427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

[Rich Z]

Well, I got word today that my car is back together again, just needs a test drive to see if everything is working as it should. Haven't heard anything about what was done since the last time it was back together 3 months ago.

This upcoming Monday, my car will have been in that shop 8 full months.

Been a damned long time. All I can hope is that everything was done RIGHT this time.

[Rich Z]

Well, didn't hear anything back today. Wonder if that means that the test drive didn't go well?

[Rich Z]

Didn't hear anything today, neither. Must be some hum-dinger of a test drive they are doing.... Maybe they are driving it to Los Angeles and back.

[navy2kcoupe]

OR.............it got away from them and they stacked it up! That just might be a good thing as far as you're concerned. Maybe all the rain you've been getting has prevented them from test driving it. LOL
Andy

[Rich Z]

I got an email today and they are saying my car is complete.

No other details, but I was asked if I wanted them to email me the paperwork. Hope that doesn't mean that the bill is going to be such a shocker that I need to be sitting down when I read the figures.

Probably won't get the paperwork today since I was out running errands most of the day and didn't get the message until just a little bit ago. In any event, just discovered that the outside unit for our home heat pump is not working. Wondered why it seems it was running the fan for so long and having some trouble getting the house warmed up on these cool nights. So we have been running on auxiliary heat for I don't know how long. Nothing is working on the outside unit at all, but I could hear the breaker box feeding power to it click when Connie would set the thermostat to make the heat come on. Might just be a capacitor in the outside unit that went bad. The unit is almost 10 years old and almost out of warranty.

But I may have to be hanging around here most of the day waiting for a tech to show up to take a look at it. Supposed to rain on Saturday, so I likely wouldn't want to go pick up the car then.

Oh well, hopefully this drivetrain issue is FINALLY fixed correctly and I can just drive the car without worrying about some awful drive train noise threatening me with an impending failure on the roadway. Would be REAL nice to be able to put this headache behind me and just finally enjoy driving the car after all the years this headache has been going on.

And I also hope the bill doesn't give me a coronary. Had far too many close calls with cranial implosions and heart palpitations over this car as it is.

[Rich Z]

Well, I took a look at the bill. More than I wanted it to be, but less than it could have been, I guess. It is what it is.

Hopefully when I pick it up there won't be any issues. The game plan is to pick it up, then drive around close to the shop until I feel satisfied that there are no obvious issues that I can tell before driving it home. That will be the early part of the upcoming week. The condenser is shot on the outside unit of the heat pump system and the tech ordered a replacement. So it depends on when it comes in and he plans on coming out here.

I did get to replace the rotting wooden slats on the stand the compressor unit sits on, at least. Unfortunately, got a slash above my left eyebrow and a swollen cheek bone when I found I had bitten off a bit more than I could chew trying to help the tech get the unit off of the stand. Was just a bit heavier than this 69 year old body was able to deal with. Yeah, that is going to leave a scar.

[Rich Z]

It's back home!

Picked it up today.

That Monster triple clutch feels really nice. The flywheel must be lighter than the stock one, however, as I had to rev the engine a bit higher moving off of a dead stop. Not much, just enough to be different enough so that I stalled it at one point trying to move into traffic at a roundabout intersection...

But I did have a problem show up. Not anything to do with the shop that worked on my car, I believe, just something new. When I started up the car at the shop to take it out for a ride, it was fine. But while I was out, I stopped the car and shut off the engine for a few minutes. When I started it up, I got an error message on the DIC saying SERVICE ACTIVE HANDLING. Although I tried restarting the car several times, it never goes away now. So it's something I am going to need to look into. Not really any big deal, as I don't plan on racing the car, and really don't push it enough that I think I really need that active handling anyway. But still, I would like everything to work as it should, so I'll put as much effort as I feel is not overly burdensome to figure it out and fix it.

