96 vs 98

i have a 96 gmc sierra 1500 that i bought new and i'm about to put a new motor in but i have computer questions. what's the difference between the 96 computer and the 98 computer? seems nobody can tune the 96's other then hypertech(which i have and it's crap) and the 98 which efi live, hp tuners, and looks like just about everybody else can play with? can i just swap in a 98 computer after i have the vin changed or is there something else i need to do?

i was going to do a ls swap but for cash and time reasons i may just find another vortec block to rebuild and swap my heads and stuff onto. after 307,xxx on the block i'm starting to pick up just a hint of knock in the lower end and it's starting to burn oil

96 would be obd1, and 98 would be obd2. I did an ob2-obd1 swap on my firebird, and it was quite a bit of repinning the harnesses but It is not impossible. I have never worked with a Vortec engine so I can't really say much more, with the obd1 computers they actually burn "chips" for them instead of tuning.

Good luck with your project.

No 96 is OBD2. The first year of OBD2. As far as the differences in PCM go, I'm not sure.

not sure if the ECU's are different but the harness is different because of the passenger side airbag.
i had my 96 ECU tuned.

Okay my bad, I apologize for the miss information..

96 is different than 98 and yes there is software out there to do it yourself or there is people that can tune it for you, As far as tuning it, Nelson should be able to do it for you, he uses same software I do it called tunercat, just don't know if he has defintion file. Oh and if you did decide to do computer upgrade you would want to change it to 12200411 like from a 01 p/u, lots more tuning perimeters plus no 5600 to 5800 rpm limiter that has never been addressed as far as I know.

TunerCat OBDII and Jet DST do 96,97,98,99. But the definitions are not all inclusive, even EFI Live for 98-00 sucks. Go 0411 PCM and all the paremeters are there.

i would absolutely do the 411 computer upgrade instead of trying to tune the computer that came in those trucks!