A handful of small problems to work out... plenty of trust issues, as well. CHRA smoke went away, so that's good.

Car idles rough, but revs fairly smooth. Haven't really boosted too much yet (5-10psi, 1/4 to 1/3 throttle), but I'm at that part of my break-in process and the car doesn't seem to want to go over 10psi and half throttle. Pretty sure it's the fuel injectors. I half expected this, but had hoped they'd be a lot better since I actually followed some "proper" storage techniques this time - and they had literally been professionally cleaned about 500 miles ago. 80's are delicate flowers, apparently.

I'm eyeballing the 160# injectors from ZZP and making a switch to full E85. I need to search around to see if the table values are available... I would think ZZP would provide them if asked... but maybe not? I dunno.

I can still hear the turbo spinning for a good 30 seconds after shutdown, but it sounds a bit grittier than I remember... I might just be a little paranoid though.

Things I had forgotten:

• How slow the passenger side window moves
• How touchy the throttle is upon first tip-in (like getting back onto the throttle after a speed bump in first gear...)
• The sound of a large turbo spooling up.
• How loud a TiAL BOV is.
• That the cupholders don't actually "hold" anything. Luckily it was just a half empty Topo Chico (carbonated water).

Nothing up front, but Progressive has the disclaimer that it'll be my responsibility to provide receipts when the time comes. Which miiiight be a little problematic for certain items, but I should be able to find enough.

Moral of the story... keep all you receipts.

The bulk of mine are going to be from 2009 and 2010 (turbo, manifolds, custom ZZP charge piping and BRFPS, etc)... fingers crossed ZZP and PTE have good records.

 

Lol nothing like relearning the problematic things of the cobalt.

I'm going to need to look into the insurance thing a bit more to see if its worth it. I'd be afraid of them devaluing parts from 2010 significantly and it potentially not being worth the rate

 

That's a good point. I might give them a call sometime to see if they can explain how that process might work a little bit better.

 

Knowing insurance companies they'll take a big hit after 3years. I dealt with that when I had a storage unit get broken into (stole tools and detailing stuff) I had most of my receipts but they were all 3+ years old so they gave me like 50ish % of the original purchase price

 

Actually... I think my fueling issues might be fuel pressure related. It's been hard to get a real dial on what's going on, but my first suspect is the Fuelab FPR. I've adjusted it a couple times now. I just went for a drive, so I'll probably check it once the car cools down to see if it's still where I set it.

EDIT: fuel pump doesn't sound right when priming but when I'm driving and hit PE, the AFR seems damn close... so I don't know that fueling is the issue. Car is idling like it has a cam... need to check for vacuum leaks and might check spark plugs and maybe swap out the coils to see if that solves the issue. No glaring issues otherwise.

 

Ran compression check - just for the hell of it. All were right around 180, so that's good. Swapped the OE coils out for my ZZP HV ones - no change, so I put the OE's back in. I need to change the plugs, but can't find my spares (I once ordered 4 cases thinking I was ordering 4 plugs... so I know I have plugs lying around.

I can't see anywhere for an obvious vacuum leak to be. I have a boost leak checker that I built after I first turbocharged the car... that'll likely be my next step.

Car definitely does not like going too far into boost at high amount of throttle... but the AFR is usually right on commanded and then spikes rich when the car "cuts", which tells me it shouldn't be a fueling issue. I'm going to add the Control Module Voltage channel, just to be see. I don't think that's the issue, but I'd like to rule it out.

 

Glad to hear you finally got it around the block! Always a good feeling.

 

I'm not sure what's different now compared to the last time the car ran, but it will not idle worth a **** (as far as AFR is concerned). It'll shoot super lean, idle rough, and then the car will command 10.10 AFR... and suddenly it'll idle smooth pretty close to that.

Once the car is moving, all seems fine. I'm debating whether or not to just jump ship on the 80's now in preparation for E85... or to get them cleaned first, just to see if that's the problem.

Car will absolutely hit commanded AFR during PE though. I'm only on wastegate (15psi), so it's super slow... but hoping to figure some more things out. Wish I hadn't just filled the tank with 93. It occurred to me about 20 minutes later that I should have just jumped to E85 then.

I've done more reading this weekend here and on the HPT forum than I really wanted to do. Eyeballing some 1000cc or 1200cc injectors from FIC... or maybe just jump to some ID1000's. Need to read up on what's required for those... I remember Area needed a spacer.

