General 95 EPROM ECU vs 98 flashed ECU

[tsitalon03]

So I was on dsmchips.com and noticed that Jeff now sells the 98 flashed ecu's. I currently have a 95 eprom with the stage 3 chip. Would it be a good idea to ditch the eprom and grab the flashed ecu? I just wanna point out that I havent reached the full potential of my setup......I dont have a wideband/logger yet. Should I just wait till I finish my setup and see the results or try the reflashed ecu? Ps: I dont want dsmlink...its not an option.

 

[steve]

There is little reason other than the ease by which you can reprogram the ECU. An ostrich will do the same for a EPROM ECU.

The advantage of the 95 ECU in your car is no need to change any wiring. To put the 98/99 ECU in you have to at least swap plug wires just like you have to when putting a 2G EPROM in a 97+.

 

[knochgoon24]

It all depends on what tuning platform you like better. They share many of the same features or the features are being developed.

The 98/99 doesn't have quite the same support the chips have, but it's so similar to the Evo ecu, that the EvoM board is very helpful.

If you don't want to use DSMLink, then you're only going to be burning chips. So you either burn chips, or you swap and flash the ecu.

 

[mike96]

i think the most important thing you need to ask yourself if is if you will be tuning the car yourself or leaving it to some one else. one will ultimately cost a little more than the other.

letting someone else tune
1. i here Jeff is the man when it comes to getting a chip tuned for your setup. that would definitely be the cheapest way of going about it. you might also look around and see if there are any tuners in your area experienced at burning chips for DSM's.
2. ask around and see if any of the open source tuners in your area have the OP2.0 cable and swap over to the 98-99 ecu.from what i can tell there definitely a lot more open source tuners out there than chip burners.

doing it your self.
1. keep your chipped ecu and get an ostrich. there is definitely a lot of support both here and in yahoo newsgroups to get you going.
2. sell the chipped ecu for $200 and pick up a flash able ecu and an OP2.0 cable and flash away..... actually that might cost you less in the long run, you would only be about $50 out of pocket after everything is said and done.

 

[the_mork]

Why change what's working for you? Yeah the flashable ecu is really cool and is capable of significantly improved logging but if you aren't really pushing what you have then any gains will be minimal.

If you reach the point where you feel ready to start tuning on your own then you have a decision to make and a fair amount of research to do. If you aren't going to tune on your own then let Jeff take care of you. The only significant difference between his chip tunes and his flash tunes will be that he can email you a flash tune.

 

[jeffo]

As others have said, if there is nothing wrong with the EPROM tune you have, or you haven't modified the car beyond the capabilities of the tune, you probably wouldn't see any advantage, other than the faster logging. And, if you don't have the right tools to tune, like the wideband and a logger to start with, you wouldn't know what to change anyway. However, if you are likely to want to run racegas or E85 in the car, the dual maps feature of the flash ECU is nice.
Mork is right, my flash tunes and my EPROM tunes are pretty much identical, so the car should run the same. In fact, I sent a flash ECU back to a customer who had traded it toward a 1995 EPROM package, and he said it drove exactly the same as my EPROM tune.

To put the 98/99 ECU in you have to at least swap plug wires just like you have to when putting a 2G EPROM in a 97+.

Normally you can't run the 1998/99 flash ECU in a 1995/96 DSM. You can't use the same wire-swapping trick as you do when you put a 1995 ECU in a 1997-99 DSM, it still fires the injectors out of sequence. I posted a suggested injector firing order, but I don't think anyone ever tested it.
But, anyway, I do have a hardware fix that makes the 1998/99 flash ECU plug-n-play in a 1995/96 with stock CAS, with no wire swapping. I just need to find someone to test it.

 

[mike96]

But, anyway, I do have a hardware fix that makes the 1998/99 flash ECU plug-n-play in a 1995/96 with stock CAS, with no wire swapping. I just need to find someone to test it.

if i could find someone to trade me their 98/99 ecu and OP2.0 cable for my EVO8 ecu and OP1.3 cable i would be willing to test it for you.....

 

[xhackerekx]

Normally you can't run the 1998/99 flash ECU in a 1995/96 DSM. You can't use the same wire-swapping trick as you do when you put a 1995 ECU in a 1997-99 DSM, it still fires the injectors out of sequence. I posted a suggested injector firing order, but I don't think anyone ever tested it.
But, anyway, I do have a hardware fix that makes the 1998/99 flash ECU plug-n-play in a 1995/96 with stock CAS, with no wire swapping. I just need to find someone to test it.

i have 98 gsx ecu on my 95 gst only switch spark plug cable from 1&4 cylinders to 2&3 and work excelent.

 

[jeffo]

Using the stock 1995/95 Cam Sensor? If so, your injectors are firing while the intake valves are closed. On some cars this is barely noticeable, on other it causes a bad idle and driveability issues.

 

[xhackerekx]

i have head swap from 1g is different like 2g and cam sensor on this head have different location

 

[the_mork]

A 1g head will effectively make your car the same as a 2gb as far as the CAS signal is concerned so that is why your car runs with the 98 ecu. A head swap is the ultimate hardware fix but isn't practical the majority of the time.

 

[jeffo]

You don't need to be swapping the plug wires if you are running a 1G head and CAS with the 1998 ECU.
I'm sorry, that was a (puzzled) statement, not a question. xhackerekx said he swapped the plug wires when using a 1G CAS. The car shouldn't run like that.

 

[mike96]

You don't need to be swapping the plug wires if you are running a 1G head and CAS with the 1998 ECU. ???

as long as you have the 1G CAS no.

 

[tsitalon03]

Good deal. Then I'ma keep my eprom and will prob have the wideband/logger in a few weeks. As far as tuning goes, I plan on tuning the afc myself. Thanks.

 

[kiddsm95]

Using the stock 1995/95 Cam Sensor? If so, your injectors are firing while the intake valves are closed. On some cars this is barely noticeable, on other it causes a bad idle and driveability issues.

I beta tested 2-3 hex files last Sept. and still couldn't get the 3k rpm studdering issue resolved. IIRC there were a few of us that had this issue, but I think that I was the only one to test out the hex files. Most of the inverted code resulted in backfires from the exhaust, or very rough idling.

I ended up swapping to a 1g CAS with no issues.