Will Winaldl work with a 1985 trans am with TPI? A buddy of mine has this car and he doesnt know if it will work or not.

 

I have a 1987 Firebird T/A with the 165 ECM and a 305 TPI, WinALDL works fine with a 1 transistor cable, although I do have to put a 10k resistor across ALDL Pins A and B to get the ECM to send data.

 

His is a 85 With the MAF TPI setup, wonder if it would work also?

 

my understanding is that it will work, but you won't be able to get as much data out of the 85 ecm as you would from later years due to the slower baud rate.

this is why some people, including myself, swap to the 86-89 ecm.
there is a tech article on this on the front page.

 

I got WinALDL to read fine and my car is an '85 MAF TPI system with a 700R4. It's just a matter of wiring it correctly, and selecting the right ECM. However, what I noticed is that if you have the laptop plugged into the cig-plug it won't work for some reason. My guess is that is likes to be on a different circuit than the car.