only way to find out is to try it myself

 

Why wouldn't an emulator work? The mechanical emulator will always work- the electrical emulator should work as well- it simply sends the PCM the same voltage that a functioning 02 sensor would when reading catalyzed exhaust.

 

In 2005 GM changed the way the rear O2 sensor reads, it picks up more data than the emulator sends. They would have had to make a different emulator just for that purpose but decided against it.

 

I was simply letting him know that he should modify his engine before he buys the PCM. On a stock engine before modifications it isn't worth it. Once he buys a downpipe, and once he buys the CAI, and once he gets other bolt on mods, the PCM will need it's timing adjusted again.

On a stock engine it's not worth it if you are going to modify later, I was telling him to mod first then PCM. If you ONLY wanted to get a PCM as your ONLY mod, then sure it would be fine to get because of the reasons you stated, but if you know you are going to do some mods, then get that done first. Then order your PCM once, and be done with it.

 

Ah, I see. Reading > me- that's what I get for reading threads too fast!

 

now which would be better the 3800performance 1.0 pcm or the ZZP PCM

 

Honestly I got my PCM from 3800perf and it has been great. The only thing that happened was my warning lights all went on after installing it (a week later) but if you just drive the car for two days they went off. I have only heard bad stories about the ZZP PCM but I like the products they put out and have bought a ton of stuff from them.

 

choice is which one to buy now

 

i bought my original pcm from zzp, the 1.0 and it worked great. at that time i only had powerlog, downpipe, CAI i believe and the skip shift was fun. didnt notice a huge performance increase though. i personally think that if your in for the long modding haul, you should buy your pcm last, just because then you can have it tweaked to your setup more. by then, you'll probably have read more threads though and you'll want a custom tune instead of a basic tune. something i wish i did, but i was impatient and just wanted the parts haha. my custom tune pulled about 24WHP more out of my car than just the zzp tune. thats pretty crazy.

 

the custom tune is always going to be 1,000x better.

Take the time to find people on forums that live near you and have a good reputation for tuning.