take the ammeter, and install it inline with the positive battery cable.

IF amperage is detected, take the fuse box cover off, and start removing one fuse at a time until the amperage reads 0, when removing a fuse, if no change is made on the ammeter, replace it in it's location. do this in the fuse box under the hood and in the car (if there is one). you will likely find the exact circuit that is causing the draw and can then troubleshoot further find the source.

Thanks Benjamin. Pretty scary how much I have forgotten about basic electricity theory.

Yeah, I've been reading all sorts of methods on how to track down a battery drain like this, but the clamp style ammeter I have is designed more with larger amperage use such as house wiring and such. So a small drain probably won't even register on it. Here's the one I found which seems to be designed with small parasitic power drains in mind -> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i02.

I did read an account of putting a 1 ohm 10 watt resistor in series with the battery cable and simply measuring the voltage across it to get them amperage that I liked. But I just don't have a resistor like that around here, and I've about given up ever finding anything like that locally anywhere. So I can get 10 of them sent to me at a buck a piece from China if I want one.



I'm just keeping the battery tender on it for the duration, even though it never gives me a green light and wait for the stuff I ordered from Amazon, I suppose.

I took a look at the little fuel leak on the driver side fuel rail, and it wasn't the simple fix I had hoped it would be. First thing I tried was to just put some teflon tape on the male fitting on the end of the fuel rail, but that didn't make any difference at all. That's not where the leak was apparently coming from. BTW, I read a bunch of stuff concerning using teflon tape on fuel fittings, and it ran about 50/50 with people saying "yea" or "nay" about it. Well, my opinion is that it's a big NAY. When I pulled the fitting off again, the teflon tape looked pretty ratty in just that short period of time. So I cleaned the end off real well and tried a new fitting on the hose itself. STILL leaking. WTH??? The only thing I could figure was that it was a real tight fit trying to get that crossover hose back onto the fuel rails (not sure why since it seemed to be OK before) and maybe it's just cocking the fitting ever so slightly to make that very slow seeping leak. So I decided to use fittings with a different angle and also use a slightly longer piece of braided hose so there would be a bit more play in the hose and fittings. Well, that seemed to do the trick, but the job I thought would take me 15 minutes to do wound up taking a couple of hours. But hopefully that's done and no more fuel leaks anywhere. I really don't like the smell of gasoline permeating the entire garage.

So, now, what is going to happen between now and Sunday to screw up the tuning being done then? Pessimistic? Me? Why in the world would I ever be pessimistic? :rolleyes:

Radio Shack has those 1 ohm ceramic resistors in stock. I purchased a couple a few months back for a project I did. they were between $1.50 and $3 each IIRC.

Hmm, that's good to know. I'll see if I can find one when I am up in Tallahassee.

Thanks!

Didn't have any smell of gasoline in the garage when I went over there today, so maybe that leak is fixed for good now.

Seems pretty darn odd thinking I really don't have ANYTHING I need to do on the car right now. Except maybe clean it up a bit before it gets out on the road on Sunday. Hopefully Mike won't find anything that will prevent that from taking place. Oh, they are calling for rain on Sunday, so I guess when I get the car back into the garage I may be cleaning some mud from underneath it after driving on the sandy road we live on. Might be kind of tricky doing any sort of power runs on wet roads, however.

Yeah, and those tires are probably starting to get old and hard. So be careful. Here's to hoping the rain goes right around you this time and keep the roads dry for you.

Yeah, I got those tires (Michelin PS2s) when I bought the car at the end of 2005 since the tires on the car when I picked it up were bald with threads showing. Not to mention regular C5 tires and wheels were on the car then too. Actually thinking about it, I got screwed from the very start with that car.

I do have some newer tires and wheels sitting in the garage, but there is one brand on the rear wheels and another on the front wheels. Not sure that would be any better.....

Maybe I'll try to get Mike to take the wheel at least the first couple of times out, as he would certainly be more experienced at driving cars like this than I am. Besides, I want to get his opinion about that clutch that is in there. It just feels strange to me, but never having driven a car with a dual disk clutch before, I have nothing to compare it to. Dual disk clutch, light flywheel, carbon fiber drive shaft, etc., etc., so everything is going to be different to me.

