Ecm
 

When I got this beauty from my dad when he died, I didn't know what I had. I started working on it little by little, I went to change the ecm because of an idling problem. Like a dummy, I went to my local parts counter and turned in my old for the core charge. BIG MISTAKE!!!! I now know that finding parts for 1991 ZR1 are next to impossible. With that, I am here to see if there is anyone out there that can help me find or point me to an ecm for that car. Thanks for any help or advice to get my car started again

when did you trade it in? go back and try to get it because I won't sell a good working ECM for less than $1200.

OP - It's for sure a difficult to recover from situation. Did you remove the PROM from the ECM before you surrendered the core? Where are you located? Very dependent on how/where your 'parts purchase' was handled do you maybe have some way to recover all/some monetary losses. There's much to consider.

Mention your 'LOCATION' !!!!!!!

Recovery from your situation might not be as painful as you suspect.

At this point it's maybe all about 'LOCATION'!!

Ecm
 

maybe I'm crazy but at this point I'd put a mega squirt on it and sell the DIS box from under the plenum

you then wouldn't rely on that next expensive part of the domino, and you'd have a really cool coil on plug setup that's easier to tune and maintain.

the stock ecm for the later model cars works with an early chip. That's the route you can go if you want to stay stock.

I am using a MS3 with the 3x expansion board to do sequential injection and COP on a Ford 5.4 supercharged as a standalone unit. In one of the online videos they mentioned doing a PNP unit for the ZR-1. This unit can do anything and in the Ford environment it is used in parallel with the stock unit. The tuning software is incredible with a base price of 0$ and the full version being 50$. There is a strong support forum. You can also buy it in kit form to save some dollars.
Forum: http://www.msextra.com/forums/index.php
Seller: https://www.diyautotune.com
Tuning software: http://www.tunerstudio.com/index.php/tuner-studio
It can do waste spark or you can use a Ford EDIS.
You can use the microsquirt version to do standalone transmission control.
It is better than any commercial product out there.

Tyler

Hi Dominic you are correct that the initial "plug and play" version of the MS as implemented doesn't take advantage of coil on plug

as Tyler mentions that's just an "incomplete implementation" and if you splice into the wiring and take away the full engine management the MS indeed drives the spark and with the full range of tuning capabilities it's a good fit for the ZR1 Because as you mentione there is no free lunch with the CCM the plug and play version has no provisions for that interface and you lose security and gas mileage

not really a problem for me!! I think cutting in a MS Pro like we do on the c5 platform to unlock the full potential of the MS is the way to go.

Anyone want to buy a DIS until for 2000? I think that would be my tipping point for this conversion as the MS3 pro unit with an 8 ft wiring harness is 1200 or so.

Tyler you old zr1ner lets talk!!!

Another advantage is the "open source" nature of the MS for those that really want to tinker. While it won't woop up on a motec it does approach the high end capabilities of all the high end systems and blows away my other stuff at a much better price point. With tuning, support is everything and denmah has shown me a whole new truck bomb culture of robbing old iron block ls engines and building out 1k hp at a very low price point

my last short block refresh for a 4.8 turbo with stock rods, crank, and forged wiseco pistons cost me 1250 and the engines are almost give away. How many would you like?

Most of these guys do a leak down on old motors and just leave them stock and boost them till they break and then throw them away like bic lighters when they are done

their "racing investment" stays very low relative to the amount of fun had running in the 9s and 8s with old rustangs and ford fairmonts with LS turbo swaps ugly but effective

The LT-5 does indeed have a unique crank signal. I do not know the answer but in looking at all the setup information in the hardware manual there are at least 25 different engine configurations and some are real strange. You can call them at 678-261-8789..

Tyler

They recommend using the ford edis8 on other 8 cyl motors to simplify the wiring, probably could use it in the LT-5 in a cop configuration. I will check on this later.

Tyler

the approach I would take is leaving the stock sensors and wiring intact except tps (which you can vampire tap)

a wheel for the balancer is recommended with more slots to give better control over engine postion

I don't know if the factory one could be reused and I don't think I'd try.

the trick to this is to turn of the factory engine management and just give all of that to the MS3 pro

it will control all 16 injectors, and I don't have the flappers any more which simplifies things

I think an ecotec or a merc coil will work on the lt5 and you can sell your expensive DIS and lt5 coils and stuff

if you "strip out" the lt5 flappers, coils, DIS module, and linkages and stuff and sell it off you have enough to buy the MS3 pro which is pretty cheap at 1200

I estimate installation and tuning somewhere close to 2000 time you are done and you have a much more modern engine management systemfor somewhere around 3500 or so

if you are going with higher compression, e85, turbos, or just want a better system, that's not too bad a cost. I have over 4k tied up in my "shelfware" Hatech Platinum largely due to the 8 channel egt that I wanted to improve ability to tune by cyl and set more alarms and cut ign if an injector fails or for any reason egts get too hot.

not really needed as indeed you can tune the snot out of the factory memcal, but as the DIS fails, and the replacements are scarce, it's time to look at this solution more in depth.

the only implementation I know of is the Raptor PNP setup that retains the DIS

my whole objective would be to use full COP and get rid of that little beastie

No one has done it as far as I know.