I have a 97 Trans am with a lt4 top end. I currently have a mail order tune by Ed Wright. I would like to add larger injectors (still running the stock injectors) and fine tune my car on a dyno to get the most out of my combo. But it seems that my PCM has been locked by Ed. Any opinions on how to correct this problem would be greatly appreciated.

This is what I was thinking.

Could I get another OBD2 PCM and transfer the current tune to it or would that option be locked out as well?

If I could transfer the tune where can I get a OBD2 PCM?

How much will a new PCM cost?

Houdini

 

Somebody here knows how to unlock them...I just can't remember who.

You know what...that's a bunch of crap too. If you paid for that program, you have the right to view/modify/trade/sell/whatever to it that you want. You PAID for it.

PCMforless doesn't do this and I think it's great. Although I'm not totally into sharing files that you bought from another tuner, I don't think there is anything wrong with sharing information that is in them in order to help out other people on this board.
I do have a problem with people asking questions and then using that information to make money by selling programs though.

Oh boy...here I go again...shut up Dan.

 

To bad it isn't an OBD1 PCM I can unlock it for you. OBD2 is scrambled and besides that I don't have a copy of LT1 Edit for OBD2.

But perhaps Ken at Carputing can help you. He is one of the guys that developed LT1 Edit. What Ed does is he disables or changes the checksum which scrambles the calibrations so that Edit can't read it. With an OBD1 PCM TC can still read it but you can't load it back in that way, so one can copy tables and make changes to another file and save it that way.

Try Ken, here is his email address:

pcmdoc@surfree.com

I am assuming that you are a paying customer of LT1 Edit so Ken is usually very helpful to his customers.

I agree fully that whatever is done to your PCM is yours and you paid for it. One should be able to fully view and edit it as needed. Mail order PCM calibration to me gets you into the ball park. It is very seldom perfect. Ed is a knowledgeble guy and he is pretty good at what he does. But I don't agree with him locking your PCM up just so you have to send it back to him for an additional up charge if you want something changed.

 

Let me state that I don't have anything against Ed. But I hope that anyone ever thinking about using him will think about this. I think that their are too many other good tuners out there that don't try to lock their work too justify using him. Lets say you had a mechanic tune or hot rod your motor because you didn't feel comfortable messing with the motor. Then after a few months of reading and researching you felt that you could do some stuff to it. Maybe even a buddy decided to help you. You buy some tools, go to open your hood, and find that the hood release is now protected by a keyed lock. You call your mechanic and he tells you that he is protecting his work. Doesn't want everyone to see what he has done and steal his ideas. Sound crazy? I think it's the same thing when you lock a tune. Does anybody know if Ed makes it clear to people that their PCM will be locked? That is the only way I think it would be alright.

 

Ed didn't tell me up-front I would be locked out of my ECM. If he had, he wouldn't have gotten my business.

 

i dont have any experience with his stuff but i would think you can still flash the PCM.. you just cant pull the old one off because its incripted or something. i could be wrong but have you actually tried flashing it?

 

Yes, you can reflash it at the dealer. I am not sure if you do a read with LT1 Edit that it would even recognize Eds calibration. However if you take it to a dealer they can reflash it with a fresh GM calibration. Just be aware that this will wipe out whatever is in the PCM now.

 

I wonder if you saved a copy of your original flash could you just return it to stock? I'm sure a GM dealer would charge you to reflash your PCM wouldn't they?

 

Yes, you can overwrite his tunes with a different program. Depending on the dealership, I've heard they could charge up to $150 to put a stock program on your car. Most do it for around $50ish though.