Stitches040 Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Hey all, In the past few days there has been alot of talk of "Bad PCM's" out there. I was thinking of getting one. I hear both companies are great, PCMforless vs. Nelson Performance Tune. But lately, I have been hearing about problems with the shifting. It seems everyone's SSS are down shifting too much, or not enough. All I want is a little more Horsepower to have fun with. I am not building a rocketship to take off to the moom with. I am only installing a Volant CAI and Corsa Touring. Naturally, a PCM upgrade would be next to tie it all together.... So my questions to you are, 1- Should I get the PCM Tune? 2- From whom, and why? 3- What should I ask for in the tune? 4- Shifting.... What I need to do to keep shifting about the same for normal driving, and what I need for the Quick getaways....... Many thanks ... in advance and if your going to National Rally..... Be Safe... and Have fun for the rest of us who can't make it....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigW Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I have a Pcmforless from bryan with no problems at all. If you talk to him he will set up the pcm for the mods you have and for what you want to do. He is very easy to work with. I definately like mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevebbb Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I have the PCM4Less and did not have any problems at all. It started right up and runs and shifts great. I am 100% happy with it. I did keep my old PCM in case I would ever need it. Just my 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I have the PCM4Less and did not have any problems at all. It started right up and runs and shifts great. I am 100% happy with it. I did keep my old PCM in case I would ever need it. Just my 2 cents. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUTOGUY Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I've had my PCM done by Bryan at PCMFORLESS for over a year and have have no problems at all!! Let him know how you want it to shift and he will set it up for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan06SS Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Problems w/ a PCM tune are few and far between. Much like people reporting problems with thier truck, you only see posts when theres an issue and someone can't figure it out... its not that theres alot of "bad tunes" its just that those are the only ones you hear about. If you are really concerned with the tune one sure fire way to limit you problems is to buy HP Tuners and have the tunes e-mailed to you so you can load them yourself. In the event you have a problem a quick phone call can have a corrected tune to you very quickly vs. waiting for a whole new PCM being sent to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I agree with Dylan. If you had a problem with one of the tunes, you could always go back to the previous tune. As simple as loading a computer file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xero Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 honsetly, i dont have a problem with bryans tune.....when it works.....what he did was put too much advance into my timing so my idea now is to get a Tstat and see if that helps and gets my multiple cylinders misfiring, also i have new plug wires so well see when i all gets installed. other than that im very pleased with the tune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterp Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 I am convinved that the shifting behavior of my tune from PCMForLess is all wrong. So convinced that I had Joe and Sherri Guttierez (JAG Performance) ride with me last night in the SS, and we talked about the observed problems for a good 20-minutes. Please let me make my position very clear here, I am happy with the straight-line performance of the PCMForLess tune, it gets up and goes. And I'm no wuss, I can stand a vehicle with only fair driveability but the kinds of problems we are discussing here are the sort that are completely avoidable and will break shit, eventually. Joe is very upset about the transmission PCM programming work being done by many programmers in the trade (not just PCMForLess) and relayed having similar problems with other tuners' work as well; Joe is also investigating a couple ideas in effort to right this situation for his customers because his work cannot shine behind errant programming. Joe also confided with me that there are several very popular tuners that have a history of needlessly broken parts. My points are (1) I verified my shifting issues (2) be sure that you discuss driveability programming with your tuner not just WOT performance. Mr. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Mister P - if your tranny has been built by JAG, I assume it has a shift kit at least, then what are your tranny issues? A shift kit will cause problems with a tune if there is tq mgt still in the tune. I have verified it with my truck when I first threw in a file for a new motor, not realizing that it didn't have the tq mgt completely removed. My tranny would almost make grunt sound (kind of hard to explain), and shifted very erratically. It only happened on the 2-3 shift. After I pulled it all out, the truck shifted like it should and no problems from that point on. I had my tranny built nearly two years ago. My builder told me then that the pcm would not like the parts I was putting in there. The problem is, mechanically the tranny tries to do something, while the pcm is maybe commanding something different. Where you break stuff is where two don't work together. You can also alter the time it takes to shift in the pcm. Mine is set almost to zero. Another thing I haven't done is alter shift pressures. I would be interested in hearing what specifically your problems are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 honsetly, i dont have a problem with bryans tune.....when it works.....what he did was put too much advance into my timing so my idea now is to get a Tstat and see if that helps and gets my multiple cylinders misfiring, also i have new plug wires so well see when i all gets installed. other than that im very pleased with the tune <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't think the t-stat will help that much, but it may some. Have you changed your cam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterp Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Mister P - if your tranny has been built by JAG, I assume it has a shift kit at least, then what are your tranny issues? A shift kit will cause problems with a tune if there is tq mgt still in the tune. I have verified it with my truck when I first threw in a file for a new motor, not realizing that it didn't have the tq mgt completely removed. My tranny would almost make grunt sound (kind of hard to explain), and shifted very erratically. It only happened on the 2-3 shift. After I pulled it all out, the truck shifted like it should and no problems from that point on. I had my tranny built nearly two years ago. My builder told me then that the pcm would not like the parts I was putting in there. The problem is, mechanically the tranny tries to do something, while the pcm is maybe commanding something different. Where you break stuff is where two don't work together. You can also alter the time it takes to shift in the pcm. Mine is set almost to zero. Another thing I haven't done is alter shift pressures. I would be interested in hearing what specifically your problems are. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Nope, no transmission problem, the PCM is not correctly regulating the solenoids. When driving in city traffic at 45mph in 4th gear I step down to pass WOT, the PCM will send the tranny into 1st gear rather than 2nd; this sends the motor well beyond 6K-RPM which engages the fuel cutoff and as consequence the truck STALLS; according to Joe, proper PCM programming should never allow kickdown into first after 35mph for just this reason. Same problem with cruising at 79mph, if I go WOT to pass the truck will kick down into 2nd at 79mph (rather than staying in third), engine will be at almost redline then finally shifts into 3rd a couple hundred RPM later. Those were the two issues I saw, Joe picked out several other subtle driveability problems during our test drive that I would not have even realized. My guess is that the shift points are set for a truck with shorter rear gears, not 4.10 rear gears but that's just my guess. The tranny is a fully JAG-prepped unit with hardened parts and TransGo shift kit. I am positive (judging by SOTP) there is no torque management, the truck has monstrous pull through the 1-2 shift. As we work to narrow down the issues I will post the lessons learned where I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Odd. Too bad you don't have the software yourself to try things to fix. Sounds like it would probably be fairly easy to correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterp Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Odd. Too bad you don't have the software yourself to try things to fix. Sounds like it would probably be fairly easy to correct. Yeah I know. Don't have the money now to send it in for reflashing, so it's going to have to wait. I can drive around it for now but my next mod will be buying EFILive and getting the training. We'll be high-stepping it then Mr. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thallent Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 I am more than pleased with my pcmforless tune. The only problem I had was some pinging. I switched gas stations and brands and have been running great since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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