Well, that's getting old for a tire, much less a performance tire under a 700+hp car. I'd just give them a good once over to see if there is any bad cracking going on, but usually the damage is on the inside once they get too old and can delaminate without warning (but usually fills like the a tire is out of balance...because it is).

This is a good read from the TireRack.com where the above quote came from.

I'll ask Mike what he wants to do when he gets here on Sunday. My guess is since the car will be driven on public roads, then there aren't going to be any very high speed runs on the tires. I actually bought those other tires because Aaron was complaining that the current tires wouldn't bite onto the drum on his dyno very well. But when I got them, he declined to have me bring them up there to use them. :shrug01:

Yeah, just a sign of them being hard. Michelins are well built, so I doubt they'll fall apart on ya. Just giving you a heads up. You'll be fighting for traction, but it'll give you a heck of a ride. :peelout 1: I'm also very picky about my tires and burn through them LONG before they ever harden. I did get a used set with a set of wheels I bought. OMG I don't know how anyone ever drives on old goodyears. They were only four years old and just hard as concrete and just felt like I was driving on pins and needles. Drove on them twice and replaced them with used Kuhmo 710s. Talk about a drastic change in traction. :lmao:

Well, quite honestly, had my car not been tied up in shops for two and a half years, I'm sure I wouldn't be having this sort of problem. I actually put some substantial miles on those tires, and they held up pretty darn well. But I'm pretty sure had I been driving all this time that I would have normally used up the tread on those tires, and age wouldn't even be an issue. I think there are Goodyears on the C6Z that are getting kind of thin on the tread that will likely need to be replaced shortly. I'm going to get Michelin's when that time comes along.

Oh, about the battery situation on the C5Z. I disconnected both grounds going to the battery (the main cable and the one for the fuel system), and the battery tender gave me a green light after a short bit, so I guess that Yellow Top is just fine. Now when I put the main ground cable on the battery, sparks flew and I could hear something that sounded like it was under the passenger side fender clicking when the cable made contact and threw sparks. I probably need Connie to try to figure out what that is for me while I make and break contact. Unfortunately she works tomorrow, and Mike is coming out on Sunday, so that isn't going to happen real soon. Maybe whatever is making the clicking noise is the culprit responsible for the battery drain... I just hope it's nothing expensive that needs to be replaced or repaired... :ack2:

Could you possibly have a normally closed relay that has been inadvertanly put inplace of a normally open relay. That might explain the clicking noise when you hook up the battery. You may be hearing the relay close.

On the passenger side footwell where the BCM/fuse block is located you will hear some relays clicking when the power cable is reconnected to the battery. It takes a few seconds for the relays clicking to stop.

With all those ponies, it might be kind of tricky doing any sort of power runs PERIOD! :rofl1::rofl1:
Andy :wavey:

<------ I'm a believer!

Rich,

You might want to take a look at the wiper motor that controls the right headlight bucket. I have seen when, for some reason, you pull the negative cable that somehow it tries to energize the passenger side headlight motor and somtimes strips the plastic gears. Just a thought.

Rich

Well, that could be.... When I was scoping out the positioning on the catch can right below it, I manually operated the headlight quite a few times. Certainly will give me something to look at...

Well, yesterday was the "make or break" day on my car. Mike Carnahan (http://www.VengeancePCM.com) came down from Georgia to tune the car and I figured that if he was unable to do so, then there was something still seriously wrong in my engine/car, and it was just time to bail on this whole thing. Honestly, I was pretty stressed out just thinking about it...

So, Mike shows up around 10 or so and jumped in immediately with EFILive and started working his magic. Well, heck, let's just look at the video I compiled of the experience...



Sorry about the shakiness in the video in spots. I have NO idea why it did that. It was almost like there was some sort of electronic or magnetic interference in some spots.

Actually the car ran pretty darn good! Mike said that the tune file in the car was corrupted and he had to wipe it out completely and start from scratch. He said the throttle response was just really screwed up and he knew something was just wrong in the program for it to feel that way. So he just wiped it and started over with a fresh file.

