LS1astro

I was reading on Autotap.com and it says you can really edit stuff with EFI live. Is this correct or did I read something wrong?

EFILive

iTrader: (2)

EFILiveV5 does not and cannot permanently change, edit or otherwise recalibrate your PCM.

What EFILiveV5 can do is to send commands to the PCM to temporarily override it's calibrated behaviour.

These commands are listed here:
http://www.starrperformance.com.au/e...x.htm#Controls

EFILiveV5 must send the "override command" every 5 seconds or the PCM will revert to it's calibrated settings. Hence it is only temporary.
It is useful for diagnosing problems and playing "what if" while the engine is running.

i.e. Say you've got a problem at a certain RPM/load, you can hold your vehicle at that RPM/load on a dyno and alter the spark and/or fuel to see/hear/feel what difference those changes make. Once you figure out what (if any) spark/fuel changes (or any other control) fixed the problem you would need an edit program like LS1Edit to program those changes into your PCM permanently.

Hope that's clear
Regards
Paul

Hammer

Per B&B's website... Mike Fahrion, AutoTap Product Manager, says "Putting this relationship together with Starr Performance is great news for our performance enthusiast customers. EFILive V5 is clearly the best software package available both for the performance monitoring and as a tuning-aid for LS1 equipped vehicles. We're proud that they selected our hardware for their connectivity solution and are very pleased to distribute their product along side our own software packages."

So... does this mean that EFILive can do everything ATap can do, but more? I currently use ATap, but am always interested in expanded capabilities.

Clay.

LS1astro

Why does LS1edit have to be so expensive!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Sad]" src="gr_sad.gif" /> And then not even have monitoring capabilities <img border="0" alt="[bullshit]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_bs.gif" />

EFILive

iTrader: (2)

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Hammer:
<strong>So... does this mean that EFILive can do everything ATap can do, but more? I currently use ATap, but am always interested in expanded capabilities.
Clay.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Firstly a little background:

There is a set of about 30 parameter identifiers (PIDs) that are mandated by legislation which ALL 1996 and later vehicles in the US must expose to a scan tool. These are commonly referred to as generic PIDs. Most if not all scan tools will display at least these generic PIDs.

The protocol used by a scan tool to request and display these 30 or so generic PIDs is usually a request/response implementation. i.e. the scan tool requests a single PID and the PCM sends back the data.
This request/response implementation may also be used to request manufacturer enhanced PIDs.

Manufacturer enhanced PIDs run into the hundreds and include much more detailed information of not only your engine data but also other electronic modules in your vehicle.
This type of communication is limited to around 30-40 PIDs per second depending on the type of interface used.
NOTE: this method of requesting PIDs is supported on ALL OBDII vehicles.

There exists an alternative, high-speed, method to request data from the PCM. GM have implemented this high-speed data stream in the PCM that is used on most LS1 PCMs*.

Using this high-speed method to request data from the PCM, the scan tool is able to update up to 24 PIDs 10 times per second. That's 240 PIDs per second. (compare with 30-40 PIDs per second using the request/response method).
NOTE: This method of requesting data is not necessarily implemented on all OBDII vehicles.

(* some very early LS1 PCMs only allow 5 frames per second instead of the usual 10 frames per second).

Ok, now on to the question:
AutoTap comes in generic and enhanced flavours - its sort of obvious that the generic version of AutoTap provides access to the generic PIDs, while the enhanced version provides access to the enhanced PIDs.

AutoTap uses the request/response method to request data from the PCM. This means that AutoTap can be used on ALL OBDII equipped vehicles. It also means that the PID scan rate is limited to roughly 30 to 40 divided by the number of PIDs selected per second. So if you select 20 PIDs you will get an update rate of about 2 scans per second.

EFILiveV5 comes in two flavours also:
Std, which provides high-speed scanning and logging of enhanced PIDs specifically for the LS1.
Pro, which provides high-speed scanning and logging of enhanced PIDs specifically for the LS1 AND bi-directional controls that allow you to temporarily alter the behaviour of you PCM, similar to what a Tech2 can do. Note: this does NOT mean EFILiveV5 can reprogram your PCM - it cannot.

Both flavours of EFILiveV5 use the high-speed data stream feature that GM built into the LS1 PCM. This means that if you select 20 PIDs they will ALL be updated 10 times per second.

Even when EFILiveV5 is used with the old AutoTap V1 interface it still provides up to 24 PIDs at 10 frames per second.

Other GM platforms may (and probably do) also implement this high-speed data stream but for now EFILiveV5 is focused on the LS1 PCM.

EFILiveV5 also offers these logging features:
- Customisable spark and fuel maps which show your spark and fuel data on a color coded map based on various engine parameters.
- Calculated PIDs, you can build expressions based on other PID values to derive new values, like distance travelled, acceleration, air flow in gm/cyl (good for using with LS1Edit).
- Chart analysis of entire logged run, just highlight an area of the chart and EFILiveV5 automatically calculates min, max and average values.
- The all new EFILiveV6 developer's API which allows third party application developers to interface with the EFILive scan tool engine.

To summarise:

EFILiveV5 can do everything that AutoTap can do, and more but it is only designed for the LS1 platform.
EFILiveV5 will log data faster than AutoTap, however AutoTap will log data on ALL OBDII vehicles.

So if you *only* want to scan an LS1 then you should use EFILiveV5.
If you want to scan vehicles other than the LS1 and you don't mind slower scan rates then use AutoTap.

Regards
Paul