ALDL Software Information
Assembly Line Diagnostic Link or ALDL was a proprietary on-board diagnostics system solution developed by GM prior to the standardization of OBD-I. ALDL was previously called Assembly Line Communications Link or ALCL and the two terms are used synonymously. This system was only vaguely standardized and suffered from the fact that specifications for the communications link varied from one model to the next. ALDL was largely used by manufacturers for diagnostics at their dealerships and official maintenance facilities, although tuners soon began to find ways to utilize this information their self. Naturally, the unstandardized nature of ALDL can make finding compatible ALDL software for your car very difficult. Thankfully a collection of enterprising individuals have came to the rescue, and offer ALDL cables, data loggers, and ALDL software online. Let's discuss some of the specifics:
You will see that most cars using the GMP4 ECU produce a continuous stream of ALDL data. However, the LC does not, unfortunately. Instead you have to "ask" the ECU to send you the required data, by sending it a command string. Because you have to "ask" the ECU for data, this means that Andy Whittaker's Freescan ALDL Software will not work without extensive modifications. Feel free to make the modifications if you want, but there is another option, apiece of ALDL software written by an Australian for his Holden Commadore (also a GM product for those of you who did not know).
Carbytes V2 is shareware software that was written by Paul Blackmore. It can be downloaded from his website. This software allows you to decode the ALDL data stream into "real parameters" so yo can watch things like speed, rpm, injector pulse duration, water temperatures, and turbo pressures. You can also plot realtime graphs. It is also possible to log the data to disk for later analysis. All you need to run Carbytes V2 is a setup file containing information about what the bytes in the ALDL data stream are.
The only problem I have with the Carbytes ALDL Software is that it requires a PC with quite a lot of memory, and a reasonably fast processor, but most modern computers running Windows should do just fine. Hopefully Carbytes will work for you and you will be seeing what your car's computer is thinking in no time. If you run into some problems, you should be able to find support online or possibly an alternative ALDL Software program, remember, due to the unstandardized nature of ALDL, it is possible no one program will work with all ALDL cars.
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