P-Dad,

Does having the PCM and it'* firmer shifts do any long term damage, or significant extra wear on the tranny?

I'm almost sold on it, but ultimately, I want my car to last for a long, long time, and don't want to sacrifice longevity verses a few horses or such.

Thanks!

the firmer shifts are actually easier on the transmission because in order to get soft shifts the transmission must slip to a certain degree. Firm shifts mean it is not slipping as much.

Really! I would have figured the firmer shifts mean more pressure and increased chance of breaking the "teeth" off. Interesting...

Thanks!

I have heard that the Intense PCM is causing chipped pistons in some SSEi engines. True or false.

This may be possible if CASE learn isn't done after the install of a new PCM,- doughtful though that is would actually chip a piston,-mark maybe

First I've heard of any cylinder issues with a pcm upgrade?
I drove my car for 6 months before I got a case learn and thats after 2 drag race weekends and a few pulls up over 130mph, no issues what so ever and no improvment noticed after the case learn procedure.

He'* probably talking about the excessive timing Intense had programmed in their PCM'* which, especially when the car was running rich, would start adding like 3 degrees on top of like 18-19* already there. This caused a bunch of cars to chip a piston before it was figured out. Mostly on '04 Grand Prix'* I think. I'm also pretty sure they've fixed the timing table in their PCM now.

It must also be said that many times, the increased timing advance was programmed into the PCM'* at the buyers request. If you wanted a PCM to be programmed for mods that you were going to add later, you could request a PCM be programmed to best take advantage of those mods even before putting them on your car.

If you do too much ramming around with it before putting on the mods that support the programming, you can expect things to go wrong (ie, detonation that could chip a piston). I would bet that many of the people that were having problems were thinking too far ahead in their PCM programming. You shouldn't have a PCM that is programmed for mods that aren't there yet unless you know for sure that they will be there in a matter of days (not weeks) or take it easy between the PCM upgrade and the rest of the supporting mods.

so....anyone one with a Tech II and knowedge of that stuff can do the case learn??

I wish more people were so mature about it. As it stands if you order a PCM from us it comes with BASE timing unless your request additional timing. Most lightly modded cars can take 3 degrees extra no problem. The 04 Grand Prix was a different beast because it had hidden tables that added timing on top of what was requested and its injectors were actually smaller than the 97-03 models. All of this led to a few issues that were resolved in the programming and are no longer an issue. I have never heared of an SSEi popping a piston due to PCM programming and in fact if you look at the top 9 fastest Bonnies, they all run the INTENSE PCM.