Mid Life Crisis - 2010 SS M6

[JooktheSnooke]

so is a remote tune all thats needed or would a dyno be the most beneficial to get the most out of the mods? i have done all the mods in my sig over the fall then put the car to sleep for the winter. will be taking it for a tune come spring but am debating to dyno it or remote tune it

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by HammerZL1

Glad you got it worked out Zane.

Thanks John! I will be moving this weekend, but we will get together soon and try out that new shift light.

Originally Posted by JooktheSnooke

so is a remote tune all thats needed or would a dyno be the most beneficial to get the most out of the mods? i have done all the mods in my sig over the fall then put the car to sleep for the winter. will be taking it for a tune come spring but am debating to dyno it or remote tune it

I went with the remote tunes because I knew I was going to be needing several revised tunes as my build progressed. Now that I'm basically done with this phase of the build, I have been considering a dyno-tune to make sure I'm not leaving any power on the table. My problem is that there are very few dyno-tuners in Boise. I did finally get a recommendation, and I went down to Throttle Works and toured their shop/talked to the tuner. They look like they know what they are doing, but they want about $800 to tune my car. That's a lot more than most people on this site are paying, so I'm gonna hold off until at least Spring.

[zlathim]

I finally got around to installing the AEM wideband guage that I've had since September. My son helped me pull the DS header off:



I took the header over to a friend's shop and he welded the bung in for me. We had to put a 7/8" hole in the header collector so the shoulder on the bung is flush with the surface. I didn't get a picture, but we used a drill press and a end mill type hole cutter. We had a little trouble with the cutter walking on us, as you can see from the scratches but it worked. Cutting a 7/8" hole in stainless on an uneven surface is tough. If it wasn't for my buddy Mark Collins, I would have made a mess of this. His cutter made all of the difference. Sorry for not getting a pic of that process. The bung is in the hole up to the shoulder and ready to be welded in:



TIG welded:



Sensors test fitted:



Header back in with sensors installed:



I ran the wires through the hole in the cabin filter housing. I lost the factory grommet, so I need to pick one up from the part store:



Routed along another wire loom across the passenger side footwell and across the tranny hump to the driver side. Oops, looks like I forgot to snip a ziptie tail:



I installed an "add a circuit" into J17, had to bend it a bit but it worked in the tight space. The wires enter the defroster duct through a hole I drilled in it. Sealed it back over with black RTV:




I installed the gauge in a pod that replaces a defroster vent. I'm really happy with the way that it looks. I have it set to read Lambda:



I ran the serial wire and a ground back across the tranny hump, then installed a DB-9 and a serial to USB adapter in the glove box. The car is ready to datalog now:





I also decided I like the grey bezel on the new gauge because it matches the factory gauge accents:

[zlathim]

Today I spent a few hours getting the car ready for a dyno-tune on March 4th.

I checked the compression:
#1 - 190 #2 - 185
#3 - 185 #4 - 185
#5 - 175 #6 - 183
#7 - 179 #8 - 183

Those numbers were obtained with the engine warmed up and WOT during cranking. I'm happy with the numbers and there is only about 7% difference from high to low.

I checked the resistance of my fairly new Taylor 409 wires. The specs are 350 ohms per foot and the wires are less than a foot long. 7 wires measured 219 -255 ohms, while the last one was 650 ohms. That one is out of spec. I have an email in to Taylor for help.

I installed new NGK TR6IX Iridium plugs gapped at .034" and changed the oil. I cut the filter apart and inspected the filter media as well as the residual oil in the bottom of the filter housing. My poor man's oil analysis showed no metal particles or anything else that would raise red flags. I feel like this car is ready to go (as soon as I get that wire replaced)!

I'm excited to get this car on the dyno and get it tuned properly.

[HammerZL1]

Impressed with your build, can't wait to see the numbers also.

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by HammerZL1

Impressed with your build, can't wait to see the numbers also.

Thanks, John. We still need to try out your shift light. At the rate I'm going, you will have your car out before I get a spare moment....

[zlathim]

I installed my Elite Engineering E2 catch can and clean side separator last night. It seems to be a very well built system.

[TEGGSRB18C1]

That is the exact same setup I was looking at. How hard is it to worm those hoses behind the throttle body?

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by TEGGSRB18C1

That is the exact same setup I was looking at. How hard is it to worm those hoses behind the throttle body?

It's kinda tight, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Getting the hoses pushed on was easy enough, but there isn't a lot of room to get pliers in there to squeeze the spring style hose clamps. I ended up using some long needle nose pliers to get the clamps in position. You can gain a little bit of room by disconnecting the wires from the MAP sensor or taking the sensor out completely. I just removed the wires and that was enough. Here is a pic of the hoses with the MAP hooked back up.

[zlathim]

If you zip-tie the heater hoses out of the way it helps you see where the hoses connect:

[TEGGSRB18C1]

Nice, I was hoping to not have to take the throttle body off. I might spring for the optional braided lines, I wonder if they're any harder to work with.

[zlathim]

Originally Posted by TEGGSRB18C1

Nice, I was hoping to not have to take the throttle body off. I might spring for the optional braided lines, I wonder if they're any harder to work with.

Yeah, no need to remove the throttle body. I looked at the braided hoses too, but they want like $58 or something and I didn't want to pay that much extra. Not sure if they are harder to work with, but they shouldn't be too bad. I did buy the clean side oil separator, which I think is necessary to get the most benefit from the system.

[zlathim]

The Mid Life Crisis was on the dyno today. I stayed long enough to watch them strap it down and make a pull. This is the baseline pull with the existing tune.



https://youtu.be/ASNS9sSCM88

Not sure how well this will show up. I took a picture of the graph on the computer screen after the baseline pull. 456 HP & 411 TQ. The tuner said that he probably won't find much more peak HP, but the low speed stuff is really the reason I'm having it tuned anyway. I'll update the thread with final numbers tomorrow.



I checked back in later and he had found a little bit more horsepower and he had smoothed out the torque curve. At that point, the tuner was making adjustments to improve drivability and idle/off idle. They are keeping the car overnight to work on cold start enrichment in the morning when it is cold.

If you watch the video, at about the 20 second mark you can see HammerZL1 from the forums walking behind the car. That's his ZL1 parked in the background. It is a very nice car.

Thanks for coming out today John and I appreciate the ride home from the shop in a bada$$ car!!

[zlathim]

OMG. I picked the car up today at lunch. Drove all the way across town after work to pick up my son, then back again. The drivability issues I have been dealing with since installing the camshaft are a thing of the past!! Dang it feels good to just drive and not have to worry about keeping the car running all the time. The tuner figured out my dashpot issues so the car returns to idle properly and doesn't see-saw at all any more. It was worth every penny to get this car tuned properly. My take on the whole situation is this: Remote tunes are fine for bolt-ons, but internal modifications like aftermarket camshafts really need to be dyno-tuned.