What did you do to your car today? My car isn't fast, it's only 10s in the 1/4 mile

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > What did you do to your car today? My car isn't fast, it's only 10s in the 1/4 mile

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randomidiot: May 12, 2006; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 11 years!)

~500 mile round trip without a hiccup, aside from an obvious leak in the driver's door, uh... plastic sheet? Never noticed it as I haven't driven this car in the cold much, but cold air was blasting out from around the door handle and window switch.

Goes in the shop in a week or two for the infamous GM Delta body fuel pump module leak (plastic lines from the pump crack eventually; the official fix is a new set of lines from the pump to the filter, new pump, new fuel tank, and new filler neck, under an "enhanced warranty" good for the life of the car... aka "we didn't want to do a recall"). Now that the holidays are over I can actually take a few days off to get that done. Sick of the car reeking of gas.

Finally ordered a new OEM Hitachi MAF, showed up while I was out of town. Larrymer felt strongly that my on-again-off-again MAP out of range codes are related to a failing MAF, and the freeze frame data shows some really wonky air flow rates and air intake temp readings (idle also shows pretty high airflow for being at idle, IMO). Need to figure out if there's any kind of re-learn for the MAF, or if it's just a matter of "kill power to ECU long enough to clear it". Typical hot wire MAF that GM has used since the 80s.

opengl128 posted:

Been giving BeaterVibe some attention since I'm stuck in it all winter. I told myself I'd never spend money on it other than maintenance, but I drive it like a third of the year so eh.

Replaced the driver's door check for the THIRD time. Piece of poo poo. Snaps and breaks then the door will freely swing wide open then slam against the hinges. The inside lip of the door is already a little bent, since it was broken when I bought it and probably had been for a while. First two replacements were cheap Chinese parts, this time I got a Toyota part out of a Prius in a junkyard. We'll see if this one lasts longer.

It was sunny and clear and almost 50F today so after that stuff I took the Mustang out for a bit. Thing is a damned rocket ship after only driving the Vibe for a while.

Always get OEM for those drat checks, even if it means a used parts. They're a pain in the dick to rip out at the junkyard since the speakers were riveted in from the factory (as you discovered), at least if you have fat arms like I do, but if you're at a PnP type place, you can bend the inner door a bit to wedge your arms in. Also, the Prius one is a different length - a same-generation Corolla one will work better, and there's a lot more of those in junkyards vs Priuses.

The car is just a Matrix with a GM stereo and AC compressor (plus the body differences). The Matrix is just a Corolla wagon. They're pretty bulletproof cars aside from little poo poo (hatch struts and door checks mainly :argh:

).

What did you use for screws when you replaced the speakers? Just self tapping sheet metal screws? GF's Matrix needs a lot of love in the audio department, it's getting a new head unit and front speakers for her birthday (... and a new-to-her door check on the LF door - I've had the check for months, but I don't want to gently caress with it until I have a reason to yank the speakers).

Suburban Dad posted:

Swapped out a noisy wheel bearing on wife's 2015 Outback. Stupid car only has 48k miles, but luckily it wasn't too rusty at least.

But it definitely felt gritty and looked like it had taken some heat.

I've done both front bearings on my Saturn (not at the same time). One was obviously gritty and didn't want to spin by hand at all, and was too hot to handle with bare hands when it came off. The other? It spun easily and smoothly by hand, and didn't seem any warmer than the driver's side. Still went with my gut and swapped it, and it got rid of the noise. :iiam:

Even comparing the original one side by side with the lovely $35 one from Rockauto, I couldn't tell any difference between how they spun or felt. One just happened to whine loudly at highway speeds...

MrOnBicycle posted:

I have a secret love/fetish for the two Camry gens. around the new millennia. The older gen is cooler looking, but the new on is safer. As a proper European I've never driven a 6+ cylinder until recently - a Sonata V6 Automatic. I instantly got why Americans like their V6 autos. So smooth and comfortable.

So now I kinda a want a V6 auto pensioner-mobile.

Before I got my last car, I test drove an older Camry (older than what you're thinking of anyway). 1999 V6 with a manual transmission.

I haggled with the dealer a bit, they wouldn't budge on the insane asking price ($6500, for a then-13 year old Camry with 100k miles, no service history, and horribly dry rotted tires), Asked if I could take it for a spin anyway.

