Seems like every day there is another person bitching about how there isn’t a How-To to actually burn your first chip, I will try to explain the process to the total noob who has decided to try to take on tuning their factory PCM.
What you need -
There are a few different methods for tuning your ride, either burning chips or using an EPROM emulator that plugs into the chip socket in the PCM and looks like a chip to the PCM but stores its information in its onboard memory and allows you to make real time changes by updating the memory. For emulators there are 2 choices, the Ostrich 2.0 or the AutoPROM, both from MOATES. Both work with TunerPro RT.
In this how to I am going to focus specifically on the chip burning method, since all the required equipment for burning chips is cheaper that all the equipment for emulating, and people that read this are most likely beginners that don’t want to spend more money than need be, plus its what I use so what I know best. Also this will outline the procedures used in TunerPro V5, though V4 is almost the identical.
Equipment list-
EPROM Burner, the most popular and least expensive is the Moates BURN2, there are quite a few other choices but again, this is my way.
Chip Adapter, your stock PCM doesn’t accept the aftermarket chips, you will need a socket/adapter of some type, depending on that PCM you have, if you have a PCM that uses the blue MEMCAL you can use the G1 adapter from Moates.
Datalogging cable - Quite a few choices here, I use a Moates cable but you can get one from anywhere, even make your own.
Chips, you will need 27SF512 chips, get a few, that way of something were to happen to one you car wont be down while you wait.
Software- Like I said I will assume your using TPRT V5. For those of you that don’t know it was written by a fellow car guy who is an active member of many of these forums and is a huge asset to the DIY tuning community. If you are using an unregistered version on TunerPro RT I urge you to help him out by registering. You can download the program free from
www.tunerpro.net
So now you have everything you need to start tuning, you still need some more files though so lets get into what the different files you will need are and where to find them. A great recourse for files is in the Moates file library, it can be accessed by going to
www.moates.net/fileman, the username is MOATESUSER and the password is MOATESPASSWORD (both name and PW are lowercase.)
XDF- you will need to find out, by searching, what mask your PCM uses, the mask is a .xdf file. Its like the operating system. Think of the mask like a road map of your bin file, if you look at the raw data in the bin it wont make much sense to you, its just thousands of lines of code, and since I'm betting you cant read code we need the road map to tell us what everything means and display it on the screen in a way we can understand and manipulate. Once you find what xdf your going to need you can find it under Binary Editor Definitions on moates/fileman.
BIN-This is your actual tune, it’s the file you burn to the chip and the PCM looks at that file to do everything. You can get a bin to start with either by reading the bin off your stock chip, or you can look at your chip and get the 4 letter code off it and download that bin from moates under the Stock Binaries section.
ASD/ADX- This is your Data stream definition file, remember how we need the xdf to be the roadmap to the information in the bin, well the same is true for the data coming into your computer from the car when your datalogging. TPRT V4 uses an ADS file while V5 uses an ADX, tunerpro V5 has the ability to convert an ADS to and ADX and you can get the ADS you need under Datastream definitions on Moates. To convert an ADS to a ADX using V5 just select Acquisition-Import Definition and it will make a new file that is an ADX.
XDL- This is your log file, you don’t need to download anything for this, tunerpro will create this file when you start to datalog.
Those are your 4 file types you will need to use tunerpro. MAKE SURE you are using the correct files for your mask
Lets go ahead and open up tunerpro now, I’ll assume you know enough to install the program on your computer.
The first thing you need to do is select your XDF, go to the XDF--Select XDF (ctrl+E,) now browse to where you saved your xdf and select it. TunerPro will remember this so it is only necessary to select it the first time you open tunerpro. If you move the file though you will need to repeat this step.
Now you should see a list of items on the left, classified as Constants, Flags and Tables.
Constants-These are parameters such as RPM and speed limiters, injector size, number of cylinders and cylinder size, fan activation temps, ect… (tons of other stuff too) things who’s values arnt dependent on another value.
