Bowers Build Thread

And yeah, i'll be replacing with stock anyways.

Ordered my torque converter, SSAC headers and N* throttle body kit today. All this on the heels of ALMOST trading it as it sits and $2,000 for a 2000 SSEI last night....lol Couldn't pull the trigger though.

Bowersk wrote:

Ordered my torque converter, SSAC headers and N* throttle body kit today. All this on the heels of ALMOST trading it as it sits and $2,000 for a 2000 SSEI last night....lol Couldn't pull the trigger though.

Sissy

The ssei had some gay hood scoops molded onto it...I told him that's the reason I didn't want it and he "You don't want to trade because of something you can replace"...I think I realized how close I've grown to the riv since that was a stupid excuse lol

This build has taught me quite a bit about mods. I feel comfortable enuff with this knowledge to go ahead and start ordering parts, but a couple things still bother me, or hinder me that is. First I dont have a free bay in the garage, winter coming I dont see much free space for awhile. Second is the tuning. I will have to do pretty much all my self. Did you use stock PCM on this build? What about PCMs from places like zzp, intense,etc.? Do they require tuning as well? How hard is tuning a 3800 w mods? I have started a list of parts but still have questions in the heads/cam area? Would it be worth investing in a cam/heads pkg. from afore mentioned suppliers? And intercooler? I know alot of questions but I dont wanna be wasting money on things I dont need just because. Plz help.

You can send a list of your mods to ZZP or Intense and they can customize a PCM for you, but it still won't pull like a custom tune. I had good luck with my Intense PCM before I got my own tuner.

Ok latest update. The chatter I was talking about was a knocking rod. Turns out after some prodding that the machine shop used my ARP rod bolts to re-round my rods thus completely ruining them. The result:

No worries though, the Riv just didn't like that Pontiac motor in there. The Machine shop made good on their mistake, freshened up the old Riv's original motor and now its back in with the addition of all the goodies. Going to work on tuning this weekend.

Bowersk wrote:

No worries though, the Riv just didn't like that Pontiac motor in there. The Machine shop made good on their mistake, freshened up the old Riv's original motor and now its back in with the addition of all the goodies. Going to work on tuning this weekend.

COOL !!! Let us know how it turns out

Ok, figured I'd keep everything in here. Hasn't really been a whole lot going on as I cant dedicate as much time to it as I want. I'm on it now though because I'm liquidating assets and the poor ole riv needs to be something that goes. Comes down to the riv or my family heirloom 87 swb chevy so you know which one is going. Would like to get it atleast tuned to this point so the next person doesn't have to though. There is a young guy here in town that wants to buy it, hes about the only one who's helped me on it so hes excited for me to get it finished.

So as some of you know, the only problem remaining is the 16.4 LTFT issue I am seeing. I've been told there are only a few things that can cause this.

1. Bad Tune - This isnt the issue because I uploaded a stock tune, reset fuel trims and after a few days LTFT was at 16.4 again.

2. Vacuum Leak - I found one at the brake booster using the ole cig smoke trick and repaired it. Can't find anymore. Reset fuel trims, couple days later LTFT is bouncing around a little bit but still hangs out at 16.4 at idle and a little while cruising around. Moving on toward vacuum routing issue now but I doubt that has anything to do with it.

3. Someone said exhaust leak could cause it, and I have a couple that I still need to seal up, but i'm not sure how much i believe that could cause this issue.

Below are pics of my vac routing. If you spot something wrong, please let me know what you think. Alot of this stuff is just temporary lines and routing while I try and sort out the problem.

What kind of fuel is it getting? For E10 you should set the desired stoich to 14.2 instead of 14.7. That will cause a shift in fuel trims too. If there is E15 in your area it would be even lower...

Just e-10 in my area and I adjusted my Stoich to 14.2 per your suggestion BEFORE I found the vac leak and before I put the stock tune on it. However, I'm not sure I put it back to 14.2 with the new tune. I'll check that in a bit and make sure.

Ok, so my tune as it is.

DHP 1.5 bin for the 96 with the addition of the following changes ONLY:

IDLE RPM increases across the board to help with rough idle.
Closed_Loop_Desired_AF - Changed from 14.7 to 14.2
MAF Table for the LQ4 MAF.

