MR HYDE IS COMING TO LIFE

[Dr Jkel]

Originally Posted by garcmol

Damn John, what did this shop do? I mean, nothing seems right! At least now it will be right and you'll know every inch of your truck.

I know exactly what you are saying.....from my novice point of view here is what I think happened.

In early 2003 I paid for ALOT of things that I wanted...rear end, fuel injection system, A/C, tranny, wheels and tires yada yada yada...some of the less expensive items he purchased but the majority of things he didn't.

I roughly had 25k in new parts and from the best I can tell is that he didn't buy the parts and spent the money on other things or to finish up someone elses project. He then realized that he had nowhere near the money to pay for the parts he needed....kinda hard to miss a fuel injection system and rear end.

So then he started dreaming up things I "Needed" and from what I can tell he started charging me for thing I had already paid for...when I called him on it then he started charging me for parts I already had.......The fuel injection came as a kit ( I just recently found out) with everything to include all show chrome A/C, Alternator, P/S pump etc.... it also came with the reservoirs......Well I later found out when I was buying the parts that I was buying reservoirs and other parts that came in the kit.....

Plus he charged me extra money on things that were supposedly done...like front end alignment.I was charged 89.95....sounds reasonable but in reality around here it should have been about 50.00...couple that with the fact the alignment was never done, 125.00 for charging and vacuum of teh A/C that was never done, plus 250.00 for an exhaust that should have been 125.00, especially since I supplied the mufflers plus the extreme amounts I was charged for paint supplies... I mean 1500.00 for 5 liters of paint is kinda high.

So basically he stole from me and cheated me or in the terms of the lawyer " Deceptive Trade Practices"

I may never get my money back but he is going to court one way or another.

[Dr Jkel]

January 17, 2012 Wednesday

Matt had finished the tank, got the new fuel pump installed, added a vent to the tank. Before he got everything installed he cleaned the inside of the tank and there was about a 1/2" of crap that came out of the tank. Have no clue where all that came from but it is clean now. At least I know there is no rusted items or dirt in the tank........Just a dumb question for myself about that....How does rust end up in an aluminum tank....Aluminum doesn't rust does it?

We finished up soldering the wires in the cab, inserted the wires into the bulkhead for the rear harness and ran it along the frame rail. Drilled holes for the kill switch and mounted it.

Installed the wire connectors on the passenger side door.

New starter arrived as well. So the rear of the truck is completely wired, soldered, connectors etc......Only have two sets of lights to run....back up lights and tag light......Just waiting on me to decide on which ones I like but that will be easy to install. So the cab rearward is finished. Only wiring left to do is to wire up the front headlights, park lamps and horn and that is about 7 wires so that aint bad.

The only exception is to wire up the passenger side power window switch and when I get the lights for the door to install them but I have to pick those lights.

Worked on making a template for the tank filler neck so that one can be made at the right angles etc......maybe this time I can fill it up in less than 20minutes and not have it splash back out of the filler neck.

Things are looking up and hopefully in a couple of days we will see if it will run.

We did take the computer chip out and Matt tried to read it to check on the tune but it was locked. Called Street and Performance and they said that they do not lock their tunes............. So Street and Performacne sent us another tune for the motor.

So we think what happened was that when the shop tried to make it run that the computer was shutting it down because the O2 sensor was reading rich. So to make it quit shutting off they raised the fuel pressure to max to make it run half way decent they went in and changed the tune parameters and then locked it.

Instead of finding out why it wouldn't run correctly they just jack-legged the tune and fuel pressure to get it to run. Luckily the truck had not been driven but 6 miles and in all honesty I don't think it was 6 miles since the speedometer was so far off.

So hopefully by putting the correct size vacuum lines on the MAP sensor, sealing the other vacuum ports on the intake, replacing the burnt spark plug wire, changing the foulded out plugs, properly grounding the computer unit and fuel injection system, properly grounding the entire truck, fixing the burnt main power wire, changing the oil that had water in it and ensuring that the computer wiring harness was ran correctly that it will run like it is supposed to............Hopefully soon we will know or sure.

Once we getting it running properly I will be able to take it to get the paint estimates and have the transmission rebuilt.

[Scrappy Doo]

Getting there. Keep the faith!

[Dr Jkel]

January 18 & 19 & 20, 2012

Didn't do anything on Mr. Hyde...life happens.....
Matt did work on the filler neck and got it ready to install.

January 20 & 21, 2012

My intent was to drive Mr. Hyde this weekend....that was my intent.