I went along with him on the ride while he was tuning the car and he stopped several times to mike adjustments to dial in the tune. Almost got whiplash a couple of times when he ran up the rpms. He couldn't get all of the cells covered, however, simply because the tires just wouldn't grip the road when about 6 pounds of boost was reached, so he never got to the 10 psi point. But he extrapolated the values staying on the safe side, and we can deal with that sometime later on, if need be. He did comment that he felt the car could reach 850 horsepower if I wanted to hit that number. But honestly, that isn't all that important to me. I probably wouldn't be able to keep the car on the road as it is if I got heavy footed.

After Mike (and his wife Christina) left for a little tour of Apalachicola, I took the car out for a spin and also to get the gas tank filled. Connie followed behind in her truck, just in case. Obviously I need to practice with this new clutch, as I was nowhere near as smooth engaging it as Mike was. I also made the clutch chatter quite a bit while engaging it from a dead stop, and I never heard that happen when Mike was driving it. He said it just needs to get broken in properly, as it catches in two stages and kind of high. Also, I ran the air conditioning whereas we didn't do that while tuning the car, and there does need some adjustments done to compensate for the AC being used. It hunts at idle when at a stop, and is very hard getting started from a dead stop without stalling. I actually had to turn off the AC when coming to a stop, and then turning it back on once I got rolling. But this is a minor thing, for certain.

All in all, the car drives very well and has a LOT of power. I would say that with just a bit more really fine tuning tweaks, the car will be able to be driven just like a stock Z06 as far as throttle response and driveability is concerned. To say that this is a big load off of my shoulders is an immense understatement. I was on pins and needles the entire time Mike was working on the car, expecting to see the puzzled frown, and and ominous "hmmm" from something being found in the tuning attempts that would turn out to be the dreaded "brick wall". But fortunately, that didn't happen, and Mike saved the day.

Anyway, last night I put the new wheels and tires on the car, figuring that might be a good thing to do just so I don't get myself into trouble driving the car if I decided to goose the gas pedal a bit. But all in all, it looks like I have a driveable tuned car now.

Thanks, Mike! :thumbsup:

I think I will play that movie over and over again. Too bad we couldn't see your face while this was going on. More film of the finished car running please.

HOT DA-YUM RICH! It looks like you're on your way to a boatload of tickets!
:lmao::lmao::lmao:
Andy :wavey:

Awesome Rich. Sounds like a wildcat.

Mega-congratulations Rich!

:dancer01: :dancer01: :dancer01: :dancer01:

Dave, how's things going with your car? I really hope you got it straightened out.

Fantastic RICH! Congrats....Congrats....Congrats!

Congrats Rich...Your about home free now...:thumbsup:

It's home again. Seems ok so far. It had a failure of the input shaft bearing in the tranny. Greg pulled it apart and fixed that. The fuel pump/starting problems seem to be cured.

It has a leak where the LH halfshaft goes into the diff. Turns out that with DSS axles They All Do That so that's the next project.

But in general I'm going though a lot less than you are. You are doing an amazing job getting your car whipped into shape. I am proud of you, Rich.

My car is up for sale, but I haven't advertised it yet.

Thanks Dave.

Glad to hear your car seems to just have minor problems now, but real sorry to hear that you are going to sell it. I still remember how proud you were of that car when you got it. When you sell it, are you planning on getting another vette, or has this soured you on the brand? Lord only knows that I sure didn't feel the same about Corvettes while my own hell was ongoing without a TRUE light at the end of the tunnel, so I can understand the scars.

Yeah, I think I'm done. I'm open-minded, but mostly looking at big-motored sedans. Used Mercedes? New 300? Who knows, lotsa cars in the world. Unfortunately not many modern ones that are interesting to me.

Sorry to hear you want to get rid of your car...

Glad to hear that the saga finally ends on a positive note. I guess it proves the old addage "if you want it done right, do it yourself"! :thumbsup:
Are you going to take it to any of the local car shows?

Honestly, with all the rock chips, dings, scratches, cracked hood paint and other crap (some of which were courtesy of the last shop it was in, in my opinion), I don't think the car is car show material.

