Exhaust

I had the exhaust done last week by my friend Tommy Morehouse.  He did it at his workplace, S & S Motorsports.  The quality of this exhaust completely blew me away and was worth every penny.  It is 3" stainless throughout, including the mufflers and x-pipe.  Even the hangers are made from stainless rod.  Thanks again, Tommy.

Wiring, Wiring, Wiring

Not a lot of photos in today's post.  I have been trying to debug several issues.  I apparently did not secure the driver's side O2 sensor harness and ended up melting it against the header.  I had to repair that today and hopefully I did it correctly.

Pic of new connector:

My next issue is that the harness from Current Performance is configured to use a Trailblazer SS Mass AirFlow Sensor (MAF).  However, the engine is an LS3, and I wanted to use the LS3 style MAF sensor.

Here is what the TBSS sensor looks like:

and here is what the LS3 sensor looks like:

The problem is two-fold.  1) The data gathered from the sensors is different and that affects the tune.  I wanted to ensure that an LS3 tune would work properly without having to do a bunch of MAF-specific changes for the TBSS MAF.  2) The arrangement of the pinouts are different between the two MAFs.  The TBSS MAF pinout is below:

This is how the truck is currently wired.  The LS3 MAF pinout is below:

I need to move A to D, B to E, C to B, D to C, and E to A.  This should allow the LS3 MAF to work with my existing harness.

Finally, my gauges still do not work.  Contacting Current Performance has been fruitless, either by email or phone.  The best answer I have received from them up to this point has been "so either something with the wire are no ECU output".  I decided to try and tackle this problem myself.

There is a single wire from the ECU (2011 Cadillac CTS-V E67, in my case) that runs all Class 2 Serial Data.  Pin 16 on the C1 connector (Dark Green wire).

That wire runs into a splice pack (SP201) and connects to all of the modules in the car (BCM, IPC, etc)

I checked for continuity between the splice pack and pin 16 on the connector and we are good.  I connected a Tech2 scanner that a friend (Dustin Helton) let me borrow and was able to communicate with all of the modules and I was able to "sweep" the gauges; That is, I was able to communicate with the gauges with the scanner and could make the needles move using some options in the scanner.  This tells me that the wiring is good and the ECU is not publishing Class 2 serial data.  I have tried to track down information about the E67 ECU and serial data and there just is not much information out there.  I did find a blurb where someone had to have a GM tech "enable" Class 2 serial communication as that was disabled from the factory since newer ECUs communicate using CAN.  The Tech2 scanner only goes to 2008, so that I am not able to check the 2011 ECU using the tool.  Dustin knows someone that has a newer style scanner that should be able to do the trick.  

Will update when I have more info.

Getting much closer

The holiday break was a good time to get things done.  I asked a friend of mine (Tommy Morehouse) if he would do some fabrication work on my intake tube.  The original below.

With the tube like this, the hood would not close and it would rub against the radiator mounts.  So, Tommy took a crack at it.

Tommy

It came out awesome.  Pics below.

Tab welded on to add support

Vent

 Took some shots of the interior as well.

Bonus exterior shot

Shifter Boot Bezel

While the truck was in the paint shop, I decided to try and tackle the issue of the shifter boot.  The shifter in a stock S10 is much larger than the Hurst shifter used with a T56 and the boot would not look/fit right.  I wanted it look good, so I tried to come up with a simple, but elegant solution.

The pictures below are of the factory boot in the console.  The main problem is that it is a molded rubber and cannot easily be replicated in leather without a big headache.  Actually, I was told that it could not be done and look good.

I had just done some recent work on a BMW I own and I noticed that BMW uses a plastic bezel to hold the boot in place and that gave me an idea.  Why don't I make my own bezel?  Here is what I came up with.

I started out using a piece of paper and tracing out the hole on the console and taking some measurements.  The first thing I noticed was that the hole is not symmetrical.

I then downloaded Sketchup and began a new design.  I copied the measurements and printed out a 2D version of my trace. 

 I glued the printout onto some foam board and began some fine tuning/trimming.

After several iterations or modifying, printing, gluing, and trimming, I felt like I had a good template. I went to work in Sketchup to hammer out the 3D design.  The below pictures are some of the stages I went through.

Lip of the bezel

Adding 3D elements

Completed design

When I was finally happy with the look in SketchUp, I uploaded the design to Shapeways to get it 3D printed.

I got it back and it looked like the pictures below...sorry for the bad quality.  I didn't have good lighting here.

I spoke with an old friend (Chris at International Auto Upholstery in Sarasota) and he made the actual boot and attached it to the bezel. It came out awesome.

You can see how the leather is glued to the bezel in this photo

I had to do some slight trimming of the corners of the console to accommodate the "bunching" of the leather where it was sewn.  Here is the finished product. I think I spent a total of about $200 including the price of Shapeways, the upholstery shop, and the cost of the leather.

 Bonus, I had some leather left over so I had Chris cover the console lid.  That was about another $100.  So, for about $300, I have a pretty cool console now.

DBW issues

After getting the truck back from the body shop, I started hooking things up and I noticed that I have a Drive By Wire issue.  The throttle blade was not moving when the pedal was pressed and it was throwing a P2128 code (P2128 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch E Circuit High Input).

I contacted the folks at Current Performance Wiring (the people that I bought the harness, computer, and pedal from and they nicely sent me a new Trailblazer SS (TBSS) pedal, stating that the corvette pedal I had would not work.

I hooked up the new pedal and no joy.  Actually, it started throwing more codes (P2138 - Throttle/Pedal Position Sensor/Switch D/E Voltage Correlation).  I asked for a pinout diagram and they emailed one to me:

This matched the pinout on the connector.  I checked for continuity to the main harness (in case a connector was loose) and all was well.

I also ensured that the connections to the ECU where correct per instructions:

here is where each one of the pins go to in the computer C1 connector

A- tan   pin 35

B-LtBlue pin 49

C- purple pin 37

D- Brown pin 36

E-Dark Blue pin  47

F-white/black  pin   33

I this point I pulled out the corvette pedal and looked for part numbers.  I found one:  25835421.  The pedal is for a 2005-13 C6.  I needed to find the diagram for the Accelerator Pedal Position (APP) sensor to see if that matched up.  I found one:

This diagram told me that I needed to swap the Tan wire (position A) with the Purple Wire (position C).

Below is the harness after I remove the wires from their original position.

Below is the harness after I moved the wires to their new position.

I hooked up the pedal, turned the key, and I can hear the throttle blade move when I press on the pedal.  I haven't hooked the computer up yet, but I have a good feeling.

Couple of bonus photos...

At the Body Shop

The truck is still at the body shop.  However, we are getting very close.  Some pics below:

Put the door, bed, and some trimwork on today.  Will bring home tomorrow.

Slow Month

This month was a slow month.  August in Florida is just hot and muggy.  Takes all of the fun out of working outside.  However, I did make some progress.

I was able to run most of the wiring to the engine compartment and get it connected.

I connected the new 4AWG wires for the alternator and starter.

I received my driveshaft from Denny's Driveshaft (they do excellent work!).

I also found a body shop that I felt comfortable with for the repair of "the incident".  Here are a few shots of that.  He was able to salvage most of the metal here.  Almost zero filler in this spot.

He pulled out the vent and was able to do some work around that as well.

Some repair work on the passenger side door.