I have a 94 with 6 speed, I am thinking of getting tunercat. Other than major tuning what else can I do with it? Is there any risk of scre##ing up the original program or does it save a copy of it? In other words is it safe?

 

It is safe to a point. You can copy the original program to your computer so you do not loss it. Eventually if you do enough programming the ECM will lock-up and you will have to have it socketed by someone who specializes in that work. The 1994 and 1995 computers are touchy, and fail during programming 5% of the time. After they are socketed they seem to work better. Whenever I tune a 1994 or 1995 I let the customer know that there is a potential for this lock-up and it costs $150.00 to have this fixed.

 

you can do simple stuff like disabling VATS or CAGS, changing gear ratios so your speedo works properly for different gears, change the temps at which your fans kick on. A few examples of some more complicated stuff you can do would include recalibrating MAF tables, adjusting timing, etc.
Before flashing a new tune you can do a "read" of your stock tune and save it on your laptop so you can always flash back to stock if needed.
There is a risk of a failed flash though which will damage your pcm and it will need to be sent out to be repaired if this happens. You'll always want to make sure your laptop is fully charged (and plugged into an outlet if possible), all power saving options on the laptop are disabled, and the battery on the car has a good full or near full charge before flashing the pcm to reduce risk of a failed flash. I also always do a "read" before flashing to make sure everything is connected and working properly.
If you are going to be tuning you'll also want a program to log data (if you don't already have one), I like datamaster you get 20 free trials when you install it.
After modding my car I started with a pcmforless tune and bought tunercat and did some fine tuning myself. I also tried another tuning program that was free (cant remember the name of it) but you were not able to flash tunes onto the pcm other than that it was similar to tunercat.
Overall I like tunercat and would recommend it
Hope this helps

 

thanks that deffinitly helps, I am ordering it for sure, I love that I can change the fan kick on point, I was going to install a override to do this but if I can do it with tunercat I am onboard!!

 

Many Laptops can have a improper grounding. That can create noise on DC when plugged into AC power
this could drop your connection and wipe out your PCM flash = non working PCM
Best way to flash stand alone PCM program cable connected to your PC / Laptop

 

One thing I also do to be safe is to disable the Anti-Virus software on the PC before I start reading or flashing. Some just keep an on PC available for tuning with no Anti-Virus but that is not necessary.

 

The "safety" of the tuning process depends largely on your computer. When the hardware to tune these cars first came out, computers really didn't have the horsepower to do anything BUT tune the car. Therefore if you had background processes like antivirus running, the probability that your tuning would fail increase.

Since most people's computers have viruses, spyware, scumware, etc, etc, on them, many people have had very bad tuning experiences. Meanwhile if your computer is clean you'll have no problems.

FWIW I still tune my car with the original laptop I bought to do so with 11 years ago. However, I work in IT and make absolutely sure that there is nothing going on with my computer that I don't want. If you computers have the tendency to run slow, lock up, and otherwise just generally suck, you may consider getting a laptop dedicated to the task and getting somebody who is computer savy take everything off of it except for what you need for tuning to ensure the best results.

 

I've done well over 100 flashes with just one failure, and that was due to an interface cable issue. Andrew at AKM cables replaced the PCM chips for $25.

 

Only have had one failure and that was at a "dynotune shop" when the guy tripped over the cable.

However as Nathan said make sure the computer is performing as intended. If you run Anti-Virus software you still can have a virus. I run one product but also scan with Malwarebytes (manual tool is free)regularly to verify and also before doing any reading or flashing of the computer just to be sure.

If you have a virus the results could/may be as bad as tripping over the cable.

If you have a good clean computer, a good cable, and follow the instructions you should not have any issues.