calling bruce

[John Larkin]

I'd like some advice about purchasing chip burning equipment for my personal use. Obviously the less expensive the better without sacrificing quality. I have more time than money.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by John Larkin
I'd like some advice about purchasing chip burning equipment for my personal use. Obviously the less expensive the better without sacrificing quality. I have more time than money.

Xtronics, and get their Pocket Programmer II.
Excellent support and fair price.

http://www.xtronics.com/memory/EPROM.htm

I was able to kill one, when I dropped enough times. I have 2 and one has been left on 24/7 for about 4 years now.

 

[John Larkin]

Thanks for the quick reply. As far as software goes, is Tuner Cat the way to go or does the freeware such as the GMECM/WinBin stuff work fine from a user-friendly standpoint?

Additionally, any thoughts on that Emulator/Romulator that you tune on the fly? I think I recall you writing that a socket on the ECM has to be swapped out which sounds a little scary. It appears that is what the Tuner Cat R_T works with though. However, that would be the way to go without a doubt; you could set a car up in an afternoon with that capability.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by John Larkin
Thanks for the quick reply. As far as software goes, is Tuner Cat the way to go or does the freeware such as the GMECM/WinBin stuff work fine from a user-friendly standpoint?

Additionally, any thoughts on that Emulator/Romulator that you tune on the fly? I think I recall you writing that a socket on the ECM has to be swapped out which sounds a little scary. It appears that is what the Tuner Cat R_T works with though. However, that would be the way to go without a doubt; you could set a car up in an afternoon with that capability.

If you want to do on the fly tuning then you have to use the Romulator and Tunercat R_T.

Tunercat is really good as far as customer support, and ease of use.

On the GN ecm there is no Plug and Play adapter for using the Romulator. You just have to do something. Maybe you can talk John Spina at Casper's Electronics into doing an adapter.

 

[John Larkin]

Thanks Bruce. Even though I did as thorough a search as possible on here and gnttype (I read your article too), there isn't much info out there on chip burning packages/recommendations. You almost have to cobble several threads together to get something relatively definitive. I know BM Computer sells a package and Bob is very nice but it isn't the end-all/be-all for everyone.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by John Larkin
Thanks Bruce. Even though I did as thorough a search as possible on here and gnttype (I read your article too), there isn't much info out there on chip burning packages/recommendations. You almost have to cobble several threads together to get something relatively definitive. I know BM Computer sells a package and Bob is very nice but it isn't the end-all/be-all for everyone.

The end all best way of doing it is with Source Code.
Trouble is that it's a relaive PITB to work with, and you can't do real time that way.

R_T is convient, and resonably priced. Which is hard to beat. I've talked with Tunercat alot over the years, and go back to preproduction times with him/them, and they've always been ready to assist and or improve their product.

About the only down side to Tunercat is that he uses fixed MAF table scalers, and that can be troublesome for doing weird stuff, all in all for Joe Average it's hard to beat.

I built a complete editor for an ecm one time. to edit everything possible. And it was a PITA to work with, it was just too complete, and doing much of anything meant scrolling thur pages and pages of stuff. So now I just use a reedited .tdf file when doing R_T, and leave the Source code in the house, and change things in house then taylor them a lil when in car tuning.

You can get to the stage of having TOO much to work with.