So I have a pressing issue, short story is I was tuning my car (95 camaro)and now when I turn the key lights come on, fans come on, cranks but won't start, fuel pump not priming.

Long story I was tuning and i was loading the first new bin with $eehack, managed to delete pcm data, then when it tried to load, had an error, forget the error in my franticness but I basically sat and watched as my day was ruined, after errors stop got a simple message saying it didn't work and to disconnect the battery and try again, felt a slight bit of relief that I could fix it, so I disconnected the battery for 5 mins, reconnected it, same thing, disconnected again for 15, same thing, let it sit for an hour, same thing, is my pcm dead? What's the deal! .

 

Yeah, PCM probably toast. Pretty much nothing can interrupt programming or it's done for.

 

definitely sounds bricked, sorry to hear, man. flashing over the aldl is never 100%.

the guy that writes tunercat can fix it for cheap i've been told, or buy another used one. better yet if you know someone with soldering skills, just get a socket soldered in it and get a new chip burned.

usually i recommend people read the bin a few times first before flashing, just to ensure the serial interface is stable, etc. lots of things can happen during flashing. low battery, poor connection at the ALDL, background programs on the computer screw stuff up, whatever. the new beta of eehack actually has a 'flash stability test' that pretends to flash a bunch of times just to make sure it works.

usually eehack is able to re-erase and recover in a failure, it has lots of 'save your *** in a failure' code. if this doesn't work, obviously the ecm had stopped responding. i've done all sorts of crazy tests like unplugging the aldl cable for 5 seconds and dropping power to 10v momentarily when flashing, and it's always recovered. but i guess **** does happen.

 

oh and if you don't mind, for academic purposes i'd like details about the specs/os of your computer, version of eehack, serial cable and driver version used.

 

Can you post up a screenshot or photos of the errors?

 

you know, in my program once you click 'exit' from the special flash routine, the log is gone... i should really auto-save the log somewhere if the flash fails (with instructions to send it to me). i'll get that going in the next release.

 

Yeah log info is gone. Let it sit all night and tried again. Nothing, not blaming ur program steveo! I'm sure many have tried and we're sucessful, just got unlucky I guess, and I'll post up the data u asked for steveo, and yeah when it failed it tried to recover, failed, and tried again, so on so forth, oh well, **** happens I guess. But in my defense I read stock bin once, then did a stability test ( have version 4.51 I believe, newest one I think) all went well. Then tried to load new bin I got from your website, which all it was was change for lt headers and manual trans and gear ratio, but yeah seams to b toast, I'll figure something out, I have a pcm put of a 96 trans am, will that work for now? I know it's obd2 dunno if it plugs up or what though. Thanks for the support I appreciate it

 

I ran a 96 pcm in my 94 just to take it to a garage to have the new 94 pcm flashed before I got my aldl cable and it ran just fine. Wouldn't recommend as a permanent fix tho lol the only thing I had to do was to manually put the car into gear, 1-2-3, since the pcm was for a 6 speed car. Overdrive "D" put the trans in "limp home" mode.

 

Ahh okay so it plugged right up? And car is auto pcm but I swapped it for manual,so that shouldn't b an issue, how did it run?

 

It ran ok as a short term use, 5 miles or so that I had to go, but definitely not recommended as a daily driver type setup, the trans only worked in my A4 if I manually shifted it using the 1-2-3 settings below "D" but as soon as i put it in "D" the trans defaulted to "limp home" which is 3rd gear I believe. Yeah it plugged right in to my pcm connectors. The 96 PCM that I was using was for a 6 speed and my car is a auto just to be clear lol SES light was on the whole time probably for OBD2 stuff lol

 

Yeah I got that ur car was auto wit 6 spd pcm but I want have that issue, what about engine performance?

 

Shoulda got a hypertech power programmer....

 

i did this a few months back, had my flash fail right as it was finishing (with tunercats though), tried disconnecting the battery and waiting a few days, but never got it back, had to buy one on eBay to replace it (had a freakin LT4 KM in it!)

 

Yeah for 400 bucks for the programmer lol

 

I never put the car into WOT just to be safe but just taking the car down the road it ran just fine

 

Okay I might do that for now, anyone know about socket ting and installing chips? Got a buddy who can solder, also what do I need to buy for that? Like I said car is a 95 camaro if that makes a difference, with a 16pin obd1 connector

 

Put In pcm from 96 trans am, runs fine, no issues except engine light. Guess it'll work for now

 

of course not, and i'd never accept blame for a free program i make in my own time costing you an ecm, but i do feel bad. i hate when new tuners have to get stuck with a new ECM so early on.

this is also the first time i've had a user report a failure during flashing that wasn't due to 'windows update popping a window up' or 'my battery died'. so it's a shame.

i've tried hard to make eehack failure tolerant, and the latest versions are slick, they're multithreaded with high operational priority for writes, have lots of backstepping proven ways to bail out if flashes start getting sketchy, the works.

keep in mind i've flashed fukkn THOUSANDS of times with both winflash and eehack and never bricked an ecm except when testing sketchy new features or in the early stages of eehack's development.

maybe one of those things, maybe not?

regardless, your sacrifice is noted.

i'd like to figure out what failed in your particular configuration. if you have time i'd love it if you'd just read your bin like a dozen times with eehack and see if you can make it fail.

if writing fails due to communication problems, you'd figure reading should fail too, i'd like to make sure it's an anomaly and not something specific to your configuration.

if it was just some grit in your aldl connector or something at least i'll be able to sleep at night.

honestly probably best/cheapest to send it to the tunercat guy.

i don't know him well, but apparently, he happily repairs this stuff for cheap. maybe buy winflash too and use it for the time being? its cheap.

i've done my own sockets, i have two ecms i've used for development, but i screwed up the first time, and i'm a fairly experienced solderer. tiny surface mount stuff is really sketchy.

 

Yeah I think I just got unlucky, I'm not pissed off at u or ajything, but that is pretty crappy I'm the first one to have issues with it not due to battery dying or updates... and it seemed to read just fine, copied old bin, then I did stability test, then tried to load, erased just find then as soon as it tried to load had an error, it tried to fix itself but seemed like the pcm wasn't communicating back. So what would u like me to do? In a ditch effort I tried reading the bricked pcm, couldn't even connect to it, so now I have obd2 comp in it, do u want me to read bin over and over when I get it fixed? Also is their any way to prevent this or a safer way? Cause I'll tell ya having the car dead cause of electronics pisses me off more than if the motor was blown, idk something about electrical gets to me lol

 

Idk anything about flashing, pretty much everything I know has come from your site, so I'm in the dark on this subject for the most part, I'd still love to b able to tune at home and everything, I'd b willing to try your program again, although I'd need to get with you and make sure 100% I'm doin everything right