Mid Life Crisis - 2010 SS M6

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by HammerZL1

Talk with you tonight...kinda, sorta, maybe, right?



Not a problem, call and we'll see if it meets our schedules. You do have heat in your garage, right. Later

The garage is insulated and kind of heated, but it's not the most comfortably warm area of the house. If you don't hear from me by 8, then I might have forgotten. Feel free to give me a call if you can remember better than I can!!

[zlathim]

Of course i got busy last night and forgot to call you John. I'm sorry.

[zlathim]

I got the camshaft installed over the weekend. Here is the cam that I installed, along with new Comp Cams valve springs and push rods:



My 15 year old son, Zach helping with the tear-down. That look on his face is probably him daydreaming about driving the Camaro. He just got his learner's permit:



These cars are relatively easy to work on. There are a few hard to get to bolts here and there, but for the most part it was smooth sailing to get the front of the engine disassembled:




And the camshaft is in:





I highly recommend the Comp Cams valve spring compressor for doing the springs in the car. You can see it installed here, but the push plate isn't on:


Here it is fully installed on cylinder #2:



I got the cam and springs all installed with no issues. Sharp eyed people will notice that I replaced on side of the tensioner plastic because I must have broken the old one moving the timing chain around. I am not replacing the oil pump, so I didn't want to pull it out to replace the entire tensioner assembly, so i just replaced the one plastic piece that was broken and called it good. DynoSteve sent me a base tune and I will be data-logging today to refine it.

A big shout out to Johm (Hammer ZL1 on the forums) for dropping by to see the progress and do some bench racing!!

[HammerZL1]

Thanks for the kudos Zane. I really intended on coming by and helping more (couldn't help any less right), just didn't work out with the holiday and everything. Hope the car runs as good as you wanted/expected. Glad your son was able to help and learn from the experience.

The shift light is supposed to be here tomorrow, maybe we can get together and try it in your car this weekend.

Kudos to you for tackling all this work yourself.

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by HammerZL1

Thanks for the kudos Zane. I really intended on coming by and helping more (couldn't help any less right), just didn't work out with the holiday and everything. Hope the car runs as good as you wanted/expected. Glad your son was able to help and learn from the experience.

The shift light is supposed to be here tomorrow, maybe we can get together and try it in your car this weekend.

Kudos to you for tackling all this work yourself.

Thanks, John. I wasn't in too much of a hurry when you stopped by because I was still waiting on a few parts and a tool for the A/C belt, so there wasn't much to do at that point. It was still cool to have you drop by. I have about 15 hours in this phase of the build, so spread over 3 days it was an easy workload.

Yes, let's meet up for coffee or something and try out your new light this weekend.

[HammerZL1]

Sounds good. I'll give you a call to confirm it's here and we can make plans then.

[zlathim]

I'll be looking forward to it.

[Deputy347k9]

For a mid life crisis you sure are doing a wonderful job! I have enjoyed reading all three pages of the progression. Your a blessed and fortunate man that your able to do majority of the work.

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by Deputy347k9

For a mid life crisis you sure are doing a wonderful job! I have enjoyed reading all three pages of the progression. Your a blessed and fortunate man that your able to do majority of the work.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you are enjoying the thread. As of now, the planned build is about 90% done but about $7K over budget. I'm planning to have the car ready to race this Spring and luckily most of the expensive stuff is done! Stay tuned because I'll be posting videos of racing in the Spring and Summer.


PS- That's a beautiful German Sheppard!

[zlathim]

Just an update on the car. I ended up (through a serious of circumstances) not being able to get my tune revised by DynoSteve before SCT shut down the Advantage system. I did my data logging and sent it to Steve, but he had a bunch of other guys doing the same thing and I guess my data logs got to Steve too late to make the cut-off. Not Steve's fault, but the tune is far from acceptable at this point.

When I start the car (hot or cold start is the same), I must keep the rpms above about 2k for a minute while slowly letting my foot off the accelerator pedal, otherwise the engine dies. Eventually the car will idle at about 900 rpm on it's own.

When you drive the car and you are coming up to s stop sign or light and push in the clutch, the rpms drop to about 400, then surge up to 1700 rpm or so and see-saw back and forth a few cycles before it evens out or dies on the low end of the see-saw. If I push in the clutch with the car at about 1000 rpm, it will usually settle into a 900 rpm idle on its own, but not always.

At slow speeds, under 2000 rpm, the car surges, bucks and jerks until you raise the rpms. It makes driving in traffic very difficult, if not downright embarrasing.

At cruise and under WOT, the car seems to be decent, but I can't help wonder if I'm getting all of the potential out of the new cam.

Having the loudest car in the traffic que and having it die and then needing to keep it at 2000k rpm when you restart it is extremely embarrassing. I'm only driving it at all in hopes the ECM will learn.

Steve said that if I drive the car, the ECM will "learn" and the idle and all the other stuff will eventually get better. I have no idea how long that takes, but 3 days of driving back and forth to work haven't made any difference at all.

The easy solution is to take it to someone and have it dyno-tuned. The problem with that is that I am not aware of any local tuners with a good reputation. I know there are a couple of shops in town that advertise dyno-tuning, but I haven't found anyone that can give me a solid recommendation or any feedback for that matter. I'm very hesitant to have it dyno-tuned locally at this point, but I might have no choice.

[KJZ28]

You got busy fast!

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by KJZ28

You got busy fast!

Ha Ha! Yes I did. I had a plan kinda sketched out before I even bought the car. When I got it in September, I knew that I had until January 31st to do any mods if I wanted to do them in my current garage work space. Our lease is up and we are moving, but at the time, I didn't know if I would end up with a garage or not so I opted to get everything done before the end of January.

[zlathim]

DynoSteve can tune again. Steve sent me a new base tune the other day, which I loaded before I left for work. Immediately I knew it was better because the car started right up on a cold start and I didn't have to touch the throttle. It still dies at stoplights occasionally which is a problem. I recorded some data-logs and sent them to Steve, who refined the tune. After loading the refined tune yesterday, the car feels better at low rpms, but still dies in traffic under certain circumstances. On the positive side, the top end feels very strong. I have no complaints there.

[HammerZL1]

Glad you got it worked out Zane.