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Chip Burning - 7747. Whom do you recommend.

azblazer

azblazer

1/2 ton status
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Grand Junction, Co.
Need some advice on whom to have a chip done for my 79 K5.
Stock gm crate 350...700R4...Doubler...etc.
Is winaldl still available as freeware to log for the person to have info to burn from? Price wise...etc?

DW
 
Yep, winALDL is still available for free, just need the cable.

As mentioned above, tbichips.com. Brian is about the only real game in town when it comes to mail order "custom chip" burning.

He could probably get close with just your engine specs, but a datalog is going to be a lot better.
 
I'll head over to his web site then. I have a cable already from when i used to play with things alot prior tot he 4 years in the oilfield and a spare laptop with an rs232 port or i guess i could use my normal laptop with a usb to serial adapter...

Thanx guys.

DW
 
USB to serial adapters can introduce a problem. Seems quite a number of people have issues with the adapters and datalogging, although I'm not sure that even here we've figured out that all the problems were indeed the adapter.
 
I think the cheapest I found was Mastech? Someone in Poland IIRC. Had/has good reviews.
 
I've got tunerpro RT on my win2K boxes.

I've met Mark Mansur, he's a great guy, I'd do him a disservice if I said otherwise. Product is free, but a donation will help him keep updating it. I better get off the soapbox now. :)
 
I'm not going to recommend TBI Chips. I have only purchased one TBI chip, so I don't have a large volume of chips to make me an "impartial judge" ... the low RPM fuel maps were rich, and the high RPM fuel maps were lean. For my one and only chip, about the only thing I saw different was the timing map. I recalibrated the fuel maps.

dave w
 
dave w said:
I'm not going to recommend TBI Chips. I have only purchased one TBI chip, so I don't have a large volume of chips to make me an "impartial judge" ... the low RPM fuel maps were rich, and the high RPM fuel maps were lean. For my one and only chip, about the only thing I saw different was the timing map. I recalibrated the fuel maps.

dave w
Click to expand...

Did you give that feedback to Brian?
 
Yes, I provided feedback to TBI Chips. I purchased my chip directly from TBI Chips. I did not buy my TBI Chip via eBay. Brain and exchanged several emails about my total and complete dissatisfaction!

dave w
 
I don't know Brian personally, just some short emails back and forth, but with his track record, I'd expect that your problem was likely a "one off".

Did it run ok, even with the data showing it was lean/rich at times? (not to challenge your knowledge or experience, I've got a reason to ask this, just don't want to bias the answer. :))

Brian seemed pretty honest to me, I had inquired about the fact that at one point he mentioned he was planning on working with an engine builder to provide engines that were already tested with a specific PROM, to make purchase easier for people. He told me when I asked where that project was now, that even with all the parts being "theoretically" the same on the motors, they still weren't "perfect" with the same chip.
 
dyeager535, yes the truck would run Ok, mostly at near sea level. I require my truck to climb to almost 8,000 feet above sea level on a regular basis. Most all my dissatisfaction was about the actual custom calibrations I requested, but were not programmed. I feel if you pay the money ... you should get the service. I did not get the custom programming service I request. What I got was a "Plain Jane" generic "Stage Something" one size fits Nothing At All .bin program. I paid the money ... so now I can "praise" about the lack of service all I want.

At the time of my TBI Chip purchase, I did not own a Moates.net Burn 2 or Ostrich 2, but I had purchased a licensed version of Tuner Cats. It seemed like in the beginning, it was going to be less expensive for me to have a custom .bin file programmed, than go out and buy hardware from Moates.net. Well ... I think I figured wrong.

dave w
 
The reason I asked was because it would be very easy to make a "one size fits all" chip, and unless you were doing something a bit out of the ordinary, the average joe would probably never know. Heck, fueling and timing could be way off and it would still run ok, but as a friend once put tuning, "you don't know what wrong is until you know what right feels like" (or something to that effect).

Yours could still be a one-off problem, since you did request specific changes, and I don't know any other transactional details, however I'm now curious to see what others who have bought chips for mild builds, then datalogged, have found.

I understand the experience would leave a bad taste in your mouth, but "I paid the money ... so now I can "praise" about the lack of service all I want" makes it sound like you've got a problem with me. I don't want to misunderstand you, so I'm asking for clarification. I'm not challenging you, I can just as easily shut up as I can talk. :)
 
dyeager535 said:
however I'm now curious to see what others who have bought chips for mild builds, then datalogged, have found.
Click to expand...

Datalogging is how I found out my fuel maps were rich / lean. When I got to about 8,000 feet above sea level...I noticed visible black smoke from the exhaust. The fuel map was programmed to rich, and the computer could not compensate enough to the lean for the AFR to be close enough to my liking and caused the black smoke. I also confirmed the rich mixture with a wide band O2 sensor. With my truck towing at near sea level and traveling at nearly 70 MPH the wide band O2 sensor also confirmed a lean fuel map, to lean of a map for the computer to compensate enough rich at high RPM's and high engine load to my liking. I did not notice / hear a lean mixture ping under heavy load / RPM, but the datalogging showed the spark was 6 degrees less that the spark map for that RPM / Kpa cell. Once the high RPM / Kpa fuel map was corrected the spark advance matched the spark map for that specific RPM / Kpa.

With fairness to TBI chips, most of the TBI Chips advertised calibrations are going to be in the ball park somewhere. I do wonder ... in the ball park could mean somewhere way up and away into the bleachers; or maybe, just maybe, all the way down onto the playing field?

The problem I have is I should have spent my money on the .bin programming hardware in the beginning, and trusted my own initial programming parameters. The wide band O2 sensor equipment has been fun to learn, and has become a very useful tool for me to use for .bin programming to a specific vehicle. :smile1:

dave w
 
Thats kind of where I was heading...most owners who buy chips probably don't go back and start datalogging to see how it's running, just assuming they are getting good/best performance because they aren't seeing any problems, when in actuality it may be too rich or lean, and timing may be off, etc.

If the problem is great enough that you can physically detect it (in yours smoke) then people might say something. But programming rich is a whole lot easier than trying to make it run as it should, and most would never notice it...
 
dyeager535 said:
most owners who buy chips probably don't go back and start datalogging to see how it's running
Click to expand...

I'd venture to say most owners who buy a performance / aftermarket chip probably don't even read the chip programming, or know what parameters are changed / programmed into a chip.
 
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