The tuning chapter... - Page 8

**Rich Z** · 11-22-2013, 03:02 AM

Yeah, it's been interesting, to say the least. And DEFINITELY a learning experience in a whole lot of ways. Mostly about how naive I was at the start of this project, and certainly gullible about what people would tell me. I am astonished at the blatant bald faced lying people are willing to do to grab a buck. I presume that they didn't think that I WOULD find out the truth. Or maybe they just didn't care, knowing that really nothing could be done about it. Heck, I tried to send Chris Harwood to jail and the Calhoun County Sheriff's office wouldn't do it even with black and white evidence. They did get me back some of my money, though, so I guess it wasn't a complete loss. But in my opinion, Chris Harwood DESERVED to go to jail for what he did to me and a bunch of other people.

As for Aaron Scott, honestly, looking back on it all, I feel like I was looking at two sides of the same coin comparing Aaron Scott to Chris Harwood. For all his supposed good reputation, I certainly learned that he was not at all above lying to me. With some things, in my opinion, he HAD to have been either lying to me or incompetent.

All I can say is that I sure can pick them....

As for the tigershark front end, it's still sitting on my work table in the garage. I did talk to a guy at the last local Crawfordville cruise in who owns a restoration shop out near the airport. I'm planning on stopping out there one day to take a look around. But I'm not in too much of a hurry with that. The wet sanding I did gave me a great shine and the car looks super from 6 ft. away. It's only when you get close up that you can still see the cat claw scratches that the car suffered at Aaron Scott's shop that I was afraid to try to sand out and burn through the clear coat. When I mentioned to some people I wanted to get the entire car painted they looked at me like I was nuts. Some thought that it HAD been recently repainted.

In any event, I'll deal with that bumper fascia when I feel like it. In the meantime I want to do some driving with the car without it being all wired up for data logging. Early on I was not only data logging, but running a mounted camcorder for every trip so I would have a visual and audio record of when the expected explosion happened while driving the thing. Fortunately that didn't happen.

85vette · 11-22-2013, 08:25 AM

Glad the journey is over Rich. Enjoy your car! I have appreciated the story but glad it turned out the way it did. What a ride, right? Quite the roller coaster. Your perseverance is admirable. So what do you do for an encore? What is your next challenge?

**Rich Z** · 11-22-2013, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 85vette

So what do you do for an encore? What is your next challenge?

Well, if I want to maintain the same quality of life I've been through most of the past four years, I'm thinking about maybe taking up homebrew root canals on myself while I'm flushing hundred dollar bills by the handful down the toilet. I guess I've gotten kind of accustomed to that feeling......

85vette · 11-22-2013, 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Well, if I want to maintain the same quality of life I've been through most of the past four years, I'm thinking about maybe taking up homebrew root canals on myself while I'm flushing hundred dollar bills by the handful down the toilet. I guess I've gotten kind of accustomed to that feeling......

I hope you're laughing as hard as I just did! I have a friend that's an Alligator trapper. I could see if he will let you wrestle one from time to time so you won't lose that feeling that you've become accustomed to!

**Rich Z** · 12-05-2013, 07:05 PM

Aargh...

Yesterday Connie and I took the C5Z out to Apalachicola and St. George Island to meet up with Mike and Donna for lunch. Car ran just fine. Up till we stopped in at Myway Seafood to stock up on some shrimp. When we were getting ready to leave, I kept getting Reduced Engine Power faults at startup. Had to try it several times before the error would go away.

Anyway, I went and made some adjustments in the tables that do the comparison of actual airflow to predicted airflow (C6101 and C6102) and raised the values 30 percent. The car started up fine after flashing the new tune, but obviously I need to run it for a while to see if that fixed the problem or not.

There is another value I need to fiddle with that controls the conversion of throttle body stepper motor steps in relation to the amount of airflow per step. Changing from the stock throttle body to the 90mm LS2 version changes this formula and there is a value (B4349) that is used to enter a scaler value. Stock is 0.0255. I have mine set at 0.0330. Some people say the value should be SMALLER for a larger TB, like 0.192, but when I use that value, the engine will not stay running after I blip the accelerator.

Since this REP is happening at startup, it's possible that the airflow values at that time are not correct, triggering that fault. Or it could also be an actual hardware intermittentcy. The only error code I can pull up is a P1516, which indicates a throttle position mismatch between commanded and actual throttle blade position. So it's possible that the throttle body blade position sensor might be flaky instead of something programmable in the tune. I guess I need to find a description of exactly what the PCM is testing upon startup to get a better feel for what this is telling me exactly.

Ah well, guess I don't want to get too bored with everything running perfectly on the car....

85vette · 12-05-2013, 08:36 PM

Remember back in the day how easy it was to work on the Holley carbs.....

**Rich Z** · 12-05-2013, 08:43 PM

Yeah, looking at all these tuning tables and settings controlled and referenced by the PCM, it seems like a miracle that cars used to even run back then. Of course, none of the cars back then could even come close to the horsepower to cubic inch ratio easily attained today and still get 30 miles to the gallon on the highway.

Kind of makes you wonder what engines will be like 50 years from now.

Benjamin · 12-06-2013, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Kind of makes you wonder what engines will be like 50 years from now.

probably no better off than we are now if the EPA keeps pulling their stunts and keep adding more and more emissions crap to the engines while requiring less and less CO and other emissions....

Kap142 · 12-06-2013, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich Z

Yeah, looking at all these tuning tables and settings controlled and referenced by the PCM, it seems like a miracle that cars used to even run back then. Of course, none of the cars back then could even come close to the horsepower to cubic inch ratio easily attained today and still get 30 miles to the gallon on the highway.

Kind of makes you wonder what engines will be like 50 years from now.

Yes it sure does......

**Rich Z** · 10-26-2014, 04:38 PM

As indicated in another thread I posted (http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forum...d.php?t=102142), I think I've got the tuning stuff pretty much the way I want it. The improvements I made to throttle response were pretty dramatic so I'm happy with where it is now.

Lately I've been playing around with developing a "valet tune" because I will likely want to get that new tiger shark bumper fascia I bought a while back mounted and painted, which will mean leaving the car there for several days. I certainly don't want to worry about someone joy riding the car (or stealing it, for that matter), while it is away from home.