I know there is a millon of these things out there but whats the best for the money right know, what about those 40 dollar ones at Advanced? thanks guys

 

actron has some great stuff for obdII cars.

 

The $40 scanners may be the "short-the-pins" scanners for OBD-I. You need to make sure its an OBD-II scanner. The cheapest OBD-II (codes only) scanner that I am aware of is one from Harbor Freight for somewhere around $40. Brent Franker tried one and it worked fine.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=46030

 

What Fred said.

Plus, in addition to Actron, AutoXray is another provider of code readers and scan tools.

 

Just buy an 80 dollar cable and download freescan.

 

Does Andy have an OBD-II version of Freescan? Last I checked:

 

Sorry,
I just tend to pay attention to ODBI stuff. What about Datamasters free trial.

 

TTS DataMaster is OBD-I only.

 

don't wanna hijack but whats a good scanner that'll tell you everything, like voltages at certain sensors, actual rpms, actual water temp and oil pressure, and all that great stuff?

Also where can I pick up one of these bad boys?

 

AutoTap will read hundreds of parameters...... its a software package you run on your laptop. You can configure a "dashboard" on the screen and display whatever you want real time, and log numerous sensors and engine parameters for an extended period of time. The "enhanced parameters" option is what you want.

There are many other software scanners available with similar features.

Unfortunately, the PCM does not have input for the oil pressure.

Home Page:
http://www.autotap.com/

GM Enhanced Parameters (your car does not support all of these items):
http://www.autotap.com/enhanced_parameters_gm.asp

 

would programs like LT1 edit or hp tuners also allow you to check all those things?

 

For LT1_Edit, it depends on the year of the car. The OBD-I version of LT1_Edit is available with a copy of pcmcomm scan software. But the OBD-II version of LT1_Edit does not have a scan program included.

HP Tuners has a scan module available with their VCM Suite Pro package. I was under the impression that HP Tuners was for Gen III (LSx) series engines.

 

I don't know if hp tuners is made for an lt1, my friend told me to get it, so I figured it was, who knows though, hes got an ls1

 

I just did an OBDI conversion, where can I get a cable for my laptop and what's the best program to use. I've realized that I now need to be doing some monitoring and learning to program? Any books out there that would help get me started learning?

 

Instead of Autotap I'd look into http://www.obd-2.com I've been using this for years and it does everything Autotap does, but for a lot less.