Alright, Alright Alright!

[toyinhawaii]

yea, it didnt seem to be a good thing considering i do feel i am burning a little lean from the smell of things. i did look over some threads on here and still learning the terminology. i tried to hook up the cable to the OBD1 as the tutorial said(tunerpro video) but i noticed his version is a CATS winflash and mine is a tuner. his tabs are files ,setup, tools, help. mine is files, tools, ecm,options and help and i cant follow along. the tutorial in my "help" tab >tuner help, is a little hard to follow. and after i open my bin file labled ASZD.bin the "table" tab becomes available but i get an error on all i select "spin32.ocx". is there a cats tutorial available to view other than the one i have.

[steveo]

since you paid perfectly good money for CATS tuner (a commercial package) i'd suggest contacting him to figure out why you're getting that error..? it shouldn't be doing that. you're probably just missing a library or maybe it's a compatibility issue with newer versions of windows as it's quite old software.

i tuned with tunercats for years. it works great. his flashing routine is really reliable. winflash and tunercat have the exact same flashing thing, it's just winflash is stand-alone for people that dont want to buy tunercat and use something else for bin editing.

not trying to sway you over to my stuff (not that i have anything to gain anyway and i'm sure tunercat will work fine for you) but one reason i started messing about with tunerpro definitions and started using tunerpro is that tunercat is really god damn awful at categorizing tables. it just has a giant menu with a bunch of tables, so to find everything you want, it's basically sifting through a list of text. since one of the most important parts about tuning software is locating the table you need to modify that always bugged me. tunerpro allows you to specify a categorized list of tables, so with tunerpro and my definition file you can have a list of fuel tables, a list of idle tables, a list of spark tables... also there's lots of info and tooltips for each table whereas with tunercat you're mostly on your own to figure out what something does. might want to give it a second shot. you can use all of these tools side by side.

[LeMarky Dissod]

… not trying to sway you over to my stuff (not that i have anything to gain anyway and i'm sure tunercat will work fine for you) but one reason i started messing about with tunerpro definitions and started using tunerpro is that tunercat is really god damn awful at categorizing tables. it just has a giant menu with a bunch of tables, so to find everything you want, it's basically sifting through a list of text. since one of the most important parts about tuning software is locating the table you need to modify that always bugged me.
tunerpro allows you to specify a categorized list of tables, so with tunerpro and my definition file you can have a list of fuel tables, a list of idle tables, a list of spark tables … also there's lots of info and tooltips for each table whereas with tunercat you're mostly on your own to figure out what something does. might want to give it a second shot. you can use all of these tools side by side.

At present, there are two different versions of OBD1 LT1 TunerCAT.
The 1st version is as steveo describes, with categorization limited to 'Switches' (TunerPro's Flags), 'Constants' (TunerPro's Scalars), and 'Tables'.
The 2nd version, which is not blatantly advertised anywhere on his website, and must be specifically requested for some reason, still separates switches & constants, but further organizes tables by subtype. It does NOT, however, provide informative tooltips for each parameter.

If you use the latest definition files from dzidaV8, kur40, or jthompson122183, you'll find parameters that TunerCAT has not yet incorporated.

[toyinhawaii]

Steveo and LeMarky, i just wanted to reply back and say thanks for all the help. Whats demoralizing is i have a hard time finding where i can just come here on gearhead, sit down, and concentrate learning about how to tune the PCM. I hate to ask simple obvious questions when its probably right there in front of me. i'm so close of getting this 13 yr project back (actually started 3yrs ago, sat for 10yrs)on the road, time is my enemy! i really feel like asking you guys: i have this and that and here is what i did to the engine, hold my hand and guide me to the finish line(not saying i wont appreciate that) but this would be the hardest obstacle to learn. Anyways! enough whining. Again, i just didnt want to be rude and not respond to everyone's help. my last chance to try and do something is sunday afternoon. Next week, for the next 2 weeks i'm off to North Carolina and Arkansas. Maybe while layed over in the airports i can read up. Thank you so much for the help!

[toyinhawaii]

i must be a rock, ever since the holidays i've tried to at least wanted to be able to hook up to the OBD1 and read the settings currently (before i start messing with it)on the PCM. every time i read and re-read i found a couple things i didnt load, etc. i thought i was ready but when i plug in the cable, turn the key...nothing, no reading...nothing. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and send the PCM off to one of you guys to program. anyone willing to hold my hand and give me step by step instructions or give me a laundry list of "did you do this?" and i'll reply with a yes or no. guess this programming may be over my head.
Thanks very much

[1project2many]

Howdy, and welcome to the forum.

Look, there's a *bunch* of stuff involved in tuning. A big bunch. I've been doing this for years and it's not like I know everything or like I ever will. Each tuning tool looks different, each piece of software has its own rules and steps, and each forum has a habit of using words and jargon that doesn't make sense until after you really need to know what they said. On this forum people are good about remembering that we all had to start somewhere. There are people willing to help both on and off list. Ask me your questions Bridgekeeper. I'm not afraid.

AFAIK the read/write tool for Tunercat has always been different than the tuning tool. In order to use the Tunercats tool for reading or writing to the ecm you have to have a copy of Tunercats Winflash.

EEHACK will also read and write files. I do not believe we have a post with specific instructions, but the author of the program is here along with several other users that can help.

Once you let us know which tool you want help with, someone will probably jump in to help.

[toyinhawaii]

Thanks 1project2many,
looks like i'm going to use the Tunerpro. i think i may be getting confused, i've been reading and see about tunerpro, CATS tuner,tunercats. Too many cats and tuner combo names. i have CATS tuner but i ran out of the trial period. when i clicked on your tunercats winflash link. i recalled something being said on the tunerpro site when installing the $EE def. file. it said :

$EE 16191333
16188051 EE.xdf V5 ONLY - EE_Manual.adx
V5 ONLY - EE_Auto.adx 94-95 Y & F Body (LT1)
NOTE: Requires 3rd party software (such as WinFlash) to upload tune

i have installed the tuner pro,and have the EE.XDF on it. Also the ALDL cable(12 pin) set on normal (the top 2 prongs). Do i need the winflash? lesand what are those V5 ony files?

Thanks for the help!

[steveo]

AFAIK the read/write tool for Tunercat has always been different than the tuning tool. In order to use the Tunercats tool for reading or writing to the ecm you have to have a copy of Tunercats Winflash.

he went ahead and built the flash tool into tunercat ages ago (same tool just built into the menus)

looks like i'm going to use the Tunerpro. i think i may be getting confused, i've been reading and see about tunerpro, CATS tuner,tunercats. Too many cats and tuner combo names.

yeah there are a few tools out there, here's the actual breakdown.

FLASH: eehack, tunercat, winflash
EDIT BIN: tunerpro or tunerpro RT (requires XDF file), tunercat
DATALOG: eehack, tunerpro RT (requires ADX file)

a popular combo is eehack and tunerpro and the EEX XDF definition since they're free.