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newB to efi tuning

Jonny-K5

Jonny-K5

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i keep reading threads of people hooking up laptops to thier efi blazers to tune,troubleshoot,burn chips etc. i'd like to jump on the bandwagon, so im wondering what all i need. i dont have a laptop, but i've been wanting one. how nice of one do i need? how much rams,what kind of prossesor, etc. any reccomendations?
i'd like it to be able to run any programs that i'd need for my truck, and possibly newer OBD II and III systems. plus be able to surf the web. i dont want something too expensive, so nothing really fancy. just something that will get the job done and not give me any problems.

i've heard of winaldl, is that what i need to do troubleshooting? what does it all do? are there any other programs i should look into?

what about burning my own chips? what do i need to do this? i've searched thru some old threads, but its all kinda latin to me since i dont know what the products mentioned are.

thanks :bow:
 
well i am no pro, but i dont think you can labtop tune stock, i think it is after markit setup that you can do it with andas far as system requierment you wouldent need anything amazing to run it, so you can get what ever you want for other stuff and it could run the tuneing program also.

and i *think*you have to buy some hardware to burn the chips not sure.
 
Yep, ECM has to be modified to run the EEPROM and Flash ROM, or you have to get the UV erase compatible equipment to burn stock chips. Then you need the burning hardware for whichever route you go down, and a laptop that works with it of course (some are Serial only, or USB only). Best resource is www.thirdgen.com.

WinALDL will give you what you need to just do data logging and trouble shooting. You just have to build (or buy) a compatible serial cable. Google on WinALDL for all the details.
 
For OBD1 stuff, you don't need anything beyond what will run Win98, although just for updates and what not, win2k/XP wouldn't be a bad thing.

I'm running win2k on a Pentium II 300, and it will run Tunerpro RT, along with winALDL. 64MB of RAM is enough. If all you use the laptop for is tuning, then you can get away with a very low end laptop. Newer ones have a bit of a problem in not having serial connectors, but that too can be worked around apparently.

Personally I think the "burn on the fly" setups are a better choice if you want to spend the money, but for me a moates ZIF, the pocket programmer II and EEPROM's are good enough. If you don't plan on making a bunch of hardware changes to the vehicle, and only one vehicle, that might be the cheaper route, although with an EEPROM burner you are looking at a fairly decent expense, over $100 IIRC. (I'm borrowing mine)

Go over to thirdgen.org, spend time in the DIY PROM forum reading, and check out Traxxion's article on PROM burning, it's about as basic as it gets, although it won't answer everything. Having the PROM stuff in your hands to play with makes a big difference. Tunerpro RT is excellent for this, allowing you to look at the .bin to see how things like timing and fueling are setup.
 
There isn't *that* much to be gained on the stock TBI setup if you haven't modified it...of course if you've got a different cam, heads, thermostat, etc then you can probably gain some power & mileage....however, on a stock setup, I'm sure you could gain some if you could actually datalog in realtime (or at least close to it) which is why I swapped out my '1227747 for a 16168625 ECM - note that you'll need to make an adapter for that to work.

I swapped a TBI setup into my '72 Cheyenne, I started out by buying a Mastach (www.mastach.com, they also sell on ebay) serial ALDL scanner for $20 shipped. This will let you see what your ECM is doing, on a '7747 with WinALDL you get an update every 1.2 seconds or so which leaves much to be desired.

I then purchased a Transtronics Pocket Programmer II, along with a Moates G2 adapter and a couple of Atmel C1 chips for burning, and an atmel ZIF so I could easily swap the chips out.

After doing the chip thing for a few rounds, I got a bit sick of it and decided to buy the Moates Ostrich. After tuning for a few weeks with the Ostrich, I realized that I was really being limited by the speed at which the 7747 sends you updates, and picked up an '8625 ECM and made an adapter. I did some minimal tuning, but the engine in the truck was busy dying at that point and I wasn't gaining any (its so pennsludged that it was getting 7 MPG, so I stopped driving it altogether eventually)

If I were to do it all over again, I would re-pin the harness for the 8625 before I swapped the TBI harness in, and not have used any sort of adapter harness. I would have skipped the PPII/G2/C1 setup, and just soldered a zif onto the ECM to accept the Ostrich (the ostrich can emulate the stock GM chips, so no need for the G2). I would have used the money I saved from buying the PPII/G2/C1 towards a wideband O2 setup. Also, the willem programmer is a much cheaper (~$40) alternative to the PPII for programming the atmel chips.

I've posted up some info on the swap on my website, check it out for more details.
 
thanks for the replys. now i've got some homework to do.
my truck is the stock tbi with some cfmtech parts on it. and good flowing headers/exhaust. manly what i was interested in now was troubleshooting, the truck runs pretty good, tho i've heard even with a few simple mods that i've done, prom tuning can help optimize peformance. i do plan to go with a new 383 at some time, or a torquey 350, so i figured being able to burn chips would be helpful once i get to that point.i dont want to get too crazy with swapping ecm's and making custom adapters/harnesses.

sounds like the suggestion of a moates ZIF,pocket programmer II and EEPROM are more my speed.thanks again. im sure i'll be asking more questions in the near future.
 
just spent about an hour reading over at thirdgen...wow, what an overwhelming amount of info. just curious, how much is an 8625 computer and where do you find them? is it very difficult to make them work?are there other options that just plug in, and are faster than a 7747?
 
Jonny-K5 said:
just spent about an hour reading over at thirdgen...wow, what an overwhelming amount of info. just curious, how much is an 8625 computer and where do you find them? is it very difficult to make them work?are there other options that just plug in, and are faster than a 7747?
Click to expand...

I picked mine up on ebay for about $20, plus shipping. A local pick-a-part has tons of S10 trucks and blazers, lots of em with the 4.3 CPI (vortec) motor got the 8625, also some of the fullsize's but not nearly as prevalent in the junkyard, pick-a-part price of about $25-30, prolly a little more from a regular yard, or maybe try car-part.com

It's not hard to make them work, there's a thread on thirdgen that posted up diagrams of which wires go where to adapt an 8625 to a 7747 harness. Like I said, I'd much rather just re-pin the connectors than build an adapter if i had to do it again. Unfortunately there's no "plug and play" solution that I know of, but if you were somewhat motivated you could find and pull a TBI harness from a truck that came from the factory with an '8625, and splice that into your older truck (I think that you could get them in 92-93 fullsize's).

The closest thing to "plug and play" that I can think of would be lockers + ultimate TBI code, but it hasn't come out yet, and there's been a thread on thirdgen for several months about it with no definite date or price set (as of last I checked)...depends on how long you're willing to wait I guess
 
I've read your TBI install a couple of times in preparation for my own. Thanks for the great write up. I would like to see more pics of your finished harness if you've got them - and the project too.
 
mouse said:
I've read your TBI install a couple of times in preparation for my own. Thanks for the great write up. I would like to see more pics of your finished harness if you've got them - and the project too.
Click to expand...

I've been meaning to, but haven't had much in the way of time. The Ochre Cheyenne/20 that the TBI is installed on is for sale, and when it gets sold I'm planning on installing an LT1 intake on a 350 with some lighly ported TPI heads, and eventually (think next summer) I'm going to be getting some Vortec heads and doing a similar swap with a modified LT4 intake (except, LT4 intake + machine work + custom welding + vortec heads, gaskets and port work = big bucks). Full write ups on both, plus more write-ups and pics on the rodstoration of my '71 K5.

My TBI setup has served me faithfully through 2 different trucks, but I've got a need for speed and dreams of way more horsepower :D
 
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