Hughes Family: September 11, 2013 – September 30, 2013

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Cam

Ah… the gaps in my blogging are getting bigger and bigger. Each time I commit to writing bits of the blog posts as I go. But I never seem to have the time (or maybe it’s just a memory issue… I forget). I may slow things down even more with the holidays approaching. I know I say it every year, but this time I might mean it.

We went and got family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. We’re still trying to figure out where this blond kid came from…

Here’s a shot of my offspring. There’s no prouder dad anywhere than me.

Claire had her 8th birthday this month! She invited some friends over and the they went to In ‘n Out (assisted by my lovely wife and I) and then…

… back to the house for cake and a party. I don’t have pictures but after the party Fran took them down to the Provo Beach Resort for a ropes course adventure.

After driving around our work truck for awhile it became apparent that I would need something a little larger. I decided to get another Tacoma (there will be a separate post about this… someday). I think I’ll name him Truxton.

Recently the kids had their annual school fair. Because the weather looked bad they had it inside the school. Apparently it was crowded, claustrophobic and loud. One of the moms said “I hope my kids love it as much as I hate it.” The kids did have a good time romping around, getting their faces painted and winning prizes. Chloe got a cute face flower too.

Usually for our dates we go to eat and see a movie. The past few weeks there hasn’t been anything we wanted to see so we’ve been organizing our warehouse, our garage and trying to get “important” stuff accomplished. On one of our dates we decided to try the Blue Lemon (Fran had eaten there once before). We both got fettuccine alfredo and honestly is was maybe a 4/10- just super bland. The soups we got were actually really good but I don’t know if we’ll give it another try.

Some good news:

I recently mentioned my ticket I got for having no insurance. Our insurance company wrote a letter explaining what had happened. Although overly beaurocratic, in my opinion, Lehi city was nice enough to dismiss the charges against me.

And some very sad news:

1981 ~ 2013
Our loving son, brother, uncle and friend, Thomas Lee Allen, passed away in his sleep on September 19, 2013. Tom was born to Silja and Lee Allen in Little Rock, Arkansas on July 5, 1981. He moved to Provo ten days later with the family. Tom was active in scouting and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. After finishing high school he attended UVSC until going on an LDS mission to Birmingham, Alabama. He then entered the aviation program at UVSC. Professionally, Tom was an expert watch repairman and received top awards in sales. He was also a VP of Operations for a successful internet start-up. Tom enjoyed being an uncle, flying, hunting, fishing, camping, and BYU sports. He traveled widely with his family and friends and got along well with people wherever he was in the world. He loved his family and friends who were a very important part of his life.

I want to add a bit more here too. The picture on the right is from when Tom helped me go pick up a Corvette in Miami Florida. We flew in, picked up the car and drove the 2700 miles back in two days. There was no better road trip companion than Tom. The hours flew by and we had a blast cruising through the county. Yeah, Tom got a ticket and ran over a rabbit but that was just how he did things. I have so many good memories with Tom and even though we had a falling out in later years I will miss him more than words can say. R.I.P. buddy.

And that wraps things up for this stretch.

Cartharsis

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Cam

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Carmageddon Blues

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Cam

Well… I wish I had something good to report. Sadly, we haven’t made much headway as of yet.

I got my Corvette back from Premier a few days ago. While it was exciting to have it back I have to confess that I’m a little disappointed. As I have said before I like the guys at Premier, but even though they had the car for four months this time (over seven months total) I feel like the car just wasn’t ready.

To be fair they did an outstanding job adjusting my alignment. They noticed my steering linkage were loose and corrected that as well. The steering wheel is aligned now, no dead spots, the car drives straight and feels nice and tight. It’s a huge improvement and it’s a blast to drive.

I understand that I’ve essentially built a race car and some drivability elements have been compromised but some things could be better. After driving my Corvette for a few days I’ve identified several issues that I consider “in need of a second look.” I feel like these things need to get fixed for me to really enjoy the car.

1. RPM surging & Stalling

Sometimes when the car if moving and I push in the clutch (e.g., to shift) the RMPs will swing between 500 and 1200 before stabilizing at around 800. Once in awhile when the clutch is pressed the RMPs drop to 0 and the car stalls:

I realize I’ve got the RMPs pretty low in this video. At first I was just coming off the freeway and let my RMPs get low before shifting and the car died. I tried to replicate it by keeping the RPM’s down (seemed like it sort of worked).

After talking with some people and giving this some thought I think I’m experiencing cam reversion. Since the car has a MAF tune some of the engine air is getting pushed back up (I have a pretty big cam) toward the sensor and this affecting the car’s ability to meter air correctly, especially as the car transitions into neutral / idle RPMs. Considering I have a MAF tune the car runs really well, but I think I may need to switch it to a speed density tune.

2. Dieseling

After breaking the car in I had new Injectors installed (ID 1000s) and that’s when I noticed the engine run on. Premier did swap out the injectors and try to address it in the tune but the problem persists.

Personally I think it might be related to an air leak, possibly the spark plugs, or maybe carbon build up on the internals (creating a hot spot). I will keep working on it. I guess it’s not really a big deal- if I clip the throttle up to 1500 rpms it shuts off just fine.

3. Long Term Fuel Trims (LTFT) are rising:

Probably out of paranoia I checked my LTFT and noticed they were at +18%. When I checked the LTFTs the next day they had risen to 24%. I suppose the only real downside to this is that the car is mighty smelly and mileage is wicked bad.

This could be related to an air leak. It seems like running that rich could certainly contribute to engine run on too. It might also be in the tuning- seems like that would be negligent tuning though.