Sorry about the delay in replying. Been out of town since Thursday with no internet access.

Just needs a good polish....or I can design a car wrap for ya!

If you can polish out that cracked paint on the hood I would REALLY like to know your technique!

My plan had been to try various techniques to see if I could take care of the rock chips and if I were not successful, or ruined the paint with my efforts, then to get the car repainted. In effect, use this car as a test bed for some experience that would come in handy. But when Aaron dropped the hood on the airbridge and cracked the paint, well, now I'm pretty much committed to getting a new paint job, unless there really is a good way to fix something like that. But not sure when I'll have the funds for something like that. I may need to buy a new hood anyway if I can't get more clearance between it and that airbridge. Not sure how it happened, but apparently the airbridge sets up higher now than it did before the new engine was put in. So far I haven't figured out a work-around for that problem.

Darn, Dave.... Sorry to hear that you got burned out on Corvettes. But then again, I certainly can understand how that can happen.

Oh wow! Yeah, a cracked hood is a little tuff. Some chips and scratches are usually fixable with a little, well a lot of effort, but well short of a paint job.

How about this bad boy hood from West Coast Corvette?

Yeah, that hood looks pretty nice, but I'm not quite to the point where I'm ready to start thinking real hard about it. Still got a few more minor things on the car to finish up before that happens. Didn't the stock 2004 Z16 model come with a carbon fiber hood?

Is the 2004 commemorative version the only one with the Z16 designation, as I think it's the only one that got the CF hood. But I don't know if it'll help any clearance issues you may now have anyhow.

Yeah I'd drive that bad boy and enjoy it for what it is. Then when you are ready to mess with her again, get her all shiny! Have you driven her much since the tune?

Ah, yeah, you are right. I was thinking about a carbon fiber aftermarket hood I saw in one of the catalogs, and that got me thinking about the Z16, and completely ignored the fact that it won't have any better clearance than my stock hood does..... Duh.. :banghead:

Well, to answer your question, DAMN MURPHY'S LAW! Last Wednesday I was walking towards the garage and something felt odd in my right elbow. I just moved my arm thinking it was just a kink, and when I did that something popped. So the last several days my right arm has been pretty much useless. Luckily I was going out of town anyway, and it's feeling somewhat better now, but it's still not at the point where I will be able to push that shifter. Pulling with the arm is OK, put pushing just makes it feel like someone jabbed an icepick into my elbow. Sheesh.... But I guess it will get better eventually if I don't push it. I've been wearing a brace on my arm the entire time, but it's astonishing how many times you will bang an elbow and not realize it if it isn't sending out shock waves of pain when you do so. It's like everything is seeking out my right elbow to smack into it.

I remember smacking that elbow while taking a shower a few weeks ago, but can't imagine why it would have taken so long for it to go lame on me. Maybe I've just been doing too much wrenching on the car and it finally caught up to me. I know I was pressing down on that arm pretty hard torquing down all the lug nuts, so maybe the elbow banging combined with repetitive strains did me in.

On top of not being able to drive the car, the hood struts got broken while the car was being tuned, so I have to replace them. Not sure I can do that with my bum arm right now. I want to change the oil again, but can't do that till I can get the hood struts on, and can't do that till I can hold up the hood with one arm and pop the strut on each side. Connie is willing to help me, but I'm not sure how well that will go with me being basically one armed. I sure as heck don't want to pop the elbow again and then be back to square one, or even worse, need surgery to straighten it out.

Whoa! Well, rest that arm then attack the car again.

Hey Rich I know how you feel about being one armed...4/19/2012 I had a total shoulder replacement...In physical therapy still, and will be for weeks to come...I broke my right shoulder 26 yeaqrs ago and finally had to have surgery because the arthritis was so bad, I got up one morning and could not move my right arm at all...Yeah it sucks alright. I still can't drive my Z or motorcycle yet...One day at a time ...:ack2:

Ouch.....

Yeah, I know one day I won't be able to drive a stick shift at all, but I'm hoping that won't happen too soon. Damn old age crap.....