Thanks to Bluevette85 and to Mother Nature for holding off her hurricanes for a bit I finally did the 870 to 165 swap in the 85. Swap went well but with a new 89 calpac(ARAS bin) it wouldn't run. Start and immediately die. No fuel pump signal from ECM pin B2. Bluevette said to turn off VATS. Panic call to Craig Moates and $402.00 got me a full-up chip burning set with all the whistles and bells. After two days studying TunerproRT,Winbin and the Moates documentation I burned a chip based on the ARAP bin with VATS turned off by unchecking in the 1st Air Flow Mode flag. Car would run but with a constant SES light. Ran all the diagnostics in the 85 manual to include a new ECM with no positive results. Before I made the first start attempt with the 89 calpac I checked for Code 12 and it was there. I exchanged the chip I burned with the original ARAS chip and Code 12 returned.
Next I copied the ARAS chip and ran a comparison with the ARAS chip: not much difference. Since I was on a roll getting nowhere I turned off VATS in the ARAS chip and burned a copy and gave it a try. Same as the ARAP. Runs but with a constant SES.
At this point I am lost and need some devine guidance from one or more of our experts. Please.
Secondly, is there a published work that explains the Constants,Flags and Tables which are changeable and what each does. Some are self evident,some are not. Additionally it would be nice to have some idea what a given change will do in a qualitative way. I guess what I am looking for is some sort of cookbook. There are too ways to make a disasterous mistake in this area. Would like to learn from other folks rather than having to make all the mistakes myself.

 

A constant check engine light could be your prom is in backwards. Is the notch towards the outside of the ecm? A constant light indicates limp mode. I bet it runs the same if you pulled the chip and started the car without it. Otherwise, you are correct that an 89 memcal wont run- without the vats disabled. You want to uncheck the vats flag to disable it. The problem with tunerpro is that its free, therefore, not everything is defined. Hang out at thirdgen.org under message boards, then DIYprom for a while and you will get the hang of some of the defintions.

It is also true that you could easily creat a disaster. Be careful, go slow, datalog after you change something, and try to only change one thing at a time. Always save a decent bin, so you can go back if you start making mistakes. Label created (or modified) bins in numerical order, or by date, and start a log file in Word or Notepad that shows what you did to each version for reference later.

BTW- if you would have asked, many of us here could have burned you a starter chip (stock/near stock with the vats disabled) for not much more than the cost of the chip and shipping (probably $6-10).

 

Thanks Nova. The prom is in correct,notch to the outside. However, I got a reman ECM to rule out the possibility the one I had was bad. The reman was a mirror image. Stumped me for a while but concluded it was an oddity of manfacturing since they both ECMs acted the same. TunerproRT isn't free. Don't know what the difference is except it supports Moates emulation.
I thought an 89 Calpac would run right out of the box. Didn't know about VATS having to be turned off. Learning curve thing I guess. Wanted to get into chip burning so wasn't overly upset about investing in the Moates equipment.
I'll spend more time with the third gen bunch.
In the meanwhile,do you have another suggestion.

 

Did tunerpro recalculate the checksum? It usually does this, but its just a thought. When you burned your prom, what bin did you start with? Was it a known good unmodified bin? Did you read yours, then modify it? When you burned it, did it verify? What chip type are you programming? If its a 29c256, or 27c256 you must double the bin or put it at the end of the 32k bin to work. Did you try removing the memcal/prom and starting the car?- Did it run the same? If so thats a confirmation that your in limp mode- which means your eprom is not being read correctly (assuming the wiring and ecm are intact and functioning).

 

BINGO !! Stacked the ARAP bin. sans VATS and it works. THANKS guys. Couldn't have done it without you.