We started by installing the filler neck hose and tank vents. Got that installed and decided to put fuel in it......Imagine the surprise when the gas actually went into the tank and didn't leak all over the floor or splash out the filler neck.

Got all the wiring wrapped up except for the front lights......Put on the starter and you guessed it...Wrong one:( so we played the parts store relay for awhile and basically had to order the correct one......Unfortunately when they put the flywheel on the motor they used a small flywheel and that is fine...Problem is that if it ever goes out then you have to order one, so if I am on a trip to a show and the starter goes out I am kinda stuck. We will change the flywheel and starter when the transmission is built so that I can pretty much get a starter at any parts store.

Since we had to wait on a starter we checked all the wiring, flasher, turn signals, brake lights etc.......Suprisingly we only had a couple of issues....One of the LED turnsignal idicator lights didn't work, brake lights didn't work and we had the high beam and passenger turn signal lights wired up backwards so when you turn on the passenger side turn signal the high beam light flashed.

The brake lights was an easy fix.....pushed the connector in all the way... Change the drivers side LED and swapped the high beam and passenger side turn signal indicator....All is good

Everything worked electrically as far as accessories......

Sunday I decided to be a body man.... I was going to adjust the front bumper while waiting on the starter. The bumper was low on the passenger side and sat too far to the drivers side. This turned out to be a PITA and a big one at that.

I don't really know how it got so far off but trying to move one side up 1/2" and to the left a 1/2" turned out to be more than I think I was capable of......:( But I went at it. From the best I could tell radiator core support was too high on one side and when they cut the frame mounts to suck the bumper up to the body they cut they too short. I took a meatl burr bit and opened the mouting holes so that I could adjust the bumper up and down and left to right.....This took a little while.....After all that I realized that I would need some spacers to keep the bumper off the body......so Matt will be making some of thise tomorrow and it should help it.

Sunday afternoon we got the starter and installed it, check all of our electrical connections once again just to be sure.

Then the moment of truth.......Turned the key......and it started .......then died . Matt got the ole scanner out and started checking.....Problem is with a new system it has to run a little while for the computer to kinda learn what is going on so we tried again and I kept it running at about 2k rpms till the computer learned enough to see what was going on.

I wished I could tell you I knew what it was doing but basically the tune is off...There are certain parameters that were making it not run smootly......but we were able to check the timing and it was way off, so we adjusted it. It did stay running but just not consistently...it rund fine for about 30 seconds then struggles for about 10 then back to good.....Matt said it is strictly a tune issue and that he can fix it....just got to bring his computer stuff to do it. Basically the motor is advancing the timing when it runs rough to compensate for a portion of the tabel that is wrong...I have no clue

We were able to get the motor hot and noticed I had a header gasket leak so once it cooled down I tightened the bolts up and it sealed the leak. I did have a CEL light come on and a code stored. I guess since we wired the fuel pump independently from the computer that it didn't like it and throwed a code.....That can be tuned out of it easily....I just wanted the fuel pump independent of the computer....... so no big deal.

All of the other systems work...neutral safety switch etc... the only thing that didn't seems to work was the fan control switch. Matt seems to think that they system may have air bubbles in it and once we drive it it will work it's way out...luckily we installed the A/C in such a way that they fan automatically comes on so even if the relay goes out simply turn on the A/C and the fan will come on.

All is all got alot done this weekend...still more to do but slow and steady wins the race.

I am pleased at what we have gotten done though.....besides a few minor things everything is working like it should so far.....and the issues we did have were quick fixes.

[Scrappy Doo]

Still moving in the right direction!

[Dr Jkel]

January 23, 2011

I hate computers ......LOL

Well we got the new tune and that was about it.

I am beginning to think that this thing was sabotaged on purpose. There is simply not one thing right.

Well we tried to write over the tune but you have to delete the old one first. Problem is that for some reason it can't be deleted. Called Street and Performance and they have no clue but based on the reading we were showing from the Memcal and Prom it was no where even close to the right tune......Street and Performance actually sent us the original tune that was placed in the computer and it ain't close.

From the best we and they can tell is someone went in and re-tuned the truck and when they did they screwed up the Memcal chip. So in laymans terms it "Ain't No Stinkin' Good No Moah" It seems that the more the truck ran the worse it got.

He put a wide band on the truck and the A/F Trims were WAY out. He tried to explain what all that meant and what the computer was doing because the A/F was over 18 at idle ( the guage only went to 18) and after a few seconds it would die.

So I just left frustrated.............


Matt called me about 10:00 pm and said he could fix it. He explained it to me and for the life of me couldn't repeat it if I had to but basically the memcal chip stores engine specfic tunes....it is soldered onto the other thingamajig that plugs into the computer...It has a UV light thingy cover and for some reason it's broke.

