Car Updates & Adventures

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Cam

When I embarked on my Corvette adventure I really had no idea what I was getting into. I’ve touched on this before and even asked the question “Would I do it again?” The human capacity for hope is incredible. I keep waiting for a positive outcome and, despite numerous setbacks and disappointments, I still believe that success is just around the corner. I write this post mostly to put my thoughts in order. And, in general, I think I’d like to blog in a more balanced way- include both the wins and losses, so to speak. A blog filled with only the good is simply a fantasy and provides no real value to a reader (unless the reader is just the author).

Corvette

The initial engine and drivetrain installation took much longer than I expected. I was okay with that, because there was periodic progress. The first round of tuning and tweaking also took longer that I wanted and I got the car back after three months in mostly drivable condition. But after the injector blew out things just haven’t been the same (there are blog posts on events up to this point if you happen to be interested) …

Premier has now had my car about four months and I just can’t figure out what the hold-up is. On the one hand, it’s not a big deal- I don’t really have a place to put the car right now. And I want the work done right, not quickly. On the other hand from a customer service point of view this is not the right way to handle a job. I have been assured over and over that it’s nearly done, it’s their top priority, etc. but they just don’t make any headway.

I know there are issues that have popped up, but the resolution speed is, to put it nicely, slow. When there was an issue with the methanol kit I felt like I literally had handle it myself and after weeks of “I’ll get to it” I dragged my own mechanic up to resolve the problems. I like the guys at Premier, I really do. But if they have so much business they need four months to work on a car then maybe they need to tweak their business model.

For the final tune they are planning to have the car reflashed back to stock and start the tuning process over again (gotta start fresh!). But, I had thought this was the plan months ago. So to be at this point now is frustrating. And I hope that this strategy doesn’t result in another month of dealy. When I get my car back in great working order all will be well. But if they keep up this pace I might go mad before then…

Porsche

I thought I would be embarking on a fun new adventure with this car. And I guess I am- just not quite the way I expected :). After getting the car back from EVOMS there were still issues with the idle and the tachometer would hang when rolling in neutral. I should have paid more attention to those things from the get-go, but I was obsessed with another issue- emissions. Despite assurances that the car would be OBDII compliant the onboard emissions diagnostic tests wouldn’t initially run.

To their credit EVOMS did update my tune with missing OBDII components and was very responsive to my issues. However, the car was still unable to run it’s tests and when the engine light came on that’s when I really started realizing there was something else going on. It’s disappointing to get your car back “ready to go!” and have problems. I tried to troubleshoot some things on my own (even spending an entire day pulling out engine parts) but didn’t have any luck. I needed some expert help!

I took it to a company in Tooele called RaceCo. My initial impressions of them are excellent. Thus far they have found a hole in one of the intercoolers. It’s large enough that they can’t even do any other testing until it’s fixed. Unfortunately they are not able to weld it so it’s going to be new intercoolers for me.

And, after more research, I have determined that my Sport Button is not functioning correctly. That coupled with intercooler hole means that I may not have even been experiencing the car’s full potential. I wish EVOMS’s inspection had caught these issues and they could have been handled then and there. But at least I found a competent local shop and we’re getting to the bottom of it.

Update (July 12, 2013): Turns out the sport mode doesn’t work because of the aftermarket head unit (stereo). The car still makes full boost in normal mode so no complaints from me. Also, RaceCo was able to locate a couple more leaks – things that vent internally so I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Camaro

I had been planning to sell this car, but it’s become my daily driver now (you know, since my other cars are kaput). Unfortunately it’s also become the victim of my carelessness. I rammed the front side of the car into a shelf in my garage and it’s sustained a bit of body damage. Oops! I need to send to a body shop… I’ll bet I could just do it myself though (update: I did do it myself).

Some General Thoughts…

I try to keep things in perspective. I’m sensitive to the fact that these “problems” are not life threatening and pale in comparison to to what many others face. But in the end, even though I’ve brought it upon myself, they do cause me some distress. I’m learning to work through the annoyed feeling feelings and I think I can still manage to enjoy my hobby even when nothing is working quite right.

One for the road: Ripped off part of the front spoiler why trying to load the car onto a trailer. Whoops!

One for the road: Pulled off part of the front spoiler why trying to load the car onto a trailer. Whoops! Easy fix, but the kicker was that we couldn’t ever get it on the trailer. I had to limp it down to RaceCo. This is the fun stuff I live for 🙂

911 Stereo – Tuning It Up

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Cam

One of the reasons the 911 I bought appealed to me was the upgraded audio system (I knew I would be unhappy with the stock Bose system). A critically important element of a car – for me – is the way the stereo sounds. I took a bit of a calculated risk since I didn’t know exactly what I was getting, but I’m pleased to report it paid off.