1st gear was absolutely useless except for making clouds of tire smoke, 2nd gear wasn't much better with those tires. The tires were pretty worn when I left the lot, they had belts showing when I dropped it back off and tried to haggle some more. They wouldn't budge. Told them the tires might need a little more attention and left. :v:

The car was a unicorn, but worth maybe half of what they wanted.

randomidiot fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Dec 31, 2018

# ? Dec 31, 2018 06:53

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# ? May 28, 2024 08:30

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

BlackMK4 posted:

I salute you for going full yolo on a new car

I enjoy loving around with my ride as a hobby, my job allows me to drive something else on a daily basis so this is strictly a weekends/evenings/trips/canyons/soon to be track car/hard parking.

hattersmad posted:

As an owner of a new Civic, I�m enjoying all of the tear down pics. I also have always thought the turbo intake pipe was silly/dumb. What�s the intake piping with the fancy turbo going to look like?

Meh it doesn't look much better but it should flow better, if down the road I move to a standalone engine management solution like MoTeC then I can ditch the intake tract entirely as the MAF will no longer be required and I can just stick a filter right on the turbo. There's also a bunch of room on the table for power due to the way KTuner only has a limited timeframe to inject fuel so the limits for both the 1.5t and 2.0t are currently fueling, this is not an issue with something like a motec so even on 91 there's room to grow. Unfortunately a good motec setup is going to run around $4500-5000 so that's a big old NOPE for right now. Perhaps KTuner will be able to expand the injection period but for now that appears to be where the limitations are for power on the stock ECU.

Colostomy Bag posted:

I would escalate this with Garrett. Or perhaps by proxy via PRL.

If they can't tap holes right imagine what is going on with the mini-turbine that spins at 100,000 RPMs. I know, I know...time is money. But for such a precision part, this one would be a hill I'd die on to get it right.

It turns out, after several hardware store trips, that the oil drain flange bolts shipped with the kit were the wrong size after all at 5/16-18 and 16mm in length. We picked up 3 different types of the correct size bolts and they threaded onto the turbo without any issue at all, all the way in hand tight. At least I now have a tap/die set so that will come in handy in the future.

These are not the final bolts we used but they show that the correct threading works without problems. :science:

So that means we got the turbo on! Fellow goon Carboy44/Rowebot assisted with the driving me around to various stores looking for bolts and connecting the oil/coolant lines once we mounted the turbo.

Down pipe on, mostly removed the radiator support bracket and pushed it up and to the right to give me clearance to get to the bolts.

Starting to put the intake and hot-side piping on. This was a pretty big pain in the rear end, especially reconnecting the hot side intercooler pipe.

Bypass valve and intake/charge piping installed and tightened up.

Didn't take many pictures here but I installed the upstream o2 sensor, wastegate actuator vacuum tube, other vacuum tubing for the boost controller, the intake cross over pipe, and the turbo heatshield.

I actually forgot to install the drat o2 sensor in the downpipe before I put the intake pipe on so I didn't take pictures out of frustration as I pulled it off and put it back on again.

Everything in the engine bay is connected and tightened up at this point. No shots of the manual boost controller, it's small and hidden beneath the cold-side charge pipe, zip tied to a bracket.

All buttoned up for the night. I have one vacuum line that I need to cap off, I need to install the PRL front pipe plus the Magnaflow cat-back I have waiting to go on tomorrow, and I have some fog light housings to install before I can put the front bumper cover back on and start it up for the first time.

Also yes, I'm aware the PRL logo is upside down on the intake pipe, I think it was a mistake in production or they sent me the pipe for the larger "race" MAF and I just flipped it backwards because it fit better. In any case this was the only logical orientation so gently caress it.

Shartweek fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Dec 31, 2018

# ? Dec 31, 2018 06:57

IOwnCalculus: Apr 2, 2003

STR posted:

Finally ordered a new OEM Hitachi MAF, showed up while I was out of town. Larrymer felt strongly that my on-again-off-again MAP out of range codes are related to a failing MAF, and the freeze frame data shows some really wonky air flow rates and air intake temp readings (idle also shows pretty high airflow for being at idle, IMO). Need to figure out if there's any kind of re-learn for the MAF, or if it's just a matter of "kill power to ECU long enough to clear it". Typical hot wire MAF that GM has used since the 80s.

