Reprogramming Stock ECM PROM Unit

[Lawrence E. Piekarski]

>
>George_McLaughlin at bedison.com (George McLaughlin) wrote:
>
>> Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I am interested in 
>> modifying the stock ECM PROM chip in my 1990 Lotus Esprit SE and 
>> am looking for some help.
> 
>To sum up, DIY prom mods are not easy, and realistically 
>it will take maybe a couple of years for anything like 
>an understanding of what is going on in there to be 
>achieved. If you want to learn go ahead, if not buy a 
>preprogrammed chip from someone with an unblemished 
>reputation (very difficult).
>
>Martin Evans

BINGO! I transferred a while back from the Service Department here at
Delco. I wrote the remanufacturing tests used to verify that the
remanufactured "boxes" met or exceeded OEM quality standards. 
Delco remanufactures most of what we build, so I have seen a wide cross-
section of products. My main focus was with powertrain, and I was
responsible for Saturn, the Northstar, Truck & Bus, some Daewoo, some 
Opel, Lotus, and a few highend controllers modeled after the Northstar.

For example, I spent nearly a year working on the Northstar. Now, I am not
electronics whiz sitting in my garage with a scope and a prom burner, 
I had multiple computers, a 8000+ page listing, a logic analyzer, the 
2700+ page specification, stacks of propriety "standards" documents. Plus
I was good friends with the lead software engineer, and knew the rest of
the team, plus I knew (and bugged the s**t or of) the man how wrote the
OEM test. And, all I had to do was port the test from one tester to 
another, and enhance the test. It still took me nine months. I simply
cannot imagine making DIY mods at home.

Naturally, I can't give out any proprietary information, my wife
likes the fact that I am employed. :-)

I did toy with the idea of tweaking my '93 SW2. I got the source code
and calibration for my car and looked through it for a while, but 
honestly didn't see anything I wanted to change. I stayed away from the spark
and fuel tables, though. As far as I am concerned, that is a black art.
-- 
(* Larry Piekarski, Lead Software Engineer *)
(*      Luxury Car HVAC Display Heads      *)
(*      c1ilep at kocrsv01.delcoelect.com     *)
(*      Delco Electronics, Kokomo, IN      *)