Using an unlinked AutoCal to tune using passthrough?

I am 16 and want to tune me and my buddies Chevy pickups and I don't have $700 to drop on a flashscan, so I emailed a person at EFI live asking if I needed a FS to tune my truck and they directed me to the AC for end users PDF and I read that the AC could be used to read and flash in passthrough mode with a computer; so I went on fleabay and bought an unlinked AC. When I read the tune from
my truck it reads fine but when I go to view and edit the tune it says that I need to remove the security restrictions, so I go to do so and when I hit the clear restrictions button it says I plug in my flashscan serial #xxxxxxxxxxx, but the number is the one of my AC and it wont let me change anything.


So did I misinterpret what the manual said and it cant actually tune or what.

and can I make it work?



Thanks for any help

Only FlashScan can edit the tune files for your AutoCal.

You can read with the AutoCal being unlinked. But you cannot flash - the first step in the flashing process is to validate the tune file contains the same FlashScan serial number the AutoCal is linked to.

Without a link, or without the tune file being signed by the FlashScan you won't meet the conditions for flashing.

Cheers
Cindy