I'm thinking about putting one of those aftermarket performance chips into my ECM on my TA. I was just wondering a couple things.....what brand would everyone reccomend? Is it worth the money? And also, will it make my engine ping? B/c i was reading up on some kinds of chips that advance ignition timing....and thats been done to my car by a friend at the distriubtor cap...moving the cap/distributor counter clock-wise when facing it...sure it gave a bit more performance, but the motor was pinging at 70-80mph. I know that wasnt the right way to tune the car, but I just dont want it to suffer anything negative towards the motor/driveability. My current mods are listed in my sig. Your inputs please.

 

For the money many "performance" chips cost, you could be in the business of doing your own. Other than the intial parts, all it would take on your behalf is willingness to learn.

If that is not something you wish to do, I have read here about many people that use Fast Chips and are happy. I don't endorse this, just stating what I have heard and read. Again, consider strongly learning to burn your own...

 

I'm always interested in working on my cars. Learning anything new with repair/modifications is something I enjoy. I like getting my hands dirty, and gaining knowledge in watching and doing new things. That camshaft in my sig was just put in a little under a week ago....i worked along side my mechanic at times from 9am till 10pm....and I was there for the whole process...even when Accel's injector on the #1 cylinder(brand new) was defective and we had to rip apart the intake to get to it. Anyway, I like learning new things. However, I'm in my final year of college, and school has started since then....being a computer science major going for my MCSE certification prevents me from having alot of time. We go through a phone-book sized book in 10 days...and then get another one. There's 8 or 9 of them. Half this semester, half next semester. And there is a test for each one that's $125/test. Its nuts. I DO want to learn anything and everything I can about cars...b/c once I have a job after next May, and $$ starts comming in, I'll be modding s**t like crazy. The owner of the shop where my mechanic works told me he'd teach me anything I'd want to learn, and once I could do it, he'd start paying me. So sad that I have to pass that up...all b/c of school.

 

Can anyone else tell me about purchaseable chips for the ECM, and back to my original question....will the chip make my car ping at all?

 

Sticky at the top - https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=104792

 

WOW.....LOTS of good info there....I know...I should've read that first Thanks for the link though....I'm decided that I will be burning my own prom now....I just need to get the equipment...

 

A little off topic...


How did the install of the 99 Grand Am Radio work? Was it the same wiring harness? Or did you cut your original one and splice into the grand am one? What about steering wheel controls? I have a GTA and would love to retain the functionality of the controls and still use a GM radio. Mine is on the fritz.

 

A friend of mine who works in the Circut City audio installation shop fabbed-up the harness to work with my 86 wiring. It wasnt a hard job really. All he had to do was cut the original, and solder on the adapting harness. Came out nicely. I dont have steering wheel controls, and thats ok with me. I did have to modify the brackets a bit on the newer headunit...I had to cut into them a little to make them fit on the edges of the TA's radio pod. Also, if you look at the back of the stock tape player, its flat....on this cd player, the top part of the back sticks out more(b/c a cd has to go in there)...so again, I had to cut a bit out of the pod in the TA along the bottom part of the pod and re-inforce the sides....when all is said and done, you have a stock look, matching orange lighting, with in-dash cd, and a 5-band equilizer. All you need after that is a good set of speakers and maybe a sub.

**EDIT** if you want, I could email you a pic of what mine now looks like...let me know.

 

Yeah I'd like to get a look at what yours looks like. I am a big fan of OEM looking stuff. I just want to upgrade to 2003 technology though.

L98_GTA@hotmail.com

 

Phantom,

I am glad to hear you will be doing your own PROM tuning. You will learn so much in the first few months, it will amaze you. I am with you about school and working on cars. I am studying mechanical/industrial engineering and we just started a two weeks ago also. My summer engine rebuild fell way behind, damn machine shop took over 3 weeks!!!, to get my block BORED. Of course I found an even better shop a few days after I finally got all my stuff back. Oh well, I hope to get my car running soon, between trying to work and study, my daylight hours are scarce...

 

poncho@home.....you've got mail Its nothing much of a picture, really, just the front...but whatever helps you man...

92 zzz28.

Yea, its really really tough. Seeing as how you're in a major thats even more complex than mine, you know exactly what the setbacks are. Its rough....its annoying, and I'm sure both of us are just itching to work on our cars but time is robbed from us in every way imagineable. Not too long ago, I was going to get rid of my TA....i was fed up with it with problems that needed fixing. All of my freinds convinced me to keep it....its my first car, and I've had it since I was 17(I'm now 24). We've come a long way so far....now, I'd like to do a 350 buildup, putting out over 400hp naturally aspirated. I know what I want to do, but time, or lack of prevents me to go forth. I can get a 350 block that runs for free. The rest is machine work that I'd go 30 over, and internals. School sucks up so much of my time, I'm barely able to spend it here writing this message. But dont worry brother.....all in due time....so we can KILL the imports!!!! :lala: :lala: :lala: But anyway, I'm really looking forward to learning more and more about working/modifying my car....I love working on it and doing things; getting my hands greasy and learning more. The real true reason that I'm a computer science major is so I can make enough money to support my insanely huge appetiite for high-performance sports cars like the C5 and the TA.