I have been looking at both the Scanmaster and AutoTap software for my 97, which is better? I have a laptop to use with Autotap, so that's no big deal, and they both come out to be about the same price. Let me know!

Thanks,
Chris

 

youre working with two totally different animals here, autotap you can actually tune your computer. Scanmaster is more of an on the fly monitoring system. If you have the money, get both...

Fred will chime in soon...

 

Wow, really? Looking over tbyrne's site, it looks like they are both just scanners (I already have a code puller.) The Autotap description says:

"The AutoTap scan tool connects the special OBD II plug-in-port on or under the dash of your car or light truck to your computer. The AutoTap scanner then translates the signals from your vehicle’s computer-controlled sensors to easy-to-read visual displays."

Hey Fred, got your ears on?

 

you get far more info from the autotap.

 

Kinda looks that way, I want to be able to look at a variety of sensors and see what's going on, but I probably DON"T need the scanmaster box running all the time. Is Autotap pretty easy to use? I mean, I work for a computer networking company and I'm a pretty thorough computer geek, so I'm sure I'll manage and all. Just don't want to screw anything up.

 

Also, the Scanmaster won't tell you problem codes on a OBDII car.

 

Not worried about pulling codes, I have a cheapie code scanner that works great. any other reasons to use one or the other?

 

bump

 

I've got a Scanmaster mounted on my dash and I find it useful as a real-time monitoring tool. It has helped me identify problems early. This week, I used it to determine the cause of me getting a half dozen DTC codes from out of the clear blue. It seems that I had a wire from my Opti shorting out. After going over every wire and making sure that none were touching any metal, I reattached the battery cable and voila, the codes were gone......except for a pesky knock sensor code.

 

As far as I know, only the "EFILive" versions of AutoTap allow you to alter the PCM tables, and I believe it only works while the program is connected. Remove the EFILive software and everything goes back to "normal". And, as far as I know, EFILive only works on LS1's..... but I could be wrong.

ScanMaster is great for real time data.... but only shows a limited number of sensors and parameters. AutoTap will allow you to display whatever you want, but its sort of awkward to drive around watching a laptop. But for collecting data and analyzing it, only AutoTap will serve your needs.

My recommendation would be "get both". I still run my ScanMaster, even though I run most of the engine off my MoTeC ECU. The MoTeC does the data logging, the ScanMaster allows me to watch things real time.

 

If your going to do it right buy a Genisys scanner. One of my GM ASE Master Tech at my hot rod school has one………WOW!!!! That is if you want to drop 3-4 grand