I just did this, so I'm going to wait for my trims to settle down and I'll report back.

deekster_caddy wrote:

What kind of fuel is it getting? For E10 you should set the desired stoich to 14.2 instead of 14.7. That will cause a shift in fuel trims too. If there is E15 in your area it would be even lower...

You just change the stoic AFR value for E## use?

turtleman wrote:

deekster_caddy wrote:

What kind of fuel is it getting? For E10 you should set the desired stoich to 14.2 instead of 14.7. That will cause a shift in fuel trims too. If there is E15 in your area it would be even lower...

You just change the stoic AFR value for E## use?

It helps to start your base tuning. The OE tune is made for E0. We have no choice here but to use E10, which when sampled is actually more like E7, so 14.2 is the correct stoich. I forget what it's supposed to be for E15 but you can calculate the difference. If you are running E85 your desired WOT is like 9.0 AFR

Also I believe you both are using DHP, I don't think there was a stoich setting in DHP and you had to change the desired AFR table. In HPT we can change the desired base stoich value. I don't remember exactly where it was, but it brought fuel trims right back into place on my '05 Yukon too.

Most of the newer 'flex fuel' cars have a fuel density sensor to determine if it's anywhere from E0 to E85, or any blend in between, and adjusts the desired AFR on the fly. (I think that's how it works)

Basically every car on the road that doesn't have the fuel sensor is running with increased fuel trims because of the standard pump E10. Not what they were designed for. When they mandate E15 (coming soon) I think a lot of check engine lights are going to set (fuel trim out of range).

Well after a little driving and killing/starting I'm starting to see something different at least. Its just started to hit 16.4 again with the last trip, but only at idle and the number decreases as I accelerate (which I assume is because vacuum is decreasing) so it looks like i still have a small vacuum leak somewhere. I'm just going to go ahead and order the replacement vacuum line kit from GM and a new brake booster grommet and see if that works. Overall better now though, driving it will decrease down to 3.4 or so and now my STFT are starting to bounce around...something I haven't seen yet which I know is normal after resetting fuel trims.

Something weird though, upon hard acceleration I'm hearing a whistling sound that gets LOUDER with acceleration coming from under the hood. Sounds like a vacuum leak but since it gets worse with acceleration I'm confused. Think it may be something to do with vacuum at the transmission but I still have no clue.

Working this weekend on exhaust leaks, these SSAC headers are cool, and seem to be decent quality, but they are hard as hell to get sealed up.

I do know one thing and that is:

As if right now, from 55-120mph, the Riv is faster than the girl friends GXP

I'm missing out on all the test and tunes right now, once I get this Vacuum problem taken care of and get through the Jerry's tune guide, I hope to get at least 1 night in before end of season. Midnight madness in August...plan to be there for that one.

It sure sounds like a vacuum leak, something on the intake/TB/filter side of the supercharger. But it could be a leak post-supercharger, would have to be around the LIM gasket, maybe EGR? What else is post-supercharger? SC to LIM gasket probably wouldn't whistle like you describe.

I highly recommend a stethoscope while troubleshooting this.

Do you have a breather or what'd you do with the PCV passage on the inlet side behind the throttle body? if you left it alone, the crankcase might be sealed which causes odd whistley noises and other less obvious tune stuff.

turtleman wrote:

Do you have a breather or what'd you do with the PCV passage on the inlet side behind the throttle body? if you left it alone, the crankcase might be sealed which causes odd whistley noises and other less obvious tune stuff.

Good point, i just left it alone.

Yeah, you needa fix that asap! sealed crankcase is bad news bears! breather is the easy option but even better is to drill the little hole into the tb adapter. If it's the ZZP one, they make it nice and easy with a precut channel for it. They just don't drill the hole. At least that's how mine was.

Alright, I'll check that out today at lunch.

If you want to test it out, you could start your car and let it idle for 30-45sec or so and while running, remove the oil fill cap. if there is a rush of air once you pull it off, you just relieved the crankcase of full manifold vacuum which would mean blocked PCV path. It'll even be a little harder to get the cap off for that reason. If it doesn't really seem to care, it's normal.