So Matt is going to take the UV thingy out, solder a Memcal socket onto the board and then use an updated Memcal circuit? little computer looking thingy that will plug into the socket. He then will write the new tune from Street and Performance onto the new chip....bring it back, plug it in and then use his laptop to change whatever little gadgets he wants to change.

Once he gets that done and the truck running right he will take the chip out, burn another chip for safe keeping and then I should be good. He said after a couple of weeks then he will re-tune it to make sure everything is good.

I can't say who to blame for the UV thing being broke, the tune being way wrong........But I guess the good thing is that Matt can fix it and that is what is important.

This is supposed to be a plug and play system, hell they even have a 17 yr old installing this system on their website. So I am leaning to the shop scewing it up.

So besides the rear end everything has been touched.....might as well take it apart.

Tranny will be taken out this weekend if we can get it running right and taken to the shop on Monday to be fixed.....Since they are helping me out it will take a week since they are kinda working it in. Otherwise it would take a good day to rebuild it, but I ain't rushing them. Tim- Transmission rebuilder, hot rod racer is going to build the 700R4 so that it can hold 600 rwhp, since the truck has roughly 475 to the crank I think I will be good. Rear end is a 9" Ford with 31 spline axles so it should be good.

Matt doesn't seem to think any motor damage has been done by the tune being off, it has great oil pressure and besides an intake leak on the back the drivetrain should be good to go.......Checked the intake and teh bolts were loose...imagine that, so we re-torqued them.....Matt said that sometime aluminum intakes in aluminum heads need to seat a bit after the motor gets hot, that I need to check them for the first 500 miles and it should be good. We couldn't run it enough last night to get it hot to see if it leaked.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.........here's hoping.......

In the grand scheme of things it ain't really important...a lot of folks lost everything they had today with the tornados we got earlier this morning...just glad that my only worries are trying to make a truck run...now that I think about it today wasn't so bad after all.

[garcmol]

Man, I hope this tune loads. I don't understand crap with chips and and that, but thank God for folks like your friend Matt that does!

[Dr Jkel]

January 24, 2012

Well I understand a little more about computer chips after tonight......

This chip comes from a 1900-1992 Camaro/Firebird....when it was originally made by GM they soldered they chip directly to the board...The chip was a UV chip...Somehow , some way this chip got damaged and we think that the shop try to overload the chip when they tried to tune it thus rendering it useless.....What was happening was that the computer was seeing two different tunes at once so this is the reason it ran like garbage. In 1990-1992 if you fried teh chip than you needed a new board- ALOT OF MONEY.

So what Matt did was to take the chip off the board and he replaced it with a socket. The socket allow you to install and remove the MEMCAL chip, so if the actual chip is messed up simply remove and replace with a 5.00 chip that are readily available everywhere.

So now the moment of truth came he loaded the tune from Street and Performance, plugged it in and fired it up.............amazingly it started and ran.

IT DIDN'T DIE WHILE IDLEING

We let it run for a bit so that everything got hot and it did fine.

Matt checked all of their parameters....I didn't know there was almost 300 in this tune...so it took awile to go through everything.

Of course there were some things that he is going to change......I guess that is why they say it is better to have a dyno tune or in person tune than a mail order tune....Luckily I have someone who understand all this stuff and can fix what he doesn't like etc.....

I know he wrote for awhile on things he would change...he said most I wouldn't understand and it would take longer to explain it than it would for him to just fix it.

I do know that he lowering the rev limiter to 6000 ( Factory recommendation) he put the speed sensor at 140 mph ( I will never see this speed in this truck) plus he is dropping the idle, changing the torque convertor lock up points so I don't have cam surge and since he knows my driving habits he is changing lock-up to 62 mph. so basically he is making it very drivable, keeping the power range etc.....

He said that the cam is fairly aggressive and if I wanted more bump that he could change some things and make it a little more aggressive. He said that he wanted me to drive it about 2000 miles before he changed anything to see how I liked it.

I have never owned a stroker motor so I have no clue of what to expect but it pretty much sound like Dr Jkel and that is a good thing..Once I get my final exhaust on the truck I will be able to tell more of how it sounds.


__________________________________________________ _____________

Other notes........

I stopped by the paint shop who painted the stripes on Dr Jkel and gave him a paint code. He is going to mix up a little bit and spray me a piece to look at. Since the entire truck need painting I think this is the best way to go.


Hopefully tomorrow the tune will be good and I can drive it down the road a bit..maybe to the alignment shop and get the tires balanced to see if the vibration is gone.