 

I feel like HPTuners maybe made some adjustments to how the LSJ tunes flash... or something screwy is going on. More diagnostics to come, but....

I compared old scans with new scans and saw an issue with the Inj PW. Made adjustments in my tune to account for the differences that I was seeing between old and new...... and now the car is running and idling like it used to. It's still taking a little bit too long to start up, though - even with me having scaled the VE tables to account for the injectors.

Car is seeing 15-16 psi boost through the mid-range now, but I haven't taken it too deep into the RPM range (and boy is it slow). Once I have the MAF a little bit more dialed in (today/tomorrow), I'll run the car up to 7500+ rpm... and then I'll crank the boost knob up to 20 psi or so. And then it should be E85 time. Then turn the boost up a little more.

 

Could it be bleeding fuel pressure as it sits?

 

I know it does that to a degree. I can't remember if it did it before or not.

Pump will prime with key on, FPR will read 43.5-ish... and after the pump shuts off, it'll drop a handful of degree. Not sure if that's the pump bleeding back fuel/pressure (AEM E85 Pump) or the FPR... should be the pump though.

I'll have to look into some Fuelab documentation and see if I can see anything. A rebuild kit is only about $20. Probably not a bad idea.

 

Is it a cold startup or hot restart issue?

 

Both. I'll mess with it some more today/tomorrow. Just takes a bit of throttling to get going, but it's fine after that. Some of my earlier attempts at figuring out the idle issue have effected the start-up... there were times when it'd start right up. Since I just got the idle tuned in right, I'll mess with it some more now. I had adjusted the Cranking VE based on a write-up from ID, but that didn't seem to affect anything... that was before I had the idle working correctly though.

Again, this is an issue that I never had on the previous engine(s). I'm going to check/test the fuel pressure again when I get home. I set it to a good 43ish psi a couple days ago... I want to see if it has moved, and if it is still bouncing while running (bounce was excusable before because the engine was idling with a lope). When the pump kicks on, it does typically jump right to about the right pressure, so I don't think that's the startup issue.

I have a lot of variables right now, need to start ruling them out and narrowing my list down.

 

Unplugged the vacuum line leading to FPR - steady 43.5 psi. That eliminates the FPR and pump. Issue must be with the injectors; a little surprising since they were professionally cleaned 3 years ago. Then again, the Deka 80's are notoriously **** injectors.

 

Did anyone ever get the Deka 80's to really idle well? I know with the return system and FPR it got better, but never as smooth as it should be

 

Not really. Even the V8 guys struggled to get them to run right. I know the Deka 60's were better, but still not great injectors. IIRC, they both just had terrible PW and atomization.

Flipped my tune around from tuning MAF only to VE only. Car fired right up after a second or two. Ran/idled pig rich though... like 10.1 or 10.2 AFR. Tune the idle AFR back to stoich and it started struggling to start again.

I'm going to try bumping the Cranking VE.

 

Bumping Cranking VE did nothing. I'm not going to worry about it too much. No sense wasting a ton of time trying to dial in injectors that are going to be replaced soon.

Pressure bled the clutch again yesterday on 10 psi... a decent amount of bubbles came out, but no real change to engagement; still engaging near the floor and not wanting to grab after high amounts of boost. I'll buy a MityVac on my way home today.

Gave my Hallman MBC a good twisting yesterday too... still only seeing 15 psi. They're fairly simple mechanisms, just a spring and ball on the inside, iirc. I'll have to tear it open and see if I can find the problem. Might just need cleaned out.

 

Vacuum bled the brake/clutch hydraulics 3 times (per the above post). Clutch pedal engagement didn't change much too much, but it is a touch better. I got worried and compared my old LNF TOB to the F23 TOB that came with the transmission - throw length looks to be about the same. Also found theads with Cavy guys using F23 TOB's with LSJ's, so a little confirmation that my pedal should be better. Fingers crossed that I don't need to replace the MC. Looks like a super tight squeeze. Brake pedal was initially weak afterwards too and the fluid level had increased in the reservoir though, but I didn't pump the brakes after Vac sessions like I did the clutch. I'll probably try again tomorrow.

Hallman MBC definitely isn't working. I cranked it to the grease line where it had previously been turned to (25 psi) and I'm still only seeing 15 psi. I guess the good news is that it failed open.