Unless it's a special case, the only reprogramming you should ever need for a MAF is if you fundamentally alter it - larger diameter, descreened, different spec altogether. I might end up doing this on the C10, the 01+ Corvette (among many other V8 applications) MAF is bigger than the 98-02 Fbody MAF, and has IAT built into it. But you need to tell the computer what airflow corresponds to each frequency reported by the MAF.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 07:37

randomidiot: May 12, 2006; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 11 years!)

In your case - you're using HPTuners or EFILive right? Can you pick and choose what parts of a program to load, or is it all or nothing?

I'd think it'd be a lot easier to copy and paste the Corvette's MAF tables over, as a starting point, and tune from there. But I've never used any tuning software.

Also, I thought most Hitachi MAFs (which GM has used forever) had the IAT built in. Guess not. Or is there a way to keep using the separate IAT while using the Corvette MAF?

This is genuine curiosity on my part, since I've never messed with any tuning.

That out of the way, I know at least in the 80s, GM did use the same model # MAFs with a different revision # depending on the car and engine, and the MAFs had different responses. If you swapped the wrong one, it ran like poo poo. At least according to some greybeard F-body forums I've run across.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 08:22

Suburban Dad: Jan 10, 2007; Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself

STR posted:

Finally ordered a new OEM Hitachi MAF, showed up while I was out of town. Larrymer felt strongly that my on-again-off-again MAP out of range codes are related to a failing MAF, and the freeze frame data shows some really wonky air flow rates and air intake temp readings (idle also shows pretty high airflow for being at idle, IMO). Need to figure out if there's any kind of re-learn for the MAF, or if it's just a matter of "kill power to ECU long enough to clear it". Typical hot wire MAF that GM has used since the 80s.

Hope this fixes it.
_{...and I don't look like a dummy}
If not, we'll look at the data again and see what else is there. Assuming one of the couple MAPs you've tried didn't fix it, it has to be the MAF or a leak somewhere. It's not an electrical short, so there's not much else it can be.

Should be plug and play. Shouldn't need an ECU reset even, but it won't hurt and may be a little faster to learn fuel trims again if you do.

STR posted:

I've done both front bearings on my Saturn (not at the same time). One was obviously gritty and didn't want to spin by hand at all, and was too hot to handle with bare hands when it came off. The other? It spun easily and smoothly by hand, and didn't seem any warmer than the driver's side. Still went with my gut and swapped it, and it got rid of the noise. Even comparing the original one side by side with the lovely $35 one from Rockauto, I couldn't tell any difference between how they spun or felt. One just happened to whine loudly at highway speeds...

Thankfully, the noise is gone now. I was a little unsure if this was going to be the correct one (I knew it was left side but wasn't sure if F/R, but it seemed louder when sitting in the back seat). This one never gave any indication of being warm, even after checking all the wheels after a 2-3 hour drive they all felt similar.

STR posted:

I'd think it'd be a lot easier to copy and paste the Corvette's MAF tables over, as a starting point, and tune from there. But I've never used any tuning software.

Probably a good start, but being in a different pipe/orientation/etc. will make it different vs. stock Corvette to be sure. Can probably do some steady state runs and adjust the flow curve based on wideband output (adjust airflow curve to make wideband read stoich assuming you're that's your target for cruise speeds) but I'm guessing low speed and idle will be most different.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 12:38

opengl: Sep 16, 2010

STR posted:

Always get OEM for those drat checks, even if it means a used parts. They're a pain in the dick to rip out at the junkyard since the speakers were riveted in from the factory (as you discovered), at least if you have fat arms like I do, but if you're at a PnP type place, you can bend the inner door a bit to wedge your arms in. Also, the Prius one is a different length - a same-generation Corolla one will work better, and there's a lot more of those in junkyards vs Priuses.

The car is just a Matrix with a GM stereo and AC compressor (plus the body differences). The Matrix is just a Corolla wagon. They're pretty bulletproof cars aside from little poo poo (hatch struts and door checks mainly ).

What did you use for screws when you replaced the speakers? Just self tapping sheet metal screws? GF's Matrix needs a lot of love in the audio department, it's getting a new head unit and front speakers for her birthday (... and a new-to-her door check on the LF door - I've had the check for months, but I don't want to gently caress with it until I have a reason to yank the speakers).

