Just wondering how many of you tunercat owners have had problems with flashing? It seems I read on this forum and other that alot of people are having trouble after a flash like possibly scrambled PCM. I have tuned for several years using EFI Live on my LS1 cars and have never had any problem but was thinking of the tunercats for my 94 camaro. It just scares me with all the threads on like my car won't start and is my pcm dead. Is there some glitch in the tunercat program or is it usually another problem? For you that have tunercat what problems have you had and how do you like it?

 

I havent had any problems personally. Turn off all the energy saving stuff on your laptop and make sure its either got a full charge or is plugged in before tuning. I have flashed over 100 cars with it several times each. Also a good idea to save the file after you make changes close tunercats and open it again then load the file and flash it.

I think alot of people have trouble because of crappy hardware and flakey cables and connections.

 

It has nothing to do with tunercat, and the fix is $50, so it's BFD anyway.

 

All true, plus turn off the stupidity module before attempting to flash. That seems to cause people problems.

 

I've been using Tunercat for ~8 years, and the only problem I've experienced was cable related. Even 8 years later they are still updating their software and .bin files, free of charge.

 

thanks for the replies guys. Like I said I'm not new to tuning bu the only thing I have used is EFI Live. I have just never been around tunercat before. So there must be some cable issues then? what is the best cable to go with?

 

I've never had any problem with tunercat. 100+ flashes. I had a problem with a hypertech power programmer once. It was my fault though. Half way through the flash the battery on the car died. Hypertech got me a brand new PCM for half price. Just make sure that nothing interferes with the transfer. Put the laptop in presentation mode so it won't power save. Make sure your battery is charged and turn of all unnecessary equipment like lights and AC blower. And once the flash starts don't touch the cable or fool around with the laptop. Hope this helps.

 

If you have a hardware switch on the laptop to turn off the wireless card I always shut it down so it doesn't try to connect to any networks in the middle of a flash as well.

I use the moates.net usb cables. I have the converter box they sell and one of each end the (obd1 and obd2 style).

 

For example - don't open a Word document while flashing. That would be really stupid.

Not that I would have personal experience with that or anything...

 

While I've managed to fry a couple PCMs, the problem wasn't with Tunercats. The first problem was my laptop, the second was the power going to my laptop. If you practice good flashing procedure, like not doing anything else while flashing, using DOS instead of Winblows, and watch what you are doing (like not accidently stepping into the power cord and unplugging it while your battery is dead, as I did one day).

Also, you can avoid having to worry about it if you socket your PCM. If you don't know how to solder, have it done and get a PLCC32-capable programmer. That way all you have to do is pull the chips, manually reflash them, load the tune, and go.

 

Mine has worked flawlessly when flashing in Vista. Only issue I ever have is when graphically editing tables in full page view, after 20 or so changes sometimes the program gets hung up. So, I either drag the window big, but less than full screen, or resave often during changes.