98 regal pcm questions

[murphinator]

background info:

I have a friend I sold a 98 regal LS to ( normally aspirated 3800) that has been modding the car to the point that it is running times in the range of a stock sc car and has duty cycles in the 96% range , he is looking to add a small pre-maf dry shot to the mix in the near future. his pump is providing 53 psi solid right through to the shift points , no pressure drop from the pump so it looks like he is ready for some larger injectors. He has a set of stock gtp (3800supercharged) injectors in his posession

I know there are programs outside of hpt now to change all the injector values but I also have a 98 regal gs(3800 supercharged) pcm in one of my parts cars as well as open for all 98 regals on my hpt and again his car is a 98 regal so I am wondering if these things all being in place give me an extra option or 2

so my questions are regarding my options - can I flash a gs file in his ls ?

or swap a gs pcm to his ls ?

I know write entires can be risky but can it be done without issues if the pcm has a similar ID # on it ? or what would I need to verify between the 2 pcm's to know if its a risky thing or not ?

any help educating me on this will be much appreciated

I have only tuned existing files in the cars they are in to date

we plan to do ve , maf , and wideband tuning on it after the injectors are in and prefer not to chase our tails - I do have a copy of his current file on my laptop

[oakleafresin]

As long as the HWID's on the bottom of the PCM's match, the two operating systems should be interchangeable and the GS file should function perfectly on the LS PCM. In all likelyhood they are exactly the same HWID but I know there was more variation in the early HWID's than in the later 01 + so it's worth a look. HPT won't let you change the VIN back to his original so you're going to be stuck with a 98 GS vin on a LS which MIGHT make the BCM freak out but you will probably be okay.

PS VE tuning is most likely a waste of time. Check to see if changing the table even affects anything before you try doing it.

[passingpower]

Just get Tiny Tuner. It'll unlock the injector tables for you.

[murphinator]

As long as the HWID's on the bottom of the PCM's match, the two operating systems should be interchangeable and the GS file should function perfectly on the LS PCM. In all likelyhood they are exactly the same HWID but I know there was more variation in the early HWID's than in the later 01 + so it's worth a look. HPT won't let you change the VIN back to his original so you're going to be stuck with a 98 GS vin on a LS which MIGHT make the BCM freak out but you will probably be okay.

PS VE tuning is most likely a waste of time. Check to see if changing the table even affects anything before you try doing it.

so you are saying if the ID's are the same it wouldnt be a risky thing to do a write entire of a gs file to his ls ?

I still have the shell of the car the pcm is from so I also have the bcm but will that cause ignition passkey issues or anything ?

[murphinator]

Just get Tiny Tuner. It'll unlock the injector tables for you.

thanks , I havent worked with it yet to understand all the ins & outs of it and dont have access to a dhp to pull the file or yet understand how all the converting of files to the right format works

also not sure I want to only be able to modify his tune with tiny tuner from here forward - its taken me long enough to start being comfortable with hpt and my understanding is theres a lot more you can do ( right or wrong!) in TT

so I am hoping for a workaround to be able to tune it with my hpt since I am open on 98's and have a 98 pcm that has the proper injector data in it - it just didnt originate from his car as well as other 98 files from my cars that have the sc injectors

oakleafresin thanks I will check on the ID#'s to see if they match - what about doing it the other way around so if a pcm were to get damaged it would be my spare instead of his pcm he is counting on to get him back home ?

[oakleafresin]

Not sure what you mean Murph lol As long as that HWID is the same between the two cars, I see very little risk in doing a write entire of a totally different OS. As a matter of fact, I did that on my own car. With a little research, I bought a PCM from a junkyard with the appropriate HWID from a Bonneville and flashed a GTP file onto it. $200 later, here I am! Worked great

Here's how I think of it. Each HWID can be thought of as a different desktop PC. So a HWID of 1002378 is going to be a Dell Dimension, 9878710 is a Gateway, etc. Each computer is going to be very similar except for a few key parts, mainly the motherboard. In the end though, they all (usually) feature x86 processors. In the case of our PCM's, each PCM features an Intel processor but has a slightly different motherboard layout or configuration. So you need to match your software (operating system) to the board it is expecting to see.

I know that didn't help you at all LOL. As always when flashing anything to your car's computer, do not disturb the laptop during this time. You don't want the USB cable coming loose or something while writing. Aside from that, the only thing making a write entire any more dangerous than just writing the calibration back to the car is the amount of time it takes. 1.5 minutes leaves a lot more room for something bad to happen than the 30 seconds it takes to write a cal. Luckily HPT has a fairly good recovery model but I wouldn't test it.

[murphinator]

Not sure what you mean Murph lol .

I mean how about putting the 98 gs pcm in his 98 ls to get the values in his car and I can copy everything else over thats different outside of injectors

this way his pcm is never at risk and if I have an issue we can just put his stock pcm back in , could this be done with just a case learn maybe ? I guess I should pay more attention to how to use different pcm's in different cars

just looking at all options to find a safe one that I am comfortable doing - I worry more about tuning on other peoples stuff than I do my own

at this point I am leaning towards your suggestion of write entire of a gs file in his ls pcm after verifying id # match and go from there unless someone has a reason that is not a good idea or if the pcm swap is a better idea