Not at all, I am all for someone doing it themselves but the 94--96 is not available so I wouldn't advise the risk. You can still get editing software and cables from tunercat and his program has always been stable and works very well. I personally do not program through the port in the car since it passes through the CCM, I unhook the PCM and use a program harness so that there is no risk of anything disrupting the PCM during programming. You can't be too careful with this old cars and honestly, like I said earlier I would have tried the program you mention earlier but not now as these are so hard to get.

 

I actually thought the assuming which was my guess was pretty accurate since you think it is no big deal to get a new PCM. That told me everything right there. Anyways, not trying to start and argument with you, but I have been chasing these PCM's for 2 decades in getting them rebuilt and trying to keep those programs alive and they have been dying for a long time. Most of what used to be rebuilds was mis diagnosed issues and PCM's that were just reflashed and sold by some of the biggest rebuilders. At one point we actually had someone who was going through the entire PCM and had a factory Delphi bench to test all the outputs on. That ended about 5 years ago when they started running out of GM parts for them that you can no longer get. Now, it hard to just find a good core.

 

My 93 is programmed with a chip I put in chip holder and use Flash n Burn from Moates. Still works. I use Cats Tuner to change the tune and then flash the prom , of which I have a adapter for it to put into ecm housing under plate. Very common programming, prior to the ECM being flashed in 94.

 

Same as any other one. Lots of 16188051 or 16181333 PCMs on eBay. I'm sure other places have them too.

You can fix one that is "bricked" by a failed attempt to program it.

I Would never again attempt to program via Tunercats. Flashhack is way ahead in capability and likelihood of success.

 

Tuner cats to moates flash n burn system works fine.

 

Tuner Cats does not have the protection against failure that Flashhack has and Moates has closed so that's no longer an option.

 

So you know the code that doesnt afford protection. Many F and Y bodys have used this program for some time.. Never heard of failures.
Explain this to let everyone better understand your knowledge of it.
Moates just closed a few months ago I believe. He still answered an email for me. But, I digress. Mine still works fine.

 

I've got plenty. Just from one storage bin. 7 LT5, 1 L98 90-91, 3 86-89 L98, 2 LT1.

 

If you're arguing about using it to program chips then that is completely off topic and irrelevant. Flashhack is about programming the 94-95 PCMs.

 

Nobodys arguing. You stated Tuner Cat is crap and isnt safe. Explain it with your knowledge of how 0s and 1s get put into a flash, or chip ( which gets flashed via the burner, and multiple times at that).
Just waiting, as you apparently are the SME in this topic of programming and flashing. TunerCat is pretty darn good, and still has customer service.
Waiting..

 

Yes, very common and you use the updated erasable chips from Moates but Moates is not longer in business. The cats tuner works very well and I have yet to see any glitches in it which is why I firmly stand behind it.

 

I see two and no telling if they are good. I have a bunch as well and most of them are no good. Back to my statement though and you said buy a new one. You can't buy a new one and you can't even get a rebuilt without providing one which means if yours are bricked then you can't get one. The 90-93 are available as cores but still limited and the LT5 are very difficult and if you have those which I can't tell by the picture then you have a couple grand sitting there. The 86-89 are still around.

 

I did not state tuner cat was crap, I said it is the only one I would use. They were talking about the pcmhack program that was free, that is what I said I would not use. If you go back and re-read what I wrote I think we are on the same page here. I would not use free ware to flash a 94-96 car in that you can't fix it if you break it. The earlier prom stuff is not such a big deal because you can still get a 512 eprom to piggy back yours with an adapter.

 

Considering all of these have been removed from running vehicles, I’ll take my chances. Thanks for being my constant reminder of why I never bought nor will never buy anything from Zip.

 

Interesting that you say it like that. You are the one telling someone to take a chance because new ECM's are available in which they are NOT. You go ahead sounds like you know everything.

 

You are stuck on “new”. If I go buy an ECM/PCM from somebody, it is new to me or new to the car. It doesn’t have to be brand spanking new in the welcome box.

 

That is what you said, so when someone says go by a new one that is exactly what it means. The issue with buying cores is that you know nothing about it so it is not something I would recommend unless you see it operate or know who it is coming from and trust them. Really the only issue is the 94-96 they seem to be the most difficult to find.

 

Flashhack puts a flashing kernel into the PCM rom during flashing and can use that to recover from a failed flash. You could unplug your USB cable and then start over with a completely new computer and begin the flash process again. The only thing it can't protect against is you powering off the PCM, which no program can protect against due to the way the PCM works. It also flashes WAY faster since it only writes the parts of memory which need written instead of both whole flash chips, and there is a lot of blank space in the flash chips. If you only change things that affect one of the flash chips then it only writes that one making it go even faster.

I've followed steveo over on gearheadefi for years during the development. Very smart guy. A few others there contributed heavily. There is even some real time tuning capabilities now. People who don't keep up with this stuff are simply behind the times and don't know the best way to tune these PCMs anymore.

Tunercats will **** the bed if there is a communications issue and your PCM is bricked until you replace the flash chips. Period, no chance of the program recovering. No attempting to flash it again.

The tunerpro definition files that were developed also have WAY more parameters compared to tunercat. You can actually properly tune for stuff like headers using them.

I have tunercat and used to use it, but would never use it again to flash one of these PCMs. Its flashing routine is simply outdated now.

if you still don't get it then do your own research, I could care less about appeasing you any further.

 

Noted. Very condescending, but I see what you are. Maybe you will be able to answer a question with real data as to why you are stating something, not hearsay, and google data. Have a good day.

 

No offense, but wasnt talking to you. I was talking to the other guy, the one that isnt an engineer and has no data to provide other than hearsay..