4. Boost Controller

This is really the only thing I have to get fixed. I have an AMS-1000. Lung and Premier worked to set up the boost controller, but it’s having some issues. After doing a few runs with the boost controller I noticed there were several issues. With the unit “off” the car boosts to 6psi (wastegate spring is 6 pounds). On each subsequent WOT run the car looses boost (maybe a pound or so). That shouldn’t be happening. If “high boost” mode is activated (13psi) it seems to work okay. But then when the system is shut back off the car only boosts to around 2psi.

I looked over all the connections (that I could see) and I didn’t find any lose hoses. I think this issue could be related to an air leak or it’s either plumbed wrong or the decrease solenoid is having an issue (which seems unlikely, as it resets okay when the car is restarted). It’s annoying that it “worked” for Premier. They must not have done much testing…

I actually unhooked the AMS-1000 a few days ago since it was misbehaving. The car seems to work much better and boosts to at least 6 psi now on every pull. However for a brief period of time the car was boosting to 10psi… I don’t have any explanation for that at the moment.

I did decide to give the Vette a little love. I replaced all the interior lights with LEDs (I like how LEDs look way more than incandescent lights). And even though it’s not perfect the car makes 1000+ hp now so I upgraded the car’s badge.

I took the Vette up to RaceCo today and swapped it for the Porsche (I don’t feel like Premier can do any more at this point). I’m hopeful that they will be able to identify any mechanical issues the car has (i.e. air leak) and we can go from there!

RaceCo said the Porsche was ready to rock and roll. The intercoolers were replaced, the long term fuel trims were holding steady and the car was running great. I picked it up earlier this afternoon (well, swapped it) and it was running great for about 25 miles or so.

I stopped and got gas and after a few minutes the CEL popped on. Doh! I thought about turning around, but hoped that maybe it was just a gas cap issue since the car seemed to be running fine. But after another ten miles or so it was clear it wasn’t the gas cap. The RMPs were going nuts when the car was in neutral. By the time I got it home the idle speed had jumped to nearly 1600 RMPs.
I pulled the codes from the car and it was like dejavoo!

P2279 (Intake Air System Leak), P0507 (Idle Control System RPM Above Expected), P2177 (System To Lean Off Idle Speed Bank 1) and P2179 (System To Lean Off Idle Speed Bank 2). I’m pretty sure the last three codes are caused by the first though. The long term fuel trims were both over +31%. Do I have a gift or what? Back it goes!

The only thing I can think that might have causes the issue was the the road leading to the gas station- it was extremely bumpy. I guess it’s possible something popped off. Going home I never had the car over 4000 RMPs (no crazy WOT pulls or anything). I hope it’s just something simple.Update (July 11, 2013): There’s no more leaks that they can find. RaceCo talk with EVOMS and they are hammering out a battle plan to find the problem. Fingers crossed.

At least I have the Camaro (old faithful, I call it). I was considering doing a street tune on it, but have since decided just to leave it totally stock (and these days I’m starting to feel glad I wasn’t able to buy the modified Camaro I had my eye on). I don’t see any reason to mess with something that’s working, especially given my propensity for car problems. I do want to get the damage to the front of the car repaired, so I’ll need to address that at some point. I may even try and pop the dent out myself, but that can wait for now.

Here’s hoping next week is better! And yes, for the curious, I have “real” problems too. Perspective, perspective.

I leave you with this video on my dancing tachometer:

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!

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.

Hughes Family: January 14th, 2013 – January 25, 2012

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Cam

I feel like a broken record, but where does the time go? As I have mentioned in similar posts it’s too cold to actually be doing anything. I’ll start out this post with proof:

Last week our main water pipe froze. We had no water all of Saturday and part of Sunday. I’m not really sure why the pipe froze- it wasn’t as cold as it has been, and none of our neighbors were affected. Lehi City was nice enough to send someone out on Saturday to check the water meter (sometimes they freeze), but that wasn’t the problem. I ran a hair dryer on the water pipe going out of the house pretty much all day. We gathered snow and melted it for use in the toilets and drank bottled water. We are survivors.

The kids and I spent an afternoon playing with paper. Don’t underestimate the amount of enjoyment that can be derived from plant fiber and scissors!

Fran took the kids to the Aquarium (and in case you haven’t visited before, it’s very cool!). This is the first time that Chloe sort of knew what was going on- you can see that look of wonder etched onto her face here.

Fran and Claire went to see a BYU production of The Phantom of the Opera (Mike wasn’t interested and kids under six weren’t allowed so I stayed home… but secretly felt the same way Mike did). The consensus between attendees was that it was good, but long and slow in some parts.
I went with some friends to see Arnold’s latest fiasco, Last Stand. It some ways it was classic Arnold- tons of action, over the top violence and a lot of fun. Still, Schwarzenegger is starting to show his age and his movie days may be over. I loved the ZR1 action and was happily surprised when the movie culminated in a Corvette vs. Camaro showdown in a cornfield (I missed that particular trailer).

Claire is the sweetest kid. She makes adorable little cards and cute drawings for us all the time. This past week she made a shopping bag-shaped card holder and a giant pop-up card. Some of her sweetness has rubbed off on Gabe and he also gives us cards from time to time. There is nothing better than getting hand made gifts from your kids.

I decided to try out the Nike Fuel Band. It certainly gets high marks for coolness and design, but I’m not quite sure it always knows what’s going on. Time will tell and at the very least the Fuel Band will be a fun way to keep track of my activity levels.

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