Getting started with PCM hammer

[antus]

Blackbox doesnt have a good reputation out there, most people swap it for P01 or P59. To be honest thats probably your best and cheapest way to get a supported system on this car.

Blackbox is the pcm the Dimented24x7 wrote his original flash tool for, then he ported the code to P01. We have enough information that we could add black box support, in time. But its not something to wait for, there are a couple in front of it yet.

If you know someone who has an AVT 852 cable you can use this app for blackbox.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/diy-pro ... flash.html

Mirroring the v1.1.0.0 file here.

[JHSimpson]

Hi All,
I did build a bench harness. That's what I am using.

[Gampy]

Hi All,
I did build a bench harness. That's what I am using.

Is this a Blackbox PCM or is this a P01/P59 PCM ??

-Enjoy

[JHSimpson]

It's the original blackbox pcm, removed from the gmc Yukon...

[Gampy]

Sorry, as Antus stated, the Blackbox is not going to work without some work, we have what we need, it's just low down on the ever growing TODO list because it's not a reputable PCM and has little to no support.

Like everyone has been saying, you might want to look into swapping in a P01/P59 ... They are cheap, easy to get, and have the best support, not to mention that they are reliable!

It's supposed to be an easy swap relatively, but I personally do not know, I have never done it.

The pin types are the same, so it is just a matter of pulling all the pins out of the BB connector and sticking them in the P01/P59 connector ... Of course in the correct locations!
It is daunting only because there are like 80 wires, most swaps reduce that though if the unused stuff has been pulled.

-Enjoy

[JHSimpson]

pchammer reported this "black box" as a P01_P59. Not arguing, just stating what I saw on the console display.

By the way, since I'm new here, what exactly is a P01 ecu. I have run into more alphabet soup with this project than any thing else I have been involved with. I have looked for listings or tables that make some sense out of it but I've had no luck making sense out of it. Sorry for the rant, I'm just a bit frustrated right now. I do appreciate the help!

[antus]

Yeah, its been like that since day 1. Originally it only did P01, then P01 and P59. Originally when it didnt know what it was it attempted to treat it as one of those, and we'd add it to the pcm database if someone reported success. Now I think we have pretty good coverage of P01 and P59 OSs and we probably should make an unknown type which we can report instead of letting it default back to P01_P59 and attempting to unlock. So, that is the reason it says that. Not because it knows something we dont.

P01 is the 512Kb PCM most commonly used on LS1 engines. Service number 12200411 (and others). P59 is the 1Mb variation which is the same, but with a larger flash chip and sometimes its with or without specific hardware like drive by wire. There are other threads about it.

They're internal GM identifiers and are the most commonly used naming scheme used by most the after market. Im not aware of a list I can point you to. But if you plug your pcm in, and it does read it, then you can be sure that what it has identified as is true, and you can use that number in your searches for more information, as well as trying the service number and the operating system (OSID).

The supported PCMs are all based on the same chips, and have a similar formula but are different enough that we need to add support one by one. PCMHammer needs to know which code it is to treat it appropriately, if you look in PCMHammers program directory you'll see Kernel-P01.bin Kernel-P04.bin etc etc. These are the files it needs to upload to the PCM and it has to match the hardware to work. There is a little more to it, but you don't need those details. From PCMHammers point of view, it supports P01 so it'll be able to read and write all service numbers that are for P01 using the P01 method etc.

So to summarise:

P01 etc is the hardware class, consisting of multiple service numbers.

Service numbers may have minor variations between them, but so long as you buy a replacement part of the same service number it will be compatible with a pcm of the same service number you are replacing. Service numbers can have different operating systems. In some cases you can swap operating systems between service numbers on the same class of PCM. If there are hardware differences it'll still run and you'll be able to flash it back if you kept a backup "read entire". If you change to a pcm with a different service number you might find a certain feature on the car isnt working. Like "drive by wire" on the P59 is a common one. And early P59 operating systems cant update the vin when installed on a later pcm with a different type of flash chip. Anyway these are examples, research this when you have a target and need to know more about it.

Operating Systems (OS or OSID) are the software that runs on the PCM, and as such it needs to be the right Operating system for the platform, and for the calibration (tune) which must be for the car.

Generally you update the calibration only to do things like turn of VATS (vehicle anti theft system), other errors codes for deleted hardware, or modify the tune.

In some cases the OSID you have does not have a free definition available and what you need doesn't come up in universal patcher either (which can identify tables without a definition to varying degrees) so you hit a dead end. Then you can consider if a more common OSID was used in the same car, and then if the service numbers match or the OS is known compatible with your service number, you can flash in a different and supported OS and proceed from there.


I'll make up a diagram with a couple of real numbers to try an illustrate this:

Code: Select all

Class: P01

  Service Number: 9380717
     Operating System ID (OSID): 12221096
     Operating System ID (OSID): 12221087

   Service Number: 12200411
      Operating System ID (OSID): 12221588
      Operating System ID (OSID): 12221588

So you can be sure if you have a service number 9380717, or 12200411 PCM then PCMHammer will be able to read and write it as a P01.

If you have a 9380717 PCM, and PCMHammer reported OSID 12221096, but its not working properly and you get another service number 9380717 PCM from the junkyard, and it has OSID 12221087 on it, you will be able to clone the broken PCM to the new one with PCM Hammers P01 functionality and it will work in the car.

If you have a replacement PCM and its Service number 12200411 with any OSID, then you may or may not be able to write your OSID 12221096 operating system and calibration to it. I'll tell you in this case it will work as all P01s are the same, but its not true for all types. So you need to either research this or flash it in and test it well (but not recommended as its hard to test everything, eg would you notice that you cant change the vin or block learn data isnt retained if the car starts and drives?).

There are other gotchas like P04 have 256Kb, 512kb or 1MByte memory chips. You can not flash an operating system to a mismatched size PCM even of the same type (we also dont have P04 write support yet, but watch this space. When we do PCMHammer will tell you and abort if you try this, like it does if you try and flash a P59 bin in to a P01.

[JHSimpson]

antus - thanks very much for the explanation. I appreciate you taking the time. It kinda sounds like you could use more help... I have a hardware (electronic technician) background and have been building and swapping engines for years, but most recently I was a software systems analyst & developer for a large computer company. I'm retired now. I'll download the pcmhammer source and poke around in it a bit. I'm guessing it's probably C or C++ so I'll be able to make sense of it. if you want I'll let you know if I think I would be of any use to the cause.

Are there "real" P01s that have the same 4-plug configuration as the "black box" that I have? That would greatly help with the swap.

[Gampy]

No, there are no P01's that have the same connectors, the P01/P59 has two 80 pin connectors.

Google 'Blackbox to 0411', that will return hits on the swap.

PCMHammer is written in C#, I call it C++ with training wheels ...

Do Assembly by any chance ??

-Enjoy

[JHSimpson]

I have written code in many assembly languages from Z80 to Univac 1100 mainframe, but not the pc. How tough can it be to learn. Why do you ask. (Oh, thanks for the tip. I'll google and see what I can come up with.)