I plan on putting it up on the lift tomorrow to see if I need to touch up anything. Those O2 sensor wires have a habit of dropping down and laying against the headers if they aren't hog-tied real well, so I need to check on them. And just generally eyeball everything to make sure nothing is amiss. The guy who worked on the car is pretty sharp and seems real conscientious, so I'm not expecting to find any real unpleasant surprises like I had from some other shops that have worked on the car in the past.

Oh yeah, the tech found that the MAP sensor in back of the intake manifold was just gone when he pulled out the engine, and there was an air leak back there. Not sure how long that has been the case, since you just can't see the darn thing without a lot of effort. If I remember correctly, I just disconnected the wiring harness to relocate the harness to the new 2 BAR MAP sensor I had to use for tuning with the turbos. Come to think of it, I wonder how the other shops, starting with the one that installed the turbos up through South Georgia Corvette, did their boost tuning with the stock MAP sensor?

Anyway, hopefully the drivetrain noises are over and done with. I know I didn't hear a peep out of it the entire way home.

Oh, one other thing of note. The shifter is a LOT smoother feeling than it used to be. With the old Centerforce clutch, going from one gear to the next was always kind of a struggle. Especially from first to second when I could actually feel the transmission synchronizers working hard to allow me to get the shifter into second gear. That is completely gone now, and it shifts like butter. So I guess the Centerforce clutch was never really disengaging all of the way. But heck, seems to be par for the course with those past shops that worked on my car several years ago.

I did notice that my hood was a bit wobbly feeling when I popped the hood on it this evening. Seems like several bolts are a little bit loose. I was able to get to a few of them and tighten them, but the others would require me removing the hood from the hinges in order to get to them. Or perhaps I can just undo one side at a time, if I can get Connie to help me. But I think the tightening I did helped a lot, so it may not be anything of further consequence.

[Curacao]

I have fixed several EBCM for Antivenom using this DIY link.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-fleabay.html

If you don't wand to do this DIY yourself you can get it done by absfixer.
https://www.absfixer.com/

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Curacao

I have fixed several EBCM for Antivenom using this DIY link.
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-fleabay.html

If you don't wand to do this DIY yourself you can get it done by absfixer.
https://www.absfixer.com/

Thanks for the tip. I've got a few other things to do before I actively look into this issue. It may be nothing more than a ground wire problem. Seems kind of odd that the tech had the error message show up intermittently, and then when I initially started up the car when I picked it up, there was no problem. Then it started up just a bit later after I drove it about 5 miles.

Do you have any tips for me to look at first to zero in on the problem?

Been replacing the black plastic wire ties that the tech put on the wiring near the headers with the stainless steel ones I have. The plastic ones just melt and separate, and I have had wiring drop onto the headers as a result.

Also found oil in the exhaust pipe tips and in the bottom of the intercooler. The tech told me he had a problem with the plumbing for the oil scavenge pump for the headers, so it looks like he got oil blown out the exhaust and into the intake pipes going to the intercooler. Hope the MAF sensor didn't get screwed. But if I remember correctly, I did a speed density tune, which doesn't use the MAF sensor anyway. But I'll have to check my notes. Just can't remember all this stuff over the years.

I was able to tighten the bolts holding the hood to the hinges, so that is now taken care of.

And I want to change the oil and filter while it is up on the lift, since it has been at least 8 months since I last changed it. I had 2 quarts of the Joe Gibbs oil in the trunk when I dropped the car off, since I figured he would lose some oil when he had to disconnect the turbos. But with the obvious oil blow out with the scavenge problem, I don't know if they wound up putting more oil in to replace the lost oil. Which means they likely would have mixed a different brand of oil into my crankcase.

Found that the heat shield on the driver's side motor mount is not where it should be. It is facing frontwards, and the headers are in back of it, so the shield isn't doing a darn thing. Likely tomorrow I will see about lifting the engine up just enough so I can move the heat shield around to where it should be. Not sure why the tech didn't put it in correctly in the first place.

So it is going to be a couple of more days before I can just take it for a spin around the neighborhood.

[Rich Z]

Might as well post pics of the C5Z being back where it seems to spend most of it's time.