• Got the Contributing Memberships stuff finally worked out and made up a thread as a sort of "How-To" to help people figure out how to participate. So if you need help figuring it out, here's the thread you need to take a look at -> http://www.corvetteflorida.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3581 Thank you, everyone! Rich Z.

427 engine (part 2) - RHS block

85vette said:
That engine looks massive! I'd love to hear that thing run!
Click to expand...

Well, I'm TRYING to upload a video to YouTube, but everything is fighting me tooth and nail. First my system was crashing HARD whenever I would try to render the video. That eventually healed itself, apparently. Then Comcast dropped out all last night until I just gave up and went to bed. Now I'm trying to get the video up into YouTube and their site just hangs and kills my browser as well. Same thing happens when I use another computer to try to do the upload.

I'm about ready to strip down to my birthday suit and go running off screaming into the woods.....
 
Well, come to find out that the problem trying to upload to YouTube was being caused by my virus checker program... :banghead:

Anyway, here's a video of the car idling. You will likely note that the idle is very smooth until the coolant temps got to be around 110 degrees or so. Then it obviously becomes very rough and loping sounding. I should have run this longer, because it appears that the exhaust gets rather smoky towards the end, and I am curious about how badly it would get the longer I ran the car at idle. Maybe next time....

 
BOY, does THAT sound nice! :thumbsup: It looks, to me, like the "smoke"
towards the end of the video is carbon buildup being blown out of the pipes.
I'm wondering if it's running a little rich when the coolant temp comes up and
loading up the pipes with the carbon that's associated with a rich mixture? :shrug01:
Anyway, it sounds like it's VERY HEALTHY, and seems to rev very quickly. Must be
a handfull when you get on it! :yesnod:
Andy Anderson :wavey:
 
This video was taken after trying a new tune on the C5Z. Didn't seem to improve much and the throttle actually seemed more sluggish to me. So I didn't rev the engine up very high at all. Just didn't sound right to me. I also cranked up the data log capture since I had the laptop and cable hooked up to the car.

At around to 50 second mark, you can see the overlaid log file captured with HPtuners (but you may need to go directly to YouTube, full screen it, and use the highest resolution of the video) and it shows some puzzling results. Notice the misfire sections. There is something cyclic going on there, apparently. Got to figure out WHAT is causing that....

Has anyone seen anything like that before to point me in the right direction?

 
Well with my car being in a couple of shops for over two years, I guess it was inevitable that some things would get broken. So the driver's side hood strut got stripped out of the lower catch. I went and JB welded it together, but darn if I can compress that thing enough to get both ends on. How in the world do you do that? I've tried EVERY curse word I know, all to know avail...

Thanks for any advice...
 
MAN.......I've got NO idea how to do that! Maybe put the top portion on and leave
the bolts a little loose, then try to work it up far enuf to get the bottom in.
Depending on how close it is to going on when you install the top, maybe use
a piece of wood and a bunch of protective rags/cloths to protect the finish, and
pry it up from the bottom. I'm sure that they make a compressor for that, and maybe
one of the local parts places (NAPA, Auto Zone, etc) may have them for rent.
Good luck, and whatever you do, DO IT SAFELY! Those things are under a BUNCH
of pressure, and we don't need you or the C5Z getting hurt!
Andy Anderson :wavey:
 
Well, had a guy out of Texas (Bret - BLOWNBLUEZ06 on CorvetteForum) that I met through CorvetteForum willing to help me with the car, and he wanted to be able to look at the tune and scan results in real time using HPTuners, so we set up my laptop via a program called Team Viewer which allowed him to take over my tuning laptop remotely. Only catch was that my car needed to be close enough to my wireless router in the house so my laptop would have access to the internet so he could do that. That meant I needed to get the car as close to the house as possible....

shadetree_01.jpg


shadetree_02.jpg


shadetree_03.jpg



Notice the "high-tech shadetree mechanic hood holder opener" I used. The hood strut on that side got broken in all this stuff, so I had to improvise... ;)
** I can make these available for sale for ONLY $29.95, but you MUST ACT NOW!! **

shadetree_04.jpg


Anyway, I couldn't really follow everything that Bret was doing, because for one thing the car is do danged loud that I couldn't really hear much of his comments. Plus he is WAY above my pay grade with knowledge of this stuff. But he did point out some things to me. Evidently the passenger side O2 sensor isn't working properly. He thinks that it may because of a cylinder not firing on that side of the engine and that is keeping the O2 sensor from heating up properly. So before we go any further, I need to troubleshoot that problem and try to figure out what is CAUSING that problem. Looks like I might need to buy a few tools to help me in this pursuit.

