93 Z/28 winflash problem reading the stock pcm?

[Madman337]

Ok I got setup with winflash (Thanks Gregrob) and it still will not talk to the car. I am using Tunerprort and the winflash from Tunercats. I have the usb to obd1 cable and I can get tunerpro to read but its all over the board and keeps dropping in and out. I need to be able to pull the stock tune off of the car and as it stands right now I cant. I do have an old laptop, dell pentium 3 with winxp pro on it and its all up to date. I did do the cop port choice and on this machine its com4. Do I need a newer laptop or have I done something wrong?
I have the correct files for it from Tunerpros website. Does anybody have any ideas?
I have looked all thru here but mostly the talk seems to be centered on 94 up and we all know what a different animal the 93s are.

[cholmes729]

Ok I got setup with winflash (Thanks Gregrob) and it still will not talk to the car. I am using Tunerprort and the winflash from Tunercats. I have the usb to obd1 cable and I can get tunerpro to read but its all over the board and keeps dropping in and out. I need to be able to pull the stock tune off of the car and as it stands right now I cant. I do have an old laptop, dell pentium 3 with winxp pro on it and its all up to date. I did do the cop port choice and on this machine its com4. Do I need a newer laptop or have I done something wrong?
I have the correct files for it from Tunerpros website. Does anybody have any ideas?
I have looked all thru here but mostly the talk seems to be centered on 94 up and we all know what a different animal the 93s are.

Had the same issues also, but I blanked 2 ecms.

Try this, Turn everything off that is running in the background except what is needed, No Antivirus,screen savers, power savers, spyware,malware, any programs that could interupt the process. Do not use the cars 12v cigerette light as a source to keep the battery charged on your laptop, either use external power like an extension cord from your shop or your house. , or a fully charged battery. Reason why i say this, some dell power supplies send a 12v power surge through the ground side of the car and can cause a interuption.

Make sure your cars battery is fully charged, if you are not sure, put a charger on it.

My laptop never did get me a chance to use Comm 4, I had either Comm 1 or Comm 3 with winflash.

My car is a 94, but this should apply to all of them.

If you can remove the Eprom on yours, you might buy an eprom burner incase you blank one. That is the advantage of having a 93, otherwise if you blank a 94 ecm, you have to replace the ECM, or desolder the flash chips and solder blank ones in place of them. Not fun.

[Madman337]

Had the same issues also, but I blanked 2 ecms.

Try this, Turn everything off that is running in the background except what is needed, No Antivirus,screen savers, power savers, spyware,malware, any programs that could interupt the process. Do not use the cars 12v cigerette light as a source to keep the battery charged on your laptop, either use external power like an extension cord from your shop or your house. , or a fully charged battery. Reason why i say this, some dell power supplies send a 12v power surge through the ground side of the car and can cause a interuption.

Make sure your cars battery is fully charged, if you are not sure, put a charger on it.

My laptop never did get me a chance to use Comm 4, I had either Comm 1 or Comm 3 with winflash.

My car is a 94, but this should apply to all of them.

If you can remove the Eprom on yours, you might buy an eprom burner incase you blank one. That is the advantage of having a 93, otherwise if you blank a 94 ecm, you have to replace the ECM, or desolder the flash chips and solder blank ones in place of them. Not fun.


I do have the Burn2 and 2 blank chips and I had a fully charged battery for the laptop and the car was all set too. I do not have any antivirus on the little laptop and I dont have anything else running that I can see thru task mgr either.
I didnt know you could remove the eprom and pull the program off of it but if I have to go this route then I am gonna have to wait till I get my new trans for the truck because we are down to just the car for transpo at the moment.

[JCzNova]

When you say Tunerpro is dropping in and out, do you mean like flickering? At the bottom of the screen does the blue box stay there saying "CONNECTED" ? When I first downloaded it, mine flickered and there was a patch I needed to install. I still have a copy of it if that's what you have going on.

[Madman337]

When you say Tunerpro is dropping in and out, do you mean like flickering? At the bottom of the screen does the blue box stay there saying "CONNECTED" ? When I first downloaded it, mine flickered and there was a patch I needed to install. I still have a copy of it if that's what you have going on.

Yeah it says connected and then not connected after a few secs and keeps going back and forth. A patch? That would be cool if you can hook me up with it. Email addy is mfrazier67@yahoo.com and thank you!

[OutCast]

I didnt know you could remove the eprom and pull the program off of it but if I have to go this route then I am gonna have to wait till I get my new trans for the truck because we are down to just the car for transpo at the moment.

This is the only way to read/program a 1993. Pull the stock memcal/chip out of the computer, then use the HDR1 Memcal Header from moates.net to connect the chip to your burn2. This allows you to read the programming from the memcal. If you want to reprogram, then you need the G1 Memory adapter from Moates. These adapters are needed because the actual UVEPROM/chip is soldered into the memcal. If you really wanted to take the time to desolder the stock UVEPROM, install a socket (also sold by moates), and then use an EEPROM like the 27C256 or a 27FS512...you could do that. The G1 adapter is $35 and well worth it to avoid cutting up your stock memcal. Also, using the adapter you can always just remove the adapter and go back to stock if the need ever came up.

You can also look at the emulators like Ostrich2 to enable real time programming and avoid dealing with chips at all. A few years back when I was looking at them it wasn't really stable yet and was only recommended as a tuning tool. Once you had a good program dialed in, most would burn that to a chip.

