I though I might as well put out this review for others here before they go seeking information about ECM tuning and modifications.
I have been on a quest for learning more and more about ECM tuning in general as I approach my 3.4L pushrod swap and the low boost turbo project that will follow it. I have been reading all I can and started buying books on the subject. I am not a newbie to ECM tuning, I have wandered around inside the 86 and 87 2.8 PROM and know what is where as well as modified a Cold fuel table to fix a wandering idle problem. but I wanted to understand modifications for boost as well as other operational changes. I plan on getting my 3.4 swap running perfect on the stock ECM before I start the turbo project so that I am not chasing any "ghosts" or dealing with issues that were there before. So I purchased a book that was reccomneded on many other ECM tuning sites as well as Turbo sites and forums.
How to Tune and Modify Engine Management systems by Jeff Hartman
This book looks impressive, it's thick lots of glossy photos and pages and at first glance seems to be full of information. It covers engine management systems from day one with history, basics on fuel and air and goes into the electronics with examples mostly from import cars. It covers lots of details about cars that if you did not know anything about cars would be very good information. it has some details on how the injector pulses are measured and some formulas covering it as well as lots of theory. Right about there it starts to fall on it's face. Everything in the book after the history and basic lessons on how cars work it goes into mostly vague information. Even the number of example projects where they detail things the most important part, what the book is supposed to cover, ECM tuning, is left out. No notes on what changes were made or why. no details on how to make decisions or even understand what you are looking at when you are tuning the ECM. every single aspect about ECM tuning is skipped in this book. They have great photos of what a turbo looks like installed in a fararri or honda, but nothing as to what ECM changes were needed and why.
This book is great for the beginner, If you need a introduction to how your car works with details this is a great book to have. it also covers lots of other aspects about ECM's that is interesting that an electronics or computer engineer will not know. But it stops there. It's like a discovery channel episode on cars or a TV show. It's entertaining and gives you a great basic understanding but it has no real information on how to do ECM tuning. consider it a "car operation for dummies" book. Great for you to understand what happens when the car get's a knock on a knock sensor, but not why and how. The book is worth $8.00 to get started understanding modern cars and the ecm system. it is not worth the $35.00 cover price that Barnes and Noble had on it. If you are interested in only learning basic basics, get the book. If you wanted to get the book to help you understand how to modify a fuel map table, look elsewhere. this book has zero details on how to make ecm modification decision.