Set a MAF+VE blend up and re-enabled OL+CL. Idles right at a -14.1 LTFT... ...which I seem to recall being pretty typical for 80's. Car is driving really nice otherwise though.

I'm going to wait on ID1050's until I sort out the clutch engagement, MBC, alignment, and (I think) blown shocks. 80's (flowed at 860cc when cleaned) should support E85 with only 15 PSI.

 

I dont know much about tuning, but could part of the idle problem be ignition timing? Ive had problems with idle and vacuum leaks, is it pulling decent vacuum?

Just gotta say, its awesome that youre sticking with the car. Most people would have parted it out or left it on jack stands lol

 

The idle issue was 100% the fault of the injectors. From my research, it's kind of an issue with a lot of Siemens/Deka injectors - specifically the 60# and 80# injectors that are common on this platform and in the LSx community. They just don't idle worth a **** because (from my understanding) their minimum PW is too large.

I switched to E85... and the car idles perfectly now. Vacuum leaks were an initial concern though and I did bump my idle timing from the stock-ish 10 to about 20.

 

Bummer, i just bought some 80s lol. Did you end up with the ID 1000s? Glad you got it figured out

Edit: just saw the post above

 

I'm hesitating on jumping to the ID1050's. I have a handful of other things that I need to update/replace, as well (shocks are blown) and I know if I put those in, I'll turn the boost up to 25-30 psi... and I just want to enjoy the car actually driving for a little while. Gotta let my paranoia about something breaking die down a little bit first. Also want to wait to hear what's going to happen with my Audi. Someone merged into me about a month ago and I'm waiting on insurance to say if they'll total it or not (AKA does the Cobalt become my daily); it's going to be close.

 

You have it nailed, their minimum PW sprayed to much fuel, hence why e85 idles way better (spraying ~30% more fuel). It's a little thing that can be looked over but is pretty important, you sometimes can cheat and raise your idle 50-100rpm to reduce the issues with the PW

 

Any idea what suspension youre going to? If you can why not run 25 psi lol.

I started running roadside assistance on my insurance for that reason lol. Glad youre ok, and hope it works in your favor

 

I'm running Pedder's springs - they were all the rage from like 2009 to 2012 or so (until PRS released the YYZ and started pushing those). I'm not sure where or even if you could even buy them now. But I'm thinking about pairing them up with some Koni's. I'd prefer Bilstein, but they only make rear shocks for the car. Hell, the Koni fronts are inserts, so I have to chop up the stock front strut to make them work. I'm sure Bilstein has something similar, but they don't directly list it, and I'm not interested in experimenting right now.

And I ran 25 psi on pump gas before. It'll definitely make it there eventually. Not sure if/when I'll dial it up to 30. But I definitely need to update some parts first. I realized it halfway through yesterday - the tires on the car are exactly 10 years old now. They were stored for a majority of that time indoors, so they still look good. Discussions with my father about tire shelf life (he works at Cooper Tire HQ) informs me that I'll likely suffer from increased tread wear.

I have a AAA Gold package because project cars like to break down. I'm allotted a handful of (up to) 100-mile tows per year. Helps bring non-running project/parts cars back to the house too. 😁

- - - - -

I did manage to fix/correct a couple things on the car. Key fob works again. There are little conductive "buttons" on the back of the rubber pad and they had apparently lost conductivity. I cleaned up the electrical board and then tested it by bridging the circuit with aluminum foil... and it worked! So, I just super glued some aluminum foil to the "buttons"... and now it works again. I might eventually order another FOB off of Amazon or something, but this will work for me for the time being.

Also got the car to startup properly. The car must not use the Primary VE table for its cranking reference, because even after dialing in the VE tables, it was struggling to crank up. Went into the Cranking VE table (which is allegedly meant to be the percentage of VE table used for cranking) and I set it to 68% (9.75 AFR of E85 / 14.68 AFR of gasoline)... car started up as soon as the key was turned. Weird; I hadn't seen anyone else discuss this on the HPTuners forum or here... but maybe my searches sucked. but also, it was struggling to start when on gasoline after I scaled the MAF/VE. Further investigation required... but I'm not sitting in parking lots cranking for 5-7 seconds anymore, so that's a relief.

Also bought some "detailing" products for the first time in my life and gave the car a little bit of desperately needed care. I'll dive into this more later.

- - - - -

EDIT: Tire Rack had Koni's in-stock... they'll allegedly be here on Friday.