Definitely sticking with OEM assuming this one lasts longer. I don't think it's any different in length, the part number is the same and the door seems to open the same amount.

I've only got 102k on mine so yeah, planning on it lasting a while. When I was shopping I was regularly seeing Matrixes and Vibes with over 200k. It's been a great trouble free beater for the few years I've had it so far.

Mounted the speakers using these that Crutchfield sent: https://www.amazon.com/Metra-82-8148-Speaker-Adapter-Vehicles/dp/B00IIC63P8

They come with screws and nuts to attach to the doors, then you just screw the speakers to the plastic mounting rings with the screws they come with. They worked fine, just had to trim the inside mounting spots to clear my 6 1/2" speakers. Even with drilling out the rivets its not a bad job, I had it down to maybe 10 minutes per door by the end, including taking the door panels off.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 16:05

IOwnCalculus: Apr 2, 2003

STR posted:

In your case - you're using HPTuners or EFILive right? Can you pick and choose what parts of a program to load, or is it all or nothing?

I'd think it'd be a lot easier to copy and paste the Corvette's MAF tables over, as a starting point, and tune from there. But I've never used any tuning software.

Also, I thought most Hitachi MAFs (which GM has used forever) had the IAT built in. Guess not. Or is there a way to keep using the separate IAT while using the Corvette MAF?

It's a table that can be edited, so yeah you can plug in the values from the stock Corvette tune. It's still a tube style MAF instead of a blade insert, so the airflow through it should stay very close to those values. The reality is that with all of the recent / in progress changes I'm making, I should probably pay for an actual dyno tune. Right now it just has things like EGR and rear O2s tuned out.

The early LS MAF is the same one used on most of the LT1 cars as well and doesn't have an IAT sensor. Part of the reason I want the newer one is to have that sensor built in, so I don't need to have a bung for it in the intake tract anymore. Signaling is identical and the swap is common enough that cheap adapter harnesses exist to plug the separate IAT and MAF plugs into the combined sensor.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 16:29

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

Started out the day by installing the new LED foglights. They are 5500k and don't really match the OEM headlights but I have a solution for that soon. The fogs are Morimoto's XB LEDs and I did my best to level them while in the garage, will have to make a better effort one night on a level street with a backstop for aiming against.

Got the downpipe and front pipe mated up.

Got the OEM cat-back off, it's all one piece with nothing but hangers and being bolted up to the front-pipe holding it to the car.

Most of the new Magnaflow for comparison. Piping is only slightly larger at 2.5 compared to 2.25, and it's completely round as opposed to oval shaped on the OEM piece, plus much smaller mufflers. I will miss the HDMI tip of the stock exhaust but I am keeping it because I think I want to use it for a custom 3" setup using Vibrant components and the stock tip down the road.

It sounds pretty bitchin for a 1.5l 4 banger.

Reverted back to factory tune then applied my new base tune for the big turbo.

The car is fully put back together and I got to take it out for a spin. I let it warm up and come back down to idle while inspecting everything for leaks, none found as far as coolant and oil were concerned. Took it around the block a few times, let it warm up then gave it the beans. It made 15.1 lbs of boost on that first pull, however, every pull after that never pushed past 10.5 lbs or so, indicting to me a vacuum/boost line issue with the wastegate actuator. I am going to review my setup in the morning and see if I can optimize it/shorten the hoses or find a better location to tap into for pressure/vacuum plus check for leaks.

The two metal hard pipes are vacuum/boost but apparently if you hook up the wastegate actuator to the top line it will never open the wastegate causing the turbo to happily spool to over 30+ lbs. The bottom line connects to the recirc valve. I am tapped into the cold side charge pipe per another CivicX user who purchased the kit, as shown in the photo below, but I'm considering tapping into the top line coming off the valve cover instead. People often tap here for boost gauges, I think it should work?

Overall I am extremely happy with it right now, looking forward to getting the tune dialed in over the next few weeks! The cacophony of intake noise, turbo spool, the recirc valve blowing off, plus the new exhaust is just amazing. Videos to perhaps come later and I hope to get it onto a dyno at some point in the next couple months.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 08:07

randomidiot: May 12, 2006; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 11 years!)