What would help out the most for my 1996 corvette?

 

You can't replace the "chip" in the ECM like earlier C4s. You have to flash the internal chip. In other words, you make the changes to the chip files and then burn or transfer them to the ecm. I have never done this myself. I have taken my ECM to my programer and he has done this.

 

If you can't find someone local to maybe "tweak" the PCM and the car is stock with no "add ons" just leave it alone.

What ever you do DO NOT send your PCM to anyone to modify it - that's the way many of those guys gather "good parts" and replace with maybe those of questionable origins. Granted there are "good guys" and "bad guys" but all are very tempted to do what they need to gather known "good" stuff to sell and replace with a "border-line" unit to a maybe less than experienced user.

If the PCM has an original label I'd consider just keeping it "as is" regardless. If you did gears then maybe get the speedo/odo corrected but aside from a local "known/reliable" tuner WATCH OUT.

 

So getting a programer is the best bet?

 

In my opinion get the Jet dynamic tuning software and cable. That allows you full access to do a complete tune on the car. Many of the programmers only allow minor items to be adjusted.

 

I agree with WVZR-1. The best bet is leave it alone. You haven't told us any reason you would need to adjust it. There really is no performance gain to be had for a stock car, IMHO.

 

if your car is stock, messing with the chip will not get you any more HP if this is your goal. Those professionals that tune Corvettes day and and out might get you another 10 HP, but they know exactly what to tweak. You will not really feel the 10 HP if you were able to get it. If you want to turn on the fans sooner, you can do that.

 

I was going to add a cold air intake, exhaust and programmer to add some HP to my vette

 

A better, but uncommon option now is to find someone selling their TunerCATS OBD2 Tuner.

It is the same software. JET bought the license, re-branded, and changed how it handle vehicles.
If my understanding is correct TunerCATS uses a license per vehicle definition, and JetDST is per vehicle.

 

Cold air intake will not add much. The only time the cold air intake will help is at speed. The exhaust on the 96 is very good and hard to improve upon. The only thing that would improve this would be long tube headers and cat delete. The stock chip would be able to accommodate the intake and your exhaust changes including cat delete and long tubes. The stock chip will handle almost anything you can bolt on. If you change the cam to something much different that stock, then you would require a new tune.

My personal opinion is that I would rather pay a top notch tuner to make changes to my tune based on dyno tuning. I would like to rely on his experience tuning multiple cars rather than myself hunt and peck thru trial and error to tune my own car. I would likely change some parameter that would result in less HP or possibly damage the engine.

The last time I had my 85 tuned, it was on the dyno for about two hours with the sniffer in the tail pipe to measure the air/fuel ratios and the tuners laptop plugged into my ECM as he changed things in the tune. He would then make a run on the dyno to test his changes. Sometimes it was just at idle and lower RPMs. Other times it was at WOT. His vast experience at tuning nailed down the tune to my full engine system.

 

This info with bolt on's with a OBD2 is not so true. My buddies 2000 SS with LT headers, exhaust, LS6 intake, 410 gears and ran so rich it would backfire like a M80 about every shift or decel. After he installed 1.8 rockers it balanced most of the rich AFR out. But still needs a much needed tune. The car just does not have the torque pull of even my tunning on my stock engine LT1 ps my car beat it from 60 - 122
OBD2 software is pretty expensive also tricky with hidden VE tables

 

THE 383 admiral - your friends SS...there must be other issues. The intake should have leaned out the fuel not run richer. The exhaust and LT's should have increased the flow out of the engine. The 1.8 RR would have kept the valves open longer allowing more air and fuel to enter the cylinders. If the injectors were stock it should not have run pig rich unless there were other issues.

 

No issues. A flawless car

 

A flawless car does not run pig rich unless there is a problem such as the O2 sensors in the incorrect position on the headers so it registers a lean fuel condition and dumps more fuel into the intake. This would be my guess as to the rich condition. I would guess that the long tubes were added and the bung for the O2 sensor was placed in a different location as compared to the stock position.

The tuner then adjusted the tables to feed less fuel into the intake to correct the engine air/fuel mixture. A good tuner will have the sniffer in the exhaust to measure the A/F mix levels at the tail pipe and adjust the fuel tables.

 

Stock injectors. No tune as of yet. The best method to tune is the wideband at the collector.

 

Unless your friend added an aftermarket wide band it has a narrow band 02 sensor.

 

Did i miss something? I never said my buddy had any narrow OR wideband.
I did say the proper way to tune a car is a wideband installed at the collector!!! Ps this is a very common effect installing LT headers on the LS due to the new location of the O2. His car sounds brutal. Just needs a correction tune.

 

That was my misunderstanding about the 02s. However you don't need to tune an LS for long tube headers.

When i first started my LS it ran rich. It was not the headers that caused it. I made one small mistake making the wiring harness and swapped the purple wire for the cam sensor, and the passenger side O2. After fixing that it ran good but it was still tuned for the cam change, and different injectors.

 

????

I usually delete the second injectors on each side on any LS tune with long tubes....