Power Programmer Iii
 

Why isn't there something like this for our 8s?

I've been looking up some information for a buddy of mine (01 TransAm owner) and it seems this is an easy way to get additional horsepower without even opening up the hood.

Is this related to the difficulties in cracking our PCM?

why dont you send an email to the maker of the power programmer and ask them?

well actually
 

It doesn't work as well as advertised, I had two of them one on a '94 Z28 and one on an '02 Z28. It is good for calibrating the speedo after rear end gear change, and it would stiffen up the shifts in an automatic trans. It had a few other features like changing the shift points in an auto, and I think you could change the rev limiter. As for the horsepower claim it was way less in reality because the computer would compensate and you would lose what you had to start with. This was especially true with the LS1 computer (98-02). The programmer made more of a difference on the earlier models (94-98). 93 was a whole other version as it was speed density as opposed to mass air metering (94-02)

Hope this helps.
-Coop

interesting, so it works at first and then the computer adjusts the settings back to normal.... so maybe a dedicated chip would be a better route then

it looks like they only do domestics to me, didn't realize it until later