Flags- These are things such as CEL codes, flags can either be set or unset, if you delete EGR and have a code 32 you would want to unset the flag for code 32. Flags are also different programs the PCM runs, such as Power Enrichment (PE), when the PCM turns on the PE flag it goes into different routines for fuel and spark.
Table- Just that, the lookup tables, this is how you change things like timing and VE%, shift times and so on. The vertical and horizontal axis will represent different things, for example RPM and load (vacuum) and you will fill in what the value should be at those to conditions.
These are just a few examples of each thing, there are hundreds of parameters, take time to look threw your mask, get familiar with it before you start changing anything.
Now lets get your bin into TPRT, go to FILE-Open BIN (ctrl+O) find your bin you downloaded and select it. That window will close and you will be back into the TP screen but now you can open all of those constants/flags/tables and make changes.
Now lets get you stock bin onto a chip. You need to go back to moates and find all the drivers you need for the Burn2, there is a USB driver and a program called FLASH&BURN but really you don’t need the program as it is built into tunerpro. D/L and install the driver.
Once its installed you can plug in your BURN2 to a USB port and go to TOOLS-Initialize Attached Hardware or you can push the button at the top of the screen that looks like a old school parallel printer connector. If you have sound on you will hear a dual tone beep and it will say “Hardware: Flash & Burn V5.21xx”at the bottom of TP. Once it says that you can go TOOLS-Moates PROM I/O (ctrl+B). A window will appear that looks EXACTLY like the MOTES FLASH&BURN program. In the upper left you will see “supported chips” select the 3rd one down assuming you got the chips I told you to earlier, once again the 27SF512. Your blank chip should be in the BURN2, notch facing the handle, aligned with the bottom of the socket. Now you click the “Load file to buffer” button, the top left one, locate the bin you are wanting to burn and select it, now if you know the chip is blank you click “program chip”, if its not blank you can erase the chip with the appropriate button, if you accidentally burn a bin on top of another bin, without erasing you wont do any damage, just erase and re-burn. Once its finished burning you should always choose “verify chip w/buffer”
Lets move on to datalogging with TPRT. It can be a little tricky and somewhat confusing to get everything configured the first time. The first step is of course to make sure you have the newest drivers available for your cable. Once you are sure your drivers are loaded go to your computers device manager, a google search will give you a step by step for other operating systems but in Vista simply go to the start menu and type “Device Manager” in the search bar and hit enter. The point of this step is to find out that COM Port your cable is setup for.
Once your in the device manage plug in your cable to the computer and see what COM Port comes up, right click it and go to properties, a new window will open with 4 tabs “General, Port Settings, Drivers and Details” Click the Port Settings tab and click Advanced, the top thing is the port number. Craig Moates recommends changing it to port 5 or 6, I however use Port 3 without issue.
If need be change it to 5 and then click OK till your all the way back out, it may give you a warning that the port is already in use, if so try a different port.
Now go back to tunerpro and go to the Acquisition-Load Definition File, this is your ADX if using V5 or ADS if V4.
One more step before you can log, go to Tools-Preferences this window will have 5 tabs. The right most one is “Data Acq./Emulation” on the left side you will see a “test for cable” button, “interface type” and “Com Port” make sure the type is set to “standard serial” and the Com Port matches the Com Port you just set your cable to in the Device Manager.
Finally were ready, in TunerPro you need to bring up your dash, there is a button on the top that looks like a gauge you can click, use ctrl+Shift+1 or you can go to Acquisition-Show Dash.
Plug the cable into your ALDL port and start the engine (it doesn’t have to be running but the key MUST be on or it wont connect) now you can try to connect to the PCM, to do this click the button on the top of the TP that is 2 blue arrows pointing opposite directions, ctrl+F4 or Acquisition-Start/Stop Data Scan. Now hit record, once your done recording push stop and it will ask you to name the file.
Note: recording in V4 is a little different, I have been using V5 for awhile now and don’t remember step by step for recording in V4 but it is similar. Also I notice that sometimes when I test for a cable I will get a no cable found error but when I push connect it will still work, so before you get pissed just try to connect.
Re: Here is it- My first PROM-A how to for the complete N00b!
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