The only thing actually advertised was the upgraded head unit. There was also a picture of two JL amps (but no mention of them in the sale text). The stock Bose system is fiber optic and I surmised that if someone went to the trouble of replacing the head unit they probably replaced the speakers as well.

When I first turned the car on the sound was pretty muddy and there was a distinct lack of clarity and detail. The sub was much too loud in relation to the mids and it was suffering from some pretty bad distortion. The staging was all wrong too. The worst part though was a ground loop buzz in both rear speakers. Not too impressed. The first step was to figure out what I was working with.

The head unit was a Kenwood DNX8120. Back in the day (say 2008) this was top of the line stereo. Lots of features (DVD, Navigation, Bluetooth, etc) and plenty of audio adjustments. I did think about replacing the head unit, but decided this one would be fine for the time being.

The amplifiers were, as I suspected from the picture, a JL Audio HD 600/4 and an HD 750/1 (both top of the JL Audio products and the same amps that I just put into my Corvette).

Poking around further (actually pulling a few things apart) I was able to determine that Focal 165 VR3 3-Way Component Speakers had been installed into the front of the car. The back speakers were also Focals, but I wasn’t able to determine exactly what kind. The sub seemed to be stock.

The install and wiring seemed to be excellent. It was clear that someone had dropped a good chunk of change this setup.There was lots of potential- I just had to coax it out.

I played with the adjustments on the head unit first. Aside from knocking down the volume of the sub, nothing I did seemed to make much difference. I removed the amps and had a look at their settings. That was the problem. The gain on the sub was way too high and much too low on the mids. And the filters were set backwards (cutting off highs from the mids and tweeters). I changed the settings on the amps (and the crossovers too) and it was like night and day.

I turned the gain down on the rear channel to eliminate the ground loop noise (I’m not sure if it’s ground loop issue, but the rear channel picks up noise from something). Then I boosted the decibel level of the rear speakers on the Kenwood head unit to compensate for the lost volume. Problem solved! With the amps adjusted the audio effectively responded to changes and I tweaked staging and EQ levels with some help from Jim, my audiophile pal.

Sometimes the vocals can be a little ear piercing (it’s not sibilance), but overall I’m extremely impressed by the stereo. The sound is now clear and full; I really like the 3 way component set in the front. The “stock sub” (powered by the overqualified HD 750/1) sounds good to me, but is definitely the setup’s weak link (I may replace it at some point in the future). Overall the whole system seems to blend really well. I’d venture to say the stereo is nearly on par with the Camaro and Vette now. Driving around in the 911 just got way more fun!

Camaro Door Sore

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Cam

I was at a business lunch the other day and we briefly talked about door dings. I felt lucky, since I couldn’t specifically remember ever getting one.

Fast forward a few days. I went up to SLC with Fran on a quick errand. As we were about to head home I noticed my Camaro door had a nasty mark on it. Looking closer a small dent was also visible and it became obvious the truck next to me had opened their door right into mine. What’s worse is that the dirt had been wiped away around the mark showing that the offender knew of his misdeed, had inspected the damage and then chosen to ignore it.

Here’s a video of the damage.

I’m not mad, so much as miffed that the driver of this blue Silverado decided that taking responsibility wasn’t necessary. Fran and I tried to find him, but no one stepped forward and we had a deadline which forced us to call off our manhunt.

What is proper etiquette for door dings (if it’s bad and you know it was you)? This seems like it’s more of a door smashing (the scrapes go up about four inches past the paint mark / dent). In any event, I will live and now I have empathy for door ding victims.

Did Someone Call 911?

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Cam

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (Virginia) I got a Christmas gift that forshadowed my destiny. It wasn’t anything cosmically significant, just a “If you only knew” sort of thing. The gift was a Gobot (the poor man’s Transformer) named Baron Von Joy. This “friendly robot sports car” just happened to be a Porsche 911 Turbo (930) and the Gobot quickly became one of my favorite toys. In fact, I still have him sitting in my office at work.

A few years later my Dad introduced to me to Condorman (Disney, 1981). I must have watched the movie dozens of times and my favorite part was (and still is) when the Prognoviach start chasing Woody and Natalia through Yugolavia. Five black synchronized Porsches (four of them 911s) zipping through canyons in hot pursuit of Condorman left quite an impression on me. You can watch the Condorman Porsche scene on YouTube (it’s in German, but you won’t really miss much).

