october 23 2009
i only had a few hours to work today, but they were pretty productive
got the exhaust bolt fixed. once it was glowing red, the old one came right out.
after it cooled off, the new one screwed right in with no effort at all.
once that was on, just a double-check of all the harness connections was all that stood between the engine & the bay
it took a little more finagling than the V6, but we got it in there
by the end of the day, the new powerplant was on the mounts, clutch lined up, & had a couple bolts in the bellousing.
as you can see, the pulleys need a good sanding
october 29 2009
finally found & bought my new a/c hoses & they cost almost half of what the original wrong one was gonna cost.
in the process of getting it all hooked up, i ran into a few interesting scenarios...
the harness has an extra a/c plug, which, i believe, is for vehicles with rear air and the connection to the accumulator is real tight on the oil dipstick
the new fuel lines were just a little bunched up, but it wasn't nothing worth pulling the engine back out & cutting further down for
the hose from the power steering pump to the steering box is a bit longer than needed
the guys at the parts store gave me the hoses for the 34" radiator
the top one fit anyway without creasing, but the bottom one just needed 30 seconds with a razor blade
me - being a big dummy
- bought an intake tube from the junk yard without the rubber piece that seals it to the throttle body.
oh well... this should work til i build a custom one
i went on & did the throttle body bypass while i was in there & just t'd it into the coolant reservoir hose that runs to the top of the radiator
as a note - 1/4" hose was not designed to fit on a 3/8" fitting, but that's the best i could get with a 1/2" on the other ends. it will fit if you coax it enough, though
after i was done with all that, i added fluids, bled the clutch, & ended up with this...
now...
for the moment of truth!!
battery charged, clutch in, key turned - all the gauges come on with that oh so sweet (for the time being) *ding *ding *ding...
key goes forward...
...
...
key goes back to run. key goes forward...
...
...
WTF?!?!?! 
key off.
✓ all connectors...
✓ all grounds...
✓ all fuses...
✓ all relays...
ok... let's take a screwdriver & jump the posts on the starter - ok... it's starting to turn.
... long story short - we spent about 2 more hours re-checking everything & making calls to Current Performance & Wait4Me Performance to see if anything could be figured out...
it's closing time - nothing's been determined, so i went home and started
this thread on 4 different forums. no definite answers
october 30 2009
first thing this morning, i get a call from Jared @ Current Performance. he's found something!!
apparently, FSCs have some non-typical method of wiring the clutch position sensor.
this was something they'd never seen before & accidentally overlooked when building my harness. all it needs is this little guy
i just stole it from my 4.3 harness
to go in the black fuse block connector, jumping F10 to F11
the fix is really simple - just pop the blue retainer out
slide the pins in until they click
put your retainer back in, purtificate it with e-tape, & you're done
now... to see if that
actually worked...
clutch in, key turned - all the gauges come on with that oh so sweet (for the time being) *ding *ding *ding...
key goes forward...
*char rar rar rar rar rar rar
*char rar rar rar rar rar rar
yay...
sort of... :(
at least it's turning
let's check fuel - pump's running, fuel pressure's definitely there (i didn't get the connector tight enough, so it was leaking onto the intake), tighten fuel connection
*char rar rar rar rar rar rar
now with starter fluid
*char rar rar rar rar rar rar
now it begins
... 3 days (spread over a week or so) of test lights, multimeters, phone calls to Current Performance, Wait4Me Performance (who happened to be at SEMA, so was almost impossible to get a hold of), stress, freaking out, yelling, almost cussing, OBD scanning, re-checking every ground & connection, buying all new plugs & wires (which i didn't want to do until after i seafoamed), and a whole mess of other things.
:upset:
the final determination - the coil packs weren't firing because the computer wasn't telling them to, even though everything else checked out fine.
november 9 2009
after determining that the only way to
really see if the PCM was the problem would be to put it in another truck, i had to find out how many people i know actually have a 99-02 FSC with a V8...
let's see...
there's 2.
one would've let me, but the truck actually belonged to her dad & he said "NO WAY!!!"
the other belongs to my recruiter. he said it was fine, so long as it wouldn't mess it up... from what the computer people said, swapping PCMs is fine between the same engine types... so we tried it. guess what... his truck had the same no-fire situation during the 3 long starts we tried. after putting his factory PCM back in, it started right up & ran fine. we killed it & restarted it again - same normal operation.
november 10 2009
computer is back in the mail for a replacement. now i wait...