[garcmol]

That's great news!!!!! Hey if you want to learn more about that ECM, thirdgen.org has a lot of info about it. Seems you have the same one I have in the '91.

Oh, and I didn't understand any of what they were talking about either. I've never had mine out so I don't know that chip location.

[thespymaster]

Cant wait to see this beast in person!

[Dr Jkel]

Originally Posted by garcmol

That's great news!!!!! Hey if you want to learn more about that ECM, thirdgen.org has a lot of info about it. Seems you have the same one I have in the '91.

Oh, and I didn't understand any of what they were talking about either. I've never had mine out so I don't know that chip location.

Well I guess the good thing about all this is I am learning exactly what I have. What Street and Performance did was kinda upgrade what GM originally produced, kinda made a show quality version of it and are selling alot of units.

At least I know now what it is and how it works.

Originally Posted by thespymaster

Cant wait to see this beast in person!

Kelly I will be so glad to get this thing on the road.....

[CamaroKid300]

Not this weekend, but next weekend are you free?!

[Dr Jkel]

Originally Posted by CamaroKid300

Not this weekend, but next weekend are you free?!

JT... I will have to see what is going on.

[Dr Jkel]

January 25, 2012

Well tonight was an interesting night.......it is funny how much you learn when you don't really understand everything that goes into doing something.

Matt arrived with new tune in hand...and before we started he said that don't be surprised if it didn't run like I wanted it to. I was like WTF we already had it running correctly at idle...and that is the problem it was all at idle.

Here is where my novice, noob experience comes in. Although it sounded ok to me, although it ran without dying doesn't mean it was running correctly according to the computer. Evidentially the computer learns itself once running. and stores the information in it.

So I basically got a lesson in tuning even though I have nop idea what he is talking about. He tries to relate all this to mean in terms of carberation and some of it transfers but most doesn't....it is basically the same thing except you are not turning screws you are hitting button on a computer to change things.

The BIG problem with all this is really simple.......Matt took all the data we had received and called Street and Performance. Since the wrote the original tune we thought we could give them the data, they could update the tune and all would be good....NOT....Street and Performance tune is a very basic make it start tune, kind of a beginning tune. Based on what we were told we would have to send the chip back and forth about 5 times for them to try and tune it...they would change something, send it back, we would try it and then send the chips back to them....This could take forever.

So now we are going to do it ourselves, really Matt is going to do it and I watch So after I understood all of that , I realized why it would run rough .

This sytem is not a modern system in the fact that most everyone is running LS motors which are more common nowadays..( years ago when I bought this motor I thought it was the best thing out there...a motor over 400 horses, small block......crate motor with a factory warranty.....all these years later the motor is great but just not up to date....This motor is more for racers who dont run injected systems

Hindsight is a pretty clear thing...it would have been so much easier to put a LS motor in the truck and be done with it, so much more tuning options etc.... Come to find out that Street and Performance and pretty much NO ONE has this motor with this cam and this fuel injection system....so pretty much the base tune from Street and Performance is just that a BASE tune so that the motor will run...BUT if you try and get any performance then you are kinda stuck.

So Matt is making a custome tune for this motor, cam, and injection set up. From what I understand about it you have to make sure the motor and all the other factors are correct at each range in the motor for example timing, vacuum, fuel/air ratio etc.....since it is all computer controlled. So last night we had the idle but that was it.....the 1000 to 2000 rpm range number were not right...vacuum and A/F ratio and timing were off......So as Matt adjusted things it still wasn't right and was really kinda confusing. Pretty much everything Matt entered did not work...................

Well the famous words of " Electrically it is right, MUSt be something mechanically" were uttered I should have known this was coming, just my luck. The only thing we have not taken apart is the motor on this whole truck so it figures that we would have to fool with it as well.


The first thing we checked were the fuel injectors to see if they were big enough, fortunately they seemed to be the correct ones, problem was they were DIRTY....There was alot of trash in the screens.

Since it was getting late we decided to quit for the night. We will clean the injectors, change the fuel filter ( Again) and Matt said we might as well check the valves to make sure they are adjusted correctly....He said that they were not loose since they didn't rattle but they could be too tight and that would effect things negatively........SURELY the shop didn't tighten the valves up, surely they didn't.

But tomorrow we will check the valve lash, clean the injectors and go back to tuning.......not as simple as I thought.

Matt said it would take four or five times to get the tune right since we have no baseline of data to fall back on......All of his tunes stuff is for LS motors and Honda motors...now he will have a tune for TPI......just takes time.