I had a chip made by Custom Chips. It did what he said and the car made more power. It was more of a difference than my headers made.

 

Interesting you say that Oscar, since it's your business. When am I getting the rest of my order? it's been a month!!

To the OP, beware of this company... the chips come from California and the company will not give you any information as to the specs on the chip/ what it's actually programmed for. They'll refer you back to Oscar/Custom Chips/Aguliarwhatever, he won't give you a straight answer and keep telling you that it's in the mail.

For example of caution... https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...986-89-c4.html

 

I'd call my credit card company and yank the charges. Hope you paid on Amex. They are excellent for that reason.

I guess our friend is just a shill for his own business. How interesting.

 

It seems so many tuners will not do 92 and 93's compared to the newer one's that can be flashed.

 

There isn't enough demand for them to buy and spend time playing with the software to get proficiency.

 

I went to moates.net and got the Autoprom and chip adapter, then paid a whooping $20 for TunerproRT software. I can do realtime tuning, burn chips, and log data for about $400 total. It has been a steep learning curve and I haven't even touched the fuel or timing tables yet. It costs $55 for a chip adapter and two blank chips if you know someone who already has a chip burner you don't need to buy one. If you just want to turn off EGR, change the fan activation points, change the converter lockup speed ect. you dont really have to be near the car to do that.Heck, if you pay the expenses, I can send you a "custom" chip too, but I would never change fuel trim without wideband data.

 

It is the steep learning curve that you are paying for in addition to the dyno time. IIRC, my tuner charged me 3 hours of dyno time which includes them strapping it down and taking it off with some road testing. Also it takes countless hours of refining his technique on a dyno. You pay for his education. For me to gain some knowledge (not even close to equal to his), I would have to buy some dyno time and play around. If you are a race car driver who is trying to get the most optimized tune for the latest change you have made, that is an investment. I haven't had to touch my chip for quite a few years since I haven't put something on that would require any change so if it were something simple like the lockup point, I'd send it to someone like you and toss a few beers or dollars for your hard work. OTOH, for any fuel trim work, the few times I have to do it, it wouldn't be worth the while to invest that kind of time and dyno time to learn how to do it somewhat decent.

 

I bought all that and I am not a computer geek, I don't know how to hook it up or use it! Where are you located?

 

Let's straighten out the "flip-flop" information in this thread.

-Custom chips CAN indeed make your car run better, hell even on a bone stock car most decent tuners can make a bit more power.
-Dyno tunes are great if you want to spend out the azz and gain maybe 10-30 horse over a decent mail order tune. Granted some gains will be better but most mail order tunes are pretty good. (Minus the dumbass, no-name tuners)
-Again, Mail order tunes can be VERY close. Seen multiple examples where guys got dyno tunes and only gained about 10-15hp over their mail order tune. Usually the big gains with a dyno tune are in driveability.
-Getting a mail order tune and then datalogging and sending that info to your tuner in invaluable. That's what I do.

Try solomon (lt1pcmtuning.c0m),does TBI/TPI/LT1/LS1, he has a few free tune updates after you send him your datalog file to try to get your tune spot on. Fairly inexpensive and I have a buddy who got his 93' LT1 tuned by him and the car runs great.

Solomon is not the best tuner but pretty good for the money. Plus how many people tune TBI/TPI cars and send custom chips these days? Barely any... I wonder if TBIchips is still tuning... he tuned my old (L03) 305tbi Camaro probably 8-9 years ago. Geez time flies...

I used to use Madtuner/Madz28 but he is out of the tuning business now.

In addition to all that the chip is super easy to swap. Swap them if you have an issue with the new tune and you are back to stock.

Bottom line- It is stupid to mod your car beyond a cat-back and air intake without a tune. You are leaving tons of power/fuel mileage on the table! Good luck!

 

So very true. There is tons of different software for tuning every different variation of efi that gm makes. I bought tunercat for my 94-95 LT1 so I can make changes myself. I rely on real tuners for major changes but I can tweak the changes myself a bit. (The easy ones of course) It's a MAJOR learning curve. I'm glad I bought the software though.

I can tune any 94-95 LT1 pcm with tunercat. With the LS1 and on you can only tune one car and have to buy more licenses to tune additional vehicles. That's how they get ya!

 

I don't know what they charge if you datalog and they adjust it till there is max gain. IIRC it is about $600.

Agree with you on that. Drivability also isn't as good as dyno tuning while I would say datalog tuning is a close second

 

In the case of solomon I think he gives 3 free retunes and after that you have to buy the tuning package again. I have used 2 retunes myself so far. Seems to be a nice guy and tries to address your concerns.

 

Seeing how many iteration my tuners have to go through, I would assume it takes a whole package to get it dialed in perfect. How much is a package?

 

Update:

I decided to go ahead and give custom chips a try. After speaking to the owner he sounds like he knows what he is doing. I am planning on doing some modifications and he will do retunes as I add things like headers cams ect.

I will be sure to give a write up and inform everybody of the product. Here is the chance for custom chips to redeem themselves.

 

So why no speak to me ? greg

 

Ill speak to you...?

 

Many salesmen do sound good over the phone. That the shill has trouble and suddenly gone dark doesn't make me feel good. I hope you put it on Amex. That is my card of choice for shady items. They are FAST to yank the charge which forces the seller to make it right with you or not get paid.

How would that work? He hasn't even tried to redeem himself by answering that guy's post.

 

We shall see. I will be sure to make a review. I just asked for a shipping number.

 

Update:
I really wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. I messaged him on Tuesday and asked him if he had an eta. The message shows it was read but he still has not responded. wE MAY HAVE A FRUAD. Ill give him a day to respond before I report it as fraud and send his info over to the police. Does not hurt that I know all the right people to report his ***. Hopefully he responds and sends it but I will make sure to inform everybody.

 

How much money are you out?

How did you pay for it?