When I started my company in 2002 I actually taped a picture of a Porsche 911 Turbo up on my wall to motivate me. This was America and I knew if I worked hard one day I would own a 911 (ironic that I was fixated with a German car? Possibly… if only the definition of irony was clearer). For the last decade I have browsed eBay on a quest for, among other things, the perfect Porsche 911.

Last year I came across this black 911 and I must have been in my “anything black and red is awesome” stage because I briefly considered buying it. Luckily I was distracted by a Camaro (the one that got away) and ended up going that route instead. I put the Porsche out of my mind. They were too expensive, underpowered and snobby. Yeah.

But my current cars helped me realize a few things. For starters I was getting tired of the color black. If you car is dirty, scratched or chipped nothing shows it like black. My silver Acura RSX always looked good. My next car should be silver. And all my RWD cars made me long for something with better traction (remember, I like driving in the canyons). My next car was going to have to be AWD. And the Camaro is so slow… I needed something with some real power, something that could run a ten second quarter mile. My next car was going to have to be fast. And then I found it: A fast silver AWD Porsche 911 Turbo.

It met all my criteria and then some. It was listed with power output of 780 horsepower and 830 ft/lbs of torque. Black wheels and carbon fiber exterior and interior accents really set it apart visually. And it had a Kenwood stereo with two custom mounted JL Audio amplifiers (my favorite)! Initially I wrote it off as an impulsive pipe dream. Even thought it was an extremely good deal it wasn’t exactly cheap. Plus the car had a lot of aftermarket modifications that I didn’t really know anything about.

I tried to ignore it for a few days but the car haunted me…. I started doing a bit more research. The car was modified by Evolution Motorsports (EVOMS) in Arizona with their EVT 775 system. The 775 is the approximate horsepower the car puts out. An AWD 775 HP car? Tempting, to say the least! EVOMS is a well respected company, the work was done in October of 2012 and the car only had 11,500 miles on it (3,500 since the modifications).

As I was imagining myself cruising through the canyons with the sun roof open it hit me: Would I even fit in the car? A sun roof can chop off precious interior headroom. In fact that was the very reason I had to buy a Camaro with no sunroof. Maybe I would never own a 911 afterall. I found a local company selling a 2008 911 Turbo and they graciously allowed me to sit in the car and check clearances (not a bad car itself!).

In some ways it would have been simpler if I hadn’t fit. Alas, there was plenty of headroom and cabin felt spacious to me despite my 6′ 4″ frame. And then I noticed a 5th gen Camaro with a sunroof sitting in the corner of the same showroom. I was able to verify that the Camaro has definitively less headroom. I was going to be fine in my new 911 Turbo.

Yes, I did what any rational person in my situation would have done. I bought the car (uh… um… okay). I didn’t want to have another experience like the supercharged Camaro that got away (I seriously missed it by minutes).

The company that I purchased it from (Expo Motorsports in Texas) was attentive and treated me well. The car had a few issues that were not disclosed- that was very annoying. There were also few typos on some of the paperwork (slightly annoying) but they got everything processed quickly. They also arranged to have the car shipped directly to EVOMS (for free) where it arrived safely after only two days.

My initial contact with EVOMS was excellent. I wanted to have them look the car over and make sure it was in good mechanical shape. They scheduled an inspection, answered all my questions, helped me select a few additional parts (tires, new Brembo slotted rotors and a replacement front splitter) and aligned and adjusted the car’s suspension to my preferences. The service level was beyond reproach.

Most of the car checked out fine, but there were a couple of issue. The car needed a new sport chrono gauge, new TPMS sensors and there was a parasitic power drain when the car was off. Unfortunately the drain was nearly an amp and that’s simply too big to ignore (turns out it was a bad comfort control module). After ordering in a new part, a little more testing and tweaking the car was ready to go. I am extremely glad I had it sent to EVOMS – it would have been aggravating to have the car arrive with the issues I mentioned.

Originally I had wanted to fly out to Tempe and drive the car home (I love a nice long drive), but my schedule ended up pretty full and so I decided to have the car shipped to me instead. It took awhile to find a shipper but eventually the car arrived here in Utah safe and sound.

My initial impressions of the 911 are excellent. The handling and driveability is superb. The car is also very fast (from a stop up to about 60 mph definitely faster than the Vette). Once I’ve gotten the kinks worked out and have driven the car for a few weeks I’ll do a more formal review.

Here are a few pictures from the dealership:

And just remember – Chuck Norris drove a Porsche (Good Guys Wear Black).

Rotors

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Cam

4/30/2017 – This post is part of a large release of “DRAFT” entries. Many of these these entries were never finished (and may still not be) or were composed but never published for one reason or another. If you run across one of of these in a strange spot or out of chronological order that may be one reason.

