I just picked up a '90 FM2 car with Hydra. The previous owner has me scared about accidentally losing the map by using a bad usb/serial adapter. He made this mistake a couple years ago.

I have a little experience tuning a LS2 GTO a couple years ago (HPTuners), but I can't find my usb/serial adapter.

Which brand are you guys using? And did you have to mess with the transfer rate settings?

David.

 

did a little more research on hydraems.com and it seems they don't recommend usb/serial adapters. Anyone out there using an Expresscard serial adapter that they recommend? my laptop won't accept PCMCIA cards (PC Cards).

 

update for future users: I bought a $69 expresscard from newegg.com. Didn't work. Then I bought a cheap USB/serial converter from DIYAutotune. It works, although it took 3 times to read.

 

I was having a lot of trouble (blue screens when logging, etc) with the prolific usb to serial chipset and went to this:

StarTech 2 Port CardBus RS232 Serial Laptop PC Adapter Card - 16950

It has been reliable so far. FM recommended the Targus PA088 USB -> serial though after I bought the above pcmcia part.

 

I bought whatever was on the shelf at RadioShack. I have had it for two years and it has worked every time without issue.

I'll have to look at the driver disk when I get home to tell you what brand/model it was.

 

I had to change my usb/serial converter when I got a new laptop that ran x64 bit.

THere was only one place in town that carried one that worked well. It was only 30 bucks too. It is a very short cable and I needed to also buy a Serial cable extension, but its been rock solid (do not buy a USB cable extension, only extend the serial side of the cable)

http://www.ics.nb.ca/
THats the website of the guys that sold me the cable. It is the only one they carry and usually specialize in small business and use the cable to connect old cash registers/printers etc to new computers.