would the ecm from a 350 caprice be better than the stock one in my 89 firebird?

aside from the chip, what differences would there be?

 

A Caprice is gonna have the same 8746 ECM that your car has, just a different chip.

 

That's what I thought. Are there any factory ecms that are better than the stock one, and if so, why?

 

no... my '93 Caprice has the '6965 ECM, as well as every other TBI caprice (305 and 350)

 

Well, in a word, no. TBI Caprice ECM history goes something like this if I remember correctly.

'85 > 6868
'86 > 7137
'87-'88 > 7746 or 8063
'89-'91 > 8746
'92-'93 > 6965

Prior to '85 I believe your only options were carburation or a mechanically fuel injected disel??? I think that's right, and all Caprices after '93 were MPFI??? I'm pulling most of this off the top of my head so I'm not sure exactly, but THEY DID USE THE 8746 ECM!!! I have one sitting right in front of me at my desk that I pulled myself not a month ago from a Caprice at a local junkyard. Nobody here has ever spoke of a 8746 to 6965 swap to my knowledge... I don't even know if it's do-able, and I REALLY don't think that sean here wants to downgrade to an 8063... so I didn't see fit to comment either way.

Later,
Harry

 

DOH! i stand corrected...

i forgot the later boxy caprices had TBI too. are you sure that the 91's had the 8746? as they were of the newer body designs from 91-93. and yea from 94-96 they had LT1 or L99. thanks for the ECM run down tho, i learn somethin new every day :hail:

 

yeah, me too. SOrry if I sounded like an ***, I always think I do when I re-read my posts. I'm not sure about the dates though. I was making guesstimations off the top of my head. I suppose somebody could always be nice and look it up. I'm gonna be lazy and go drink some beers

oh yeah... and to answer your question sean, it really all depends on what you consider "better". There are some that are hacked more and that you can do more things as far as inserting code and there are some that have hiway modes and some that don't. It all depends on what you are looking to do (probably best answered on the DIY PROM board).