a new Corvette 350 manual trans prom, and getting setup to, at least, data log is on my short list.
That said, my cam is 0.464/213 intake...... 473/219 @ 0.050 and as it is driveability is fairly sketchy. I was mainly looking for someone to delete the EGR, which I deleted, and make a few other adjustments to at least compensate somewhat for the effect of the cam on the MAP sensor to make it drive a little better while I get setup, and learn to do my own tuning.