He also helped smooth out the idle, as best he could with the above in mind.

But heck, I got to drive my car today. Even if it was only from the garage to the front porch and back again. Don't think I want to drive it any further than that anyway, all things considered.

So, that's where we are right now.... :shrug01:
 
You might try switching the coils from one side to the other. If the misfiring cylinder moves to the other side then you will know you have a bad coil or wire. All that this will cost is the time to do it. Just do one at a time that way you will know which one is bad if there is one bad. This reminds me of a time when I had a car all tuned up and picked it up at the garage and started out on a trip. The car would not run over 55 mph so I found a town with an open garage. After a couple of hours on a Sun machine I got desperate and pulled the old coil out of the trunk and re installed it in place of the brand new one. The car ran fine then. Up till then I had always believed the mechanics saying a coil either works or it doesn't. Well I had one that only half worked and I no longer assume new is good.
 
Yeah, heard a lot of complaints about these coils. Of course, ONLY after I have LONG had them sitting around waiting for the engine build to get to the point of even putting them on.... Oh well.

I found stock ACDelcos at a decent price, so I've got them on order. But not expecting to see them for a month. I can wait. Got plenty to do in the meantime. Also got some new coil wires on order, since half of the original ones I had when I pulled the car into Harwood's evaporated. These are extremely low resistance wires (like close to ZERO ohms), and I had real good results with them back then.

Still working on getting an wideband AFR setup. I'm probably going to be going with the Innovate MTX-L unit recommended by Bret.

Got some tools and diagnostic equipment on order. Heck, I just LOVE a good excuse to buy tools, so why not? Might be a real good thing for me to get more hands on with this car anyway. Been a long time since I've had a car bark my knuckles and draw blood. And this programming stuff certainly looks challenging and interesting enough to get that sluggish gray matter to firm up a bit.

I'll just be taking it slow and easy and not rushing anything. Not what I had hoped for finally getting my car back home, but it is what it is...
 
If my memory is still working I believe you have a Z06 in the garage. You might think about taking the coils from it and trying them on the C5. At least this would give you something to do and perhaps a lot of the bugs you have now with the C5 will disappear. In which case you will know if the coils are causing the rough idle and stumble. If that works then you won't be running around in circles with other stuff. What the heck you can then sit around knowing the real fix is on it's way.
 
Right now I'm just not trusting my luck enough to mess with the C6 Z06 at all.

Besides, I believe the coil packs are different between C5s and C5s anyway. Seems to me that when I needed to order new valve covers with coil mounts, they needed to know which model it was for because the mounting is different.
 
You need a wideband? I have a brand new one, in the box. It might even be an Innovate. I'll give you a real good deal on it. Tomorrow I'll go dig around in the garage and see if I can find it.
 
Oh, and to make something clear that probably was not. I feel I need to buy coil packs and wires, no matter what. I don't trust the MDS coil packs based on all the bad press I have read about them, and the ignition wires now on the car are just some inexpensive truck wires that Aaron put on there because the MSD wires that Harwood put together appeared to be a problem. They were at least a problem in that they did not want to stay attached to the coils. And I'll be quite honest about it, if Harwood had hand made YOUR ignition wires, would you want them on YOUR car? He made those wires from a kit because the original valve covers he put on the car (that had to be replaced because they were too cheap and flimsy) were too tall to accept the stock length ignition wires. So no, they are NOT going back on my car.
 
Gannet said:
You need a wideband? I have a brand new one, in the box. It might even be an Innovate. I'll give you a real good deal on it. Tomorrow I'll go dig around in the garage and see if I can find it.
Click to expand...

Sure Dave. Great! Let me know what you find.

Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes lately. Been contacted by a guy named Ed Hutchings out of Virginia who is supposed to pretty much the top guy with this stuff. He wants me to go directly to a 2 BAR MAP tune to just bypass the O2s completely. The guy Bret who has been helping me says he is about the best there is.

Going to cost me for another 2 credits from HPTuners, plus the cost of the 2 BAR MAP. And of course Ed wants to be paid for his efforts.

So heck, what do I have to lose? Except my sanity, of course..... :shrug01:

Oh, there is a guy on CorvetteForum who has a set of tested and working coils that he is going to send me for free to help me out. I thought that was darn nice of him. Wouldn't be till the end of December before those coils I ordered from Amazon were supposed to show up.

Do you all really think this is all going to end well? No, seriously......
 
....yes I do. The one absolute certainty is that one way or another it will end! How is the question that leads us on that adventure to find out while hoping for the best.
 
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