May 2, 2017 – Not sure whey I never posted this. Maybe because it’s not interesting? No… most of what I post isn’t interesting so that’s not good logic. I’m at a loss. Behold, I give you rotors! And it looks like it’s Corvette rotors and Porsche rotors. You lucky lucky people.

Oh nO-ring! A Corvette Adventure.

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Cam

Since I had upgraded my amps I was cruising around adjusting the stereo. In the course of my drive I hit WOT a couple of time (i.e. freeway onramp- nothing crazy). Something seemed off, but I wasn’t sure what. I popped the hood for a quick look, but didn’t notice anything amiss. Later I took the car for a quick spin to see if it was feeling any better. It had a rough time starting- died three times, then idled like crap and drove about the same as the night before. As I was driving a hint of gas fumes was present but I chalked it up to an old car next to me. Still, when the fumes persisted I turned on my heater and was blasted with gas fumes. I took the car home, left the engine running and had a look:

Probably not something I should be driving around with! I pulled out the leaky injector and discovered there was a pretty big hunk of o-ring missing. I bought some OEM rings and made the repair. No leaks, so that was a good start. But the car was still having some issues.

I felt like the issues must be related to the injector, but they seemed like symptoms of a boost/vacuum leak. The car wasn’t boosting past five pounds (it’s supposed to top out at six), it wasn’t starting well, it was idling rough and air/fuel ratio was much too lean when the car was fist starting. Here’s some video documentation:

Thinking maybe the o-rings that were used could be the issue (you can have an air leak through your injectors) I replaced them with OEM ring on the other seven injectors. Sadly, when I started the car there was little to no change. I inspected all the turbo piping, but wasn’t able to locate a leak. There’s not much more I can think of to do so I took the car back up to Premier to have them trouble shoot it.

They didn’t find anything mechanically wrong with the car, which was surprising. All signs seemed to point to some type of air leak. And all the problems manifested at the same time which made me think the problem would be mechanical.

The current plan is to reflash the computer to its factory state and start the tune from scratch. It’s been a couple of weeks, but hopefully they will make some progress soon. With nicer weather on the horizon it would be nice to get my car up and running again. I guess this is the price we may for progress. More updates to come.

Jeff Gordon Camaro Test Drive – Pepsi

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Cam

This is a great commercial and Jeff Gordon does a great job driving this Camaro (and it’s passenger) to the limit. (10/22/2017 – I guess they pulled the video… but rest assured, it was great).

Yes, yes- it’s a little too good to be true (but still a lot of fun to watch). The biggest problem with the commercial is that there is no such thing as a 2009 Camaro. Once Jeff and the salesman are seated in the Camaro it’s clear from the steering wheel it’s a 2012 model. And what’s with the cup holder by the vents? Word on the street is that Jeff didn’t even do his own driving. Fake reality TV is all too common these days, but it’s still well engineered to entertain.

JL Audio HD Amplifier Installation

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Cam

This winter has been so cold. There are lot of projects I want to do but the appeal and my drive is vastly diminished by the weather. However, there was a “warm spell” a couple of weeks ago – got almost to forty degrees – and I managed to sneak something in.

Back in December I purchased two JL Audio amplifiers (an HD750/1 and HD600/4). Since they are larger than the Kenwood amps that were in the car it was necessary to fabricate a new amp rack. I called up J-Wise and he worked up a beautiful new design and had it put together in just a few days. I painted and carpeted it myself.

Installation was pretty straight forward but took the better part of a Saturday. I replaced my battery and ran new power and ground wires. I haven’t had time to get good pictures of the setup, but it looks outstanding. I also took the opportunity to replace the connector on the sub-box with something a little beefier (the old connector wasn’t holding the wires tightly and had a small leak).

The sound? Fantastic. I don’t know if it’s in my head, but everything sounds super crisp and clean (which is what I like). The bass seems vastly improved as I can listen through songs that before were simply too hard on the ears. I can’t A/B test the setups, but I’m really happy with this switch and that’s good enough for me.

There are a couple of issues left to deal with though. If life teaches me one lesson over and over and over it’s that nothing can be perfect. I have a shorted RCA cable that I need to replace. It’s fine for now (a little ugly though), but it’s exacerbating the ground loop. One day I am planning to line the car with some kind of sound deadening material and I will pull everything apart, check connections, run new RCAs and reground things. In the meantime I will just enjoy!

CamHughes.com

Too cool for a catchy tagline! ™

Category Archives: Cam’s Cars