Monitoring and datalogging you should be able to do using TunerproRT with the correct ALDL cable.

All my stuff is pretty old but it always works, I use Datamaster for logging with an AKM ALDL to 9pin serial cable (and a keyspan usb/serial adapter since most laptops don't have a serial port anymore) and CATS Tuner for programming.

[Madman337]

This is the only way to read/program a 1993. Pull the stock memcal/chip out of the computer, then use the HDR1 Memcal Header from moates.net to connect the chip to your burn2. This allows you to read the programming from the memcal. If you want to reprogram, then you need the G1 Memory adapter from Moates. These adapters are needed because the actual UVEPROM/chip is soldered into the memcal. If you really wanted to take the time to desolder the stock UVEPROM, install a socket (also sold by moates), and then use an EEPROM like the 27C256 or a 27FS512...you could do that. The G1 adapter is $35 and well worth it to avoid cutting up your stock memcal. Also, using the adapter you can always just remove the adapter and go back to stock if the need ever came up.

You can also look at the emulators like Ostrich2 to enable real time programming and avoid dealing with chips at all. A few years back when I was looking at them it wasn't really stable yet and was only recommended as a tuning tool. Once you had a good program dialed in, most would burn that to a chip.

Monitoring and datalogging you should be able to do using TunerproRT with the correct ALDL cable.

All my stuff is pretty old but it always works, I use Datamaster for logging with an AKM ALDL to 9pin serial cable (and a keyspan usb/serial adapter since most laptops don't have a serial port anymore) and CATS Tuner for programming.

Looks like then the only thing that I will need then is the HDR1 because I have the G1 adapter and 2 blank chips for it now. I will pick one up and get going on it and thank you Outcast for the heads up.

[Madman337]

I just ordered the HDR1 adapter and will let you know how it goes and thanks again guys for all your help.

[OutCast]

Good deal. Post up if you need more help. There are alot of little things that you might run into if your just getting familiar with the process. Make sure you understand what chip you are using and use the correct start and end buffers when you burn. You only need the hdr1 to read the stock tune off the memcal. Once you have the stock bin then use tunerpro to make your changes ans save to a new bin. Take your new chip and put it directly into the burn2 and program it using your new bin. Now take that chip and put it on the G1 adapter, plug the G1 into the stock memcal then install both into the ecm. NEVER put your chips in backwards, be sure you understand which way they go in. Good luck!

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[JCzNova]

Yeah it says connected and then not connected after a few secs and keeps going back and forth. A patch? That would be cool if you can hook me up with it. Email addy is mfrazier67@yahoo.com and thank you!

Just emailed you the file. Open TunerPro, then click ACQUISTITION then LOAD DEFINITION FILE. Select that one I sent.

When clicking on the double arrows on the toolbar to connect, if you are KEY ON and click connect, then start the car sometimes I have to click the arrows again to disconnect, then reconnect.

Let me know if that gets rid of the flicker.

[Madman337]

Just emailed you the file. Open TunerPro, then click ACQUISTITION then LOAD DEFINITION FILE. Select that one I sent.

When clicking on the double arrows on the toolbar to connect, if you are KEY ON and click connect, then start the car sometimes I have to click the arrows again to disconnect, then reconnect.

Let me know if that gets rid of the flicker.

Just got it in to tunerpro now and I am gonna try it tomorrow and let you know how it goes, thank you for the help.

[Madman337]

Ok I tried the file you sent and everything looks good so far except for engine rpm because at idle cold its showing like 2300 when the tach says like 1 k or so but I think I am on the right track and thank you JC.

[JCzNova]

Did you build your own "dashboard" or download one? For the data dash.

[Madman337]

Did you build your own "dashboard" or download one? For the data dash.

Had the "night dash" from Gregrob but used the one from you after that.

[Madman337]

I got my adapter today to read my stock chip and I was able to do that and I burned a chip with the stock tune and it runs fine so I have finally taken the first step in tuning YEAH!!!!

[JCzNova]

Awesome. I have played around with the small stuff and have had plenty of questions myself. Looking to get into the fuel tables next.... Slowly. Feet first, first time.

[Madman337]

Awesome. I have played around with the small stuff and have had plenty of questions myself. Looking to get into the fuel tables next.... Slowly. Feet first, first time.

COOL!
I like this idea and I have 2 other friends who are watching me closely because they are gonna want a "Madman" tune as well for their off road stuff but that should be much easier than what we need.

[OutCast]

If you're looking to do any actual tuning, invest in a wideband O2 setup and log it using the A/C pressure sensor input on the computer (search and yee will find). If you still have A/C, that might not be an option. Also, do some reading about VE master. It's pretty useful for part throttle tuning.

[Madman337]

If you're looking to do any actual tuning, invest in a wideband O2 setup and log it using the A/C pressure sensor input on the computer (search and yee will find). If you still have A/C, that might not be an option. Also, do some reading about VE master. It's pretty useful for part throttle tuning.

Awesome info, yeah I am going to need more in the future and I do remember reading about using the ac pressure switch but right now I am learning so much its crazy but I am enjoying it all.

[Madman337]

Ok I need to know where you can turn off VATS and also change the fan turn on temp in Tunerpro RT because all I see is are check boxes where you can view it but not change it so does anybody know where I need to go and if so please share.