Lol, yea that's why the chip stuff seems like it used to be really big for that era of ford computer and how huge it is for Moates Quarterhorse to just dissapear overnight basically. I got in the game months after they closed up

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If you need to find an exact setting in an EEC-V computer some time and have the ability to read/write them, let me know and shoot over the stock bin and I should be able to help. I'm modifying them for demo derby use, but given enough time and effort, I should be able to fully define the computers based on the ford documentation that's out on the web to reference. Doing one computer right now, then the idea is to use my pattern matching program I made to find the same code in other computers, so those should be loads faster to work out to some capacity.
I have the pats code (engine immobilizer) covered for every variation of EEC-V computer I have a bin for currently, I suspect that would be a common request for people to disable the chipped key requirement for engine swaps and such.
Anyway, anything is weird when it's something you're not used to lol. Ford computers are weird to me compared to Toyota's. In demo derby logic, they want them to run well even when overheating, no limp modes etc, the Toyota computers are just disconnect some sensors, spoof some others, and it's basically good to go (can't tune them of my understanding, similar to EEC-IV but no J3 port), and I tried that logic on Ford's and it ran like complete garbage. Since I've gotten into them, there's all kinds of limiters and such programmed in them. I can see why the Taurus is so doggy compared to a Camry v6, both are 3.0L, camry has an advantage since it's a 10.5:1 high compression engine, all aluminum engine, 6 bolt main, but it's 150hp vs 190hp stock lol. Ironically, the 4cyl camry's are around 130hp, the taurus feels a lot like the 4cyls for power.
I think the customer getting the same part number computer off ebay is probably the best solution unless they want the tuning ability when going the j3 chip route.
I'm like the exact opposite, I'm pretty heavily invested in Ford computers now, eventually I plan to get into the GM's some day. I touched into them a tad bit before the P04's had much worked out and P11 and P05 basically had no info. Still pretty new on the reverse engineering stuff, but having the Ford reference material has helped me learn a lot on the Ford side. Not sure if anything like that exists on the GM side, but if not it would take a lot of effort to work out what a function does exactly.
Anyway, back to getting as much defined in this Ford computer's code as possible =).