Altered Mental Status (1G AWD 5spd)

[Christo]

Not filling up at Buccees, gas station right by my house has non-ethanol 93.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Definitely not filling up at Buccees. If I fill up anywhere, it's gonna be the E85 station on the way to Buccees in AL on the beach expressway.

I've just never ever been, and it's been on my AMS Talon bucket list of things to do when car is completed. Along with an AWD launch and a trip to a 1/4 mile track.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Oh I meant to say, I did this too.

This has never worked since I got the car, but all it needed to fix it was I removed a bulb that didn’t look fully seated, cleaned it a bit, and reinserted it firmly kind of turning it a bit to further make sure it contacted the tabs, and viola! It works!

The reading lights still don’t work and the bulbs are fine, so I should dig into why, but honestly…just the dome lights are fine with me.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I assume you're headed to the one near the gulf. If I weren't 4 hours North, I'd be interested in hanging around too. I don't get out and do anything anymore besides work, and find other ways to work away from work. I miss the times when I would drive somewhere just to do it. (I'm not that old I'm just a workaholic)

 

[CrackedDSM]

I assume you're headed to the one near the gulf. If I weren't 4 hours North, I'd be interested in hanging around too. I don't get out and do anything anymore besides work, and find other ways to work away from work. I miss the times when I would drive somewhere just to do it. (I'm not that old I'm just a workaholic)

This one. https://maps.app.goo.gl/eehxxo77NxCfZtrL7


And trust me, I hear you. The legit only way I'm probably ever gonna do this is by requesting off and taking another staycation. Even my days off on my normal schedule are usually burned entirely up by recuperation and sleep.


I may end up making a hard date though if you guys are in. Have to coordinate a bit and find a good time for everyone.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Hell, can we add something like this to the event calendar? If you want it to be a public thing. It would be nice to see multiple DSM's take a cruise in my home state. We'll just have to make sure the weather is clear.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Hell, can we add something like this to the event calendar? If you want it to be a public thing. It would be nice to see multiple DSM's take a cruise in my home state. We'll just have to make sure the weather is clear.

I'm down, honestly. The more the merrier. I just don't know how.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I didn't either but I see now.

https://www.dsmtuners.com/events/calendar/dsm-event-calendar.1/add

If we can plan something 2 weeks ahead of time, it would probably have the best turnout. Should give everyone/anyone time to request time off work, find extra hands to run the business, etc. If a hurricane decides to blow through we can do a rain check. I'm hoping yesterday's hurricane is the last one for a while though.

 

[CrackedDSM]

I didn't either but I see now.

https://www.dsmtuners.com/events/calendar/dsm-event-calendar.1/add

If we can plan something 2 weeks ahead of time, it would probably have the best turnout. Should give everyone/anyone time to request time off work, find extra hands to run the business, etc. If a hurricane decides to blow through we can do a rain check. I'm hoping yesterday's hurricane is the last one for a while though.

So, September 28th probably? It's my weekend off and Friday just ain't feasible. I'll be too busy sleeping all day and recreating my favorite scene from The Sixth Sense.


I have no idea about the weather in two weeks though. They can't accurately predict shit in my area.


If this happens though, swear I'm gonna rattlecan the two champagne stripes on the car black. Inevitably photos will be taken and I won't have her caught showing skin.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

I'm probably good with that date, or can at least work around it. They normally do pretty good predicting the times and locations of tropical storm and hurricane landfall 2 days in advance. Hopefully all is clear but if not we have a little time to figure it out.

I'll try not to bring and garden spiders with me, but all of my cars are at least 2 decades old so no promises

 

[CrackedDSM]

I'll try not to bring and garden spiders with me, but all of my cars are at least 2 decades old so no promises

Don't worry, if you don't bring any I'll be sure to transfer at least one from my car onto yours.


Alright. Meet/event is posted. Taking suggestions and input regarding times and if we should "cruise" anywhere. I feel like we should just chill in the lot, but like I said. Open to suggestions.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Link to the event:

https://www.dsmtuners.com/events/buc-ees-dsm-meet-in-south-alabama.10/

I know there's plenty of members within a reasonable distance, but we'll see how many actually come forward. Hopefully all of them

 

[CrackedDSM]

Link to the event:

https://www.dsmtuners.com/events/buc-ees-dsm-meet-in-south-alabama.10/

I know there's plenty of members within a reasonable distance, but we'll see how many actually come forward. Hopefully all of them

I'd be satisfied with three of us, but the more the better!

 

[CrackedDSM]

Swapped back to the coilovers today. The stance looks way better than before with the coilovers because I actually measured and matched them while I was setting preload. The front sits a tiny bit higher than the stock struts and tein s-techs, which I actually like. Better ground clearance, and more importantly better TIRE clearance. Since I was there anyway, I took an extension and a hammer and gave the inner fender lip a mini "roll" if you can even call it that.


I'm curious to the difference between ride quality before and after setting preload properly, but even if it sucks the coilovers are staying on. The tires never got near the fenders with the coilovers on it because they're so stiff and further away from the fender, so I'll just get used to the harsh ride if I have to. It wasn't honestly that bad, it was just annoying getting airborne over the dip in the road. But screw it. I'll just embrace my inner dukes of hazzard.


So yeah. While I was there I checked my tie rod ends, and now I'm kind of lost. There doesn't seem to be any play in the outer tie-rod/tie rod ends. If I grab the whole tie rod and pull it, there's a very slight amount of movement in and out. Is this normal? Should the inner tie rods have ANY play in them at all?

But yeah. Satisfied with todays progress. Probably later today I'll take the car for a test drive and see how it rides. But that's a huge load off my mind.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Alright, did a test drive tonight.


Verdict? These coilovers with preload properly set are AWESOME. Seriously, awesome. It's a little bit more stiff than the Tein's and stock struts, but in a great way. The ride is way more stable for cornering, and steering is super responsive. Hitting the dip in the road at 40mph no longer results in being airborne in the rear, and I can actually FEEL the car going through the dip instead of just flying over it. Car is way more planted.

Seriously. Couldn't be happier. Here's a reminder to anyone putting coilovers on your car...start from scratch, completely loosen the spring from the perch and set your preload according to the instructions. Makes a WORLD of difference!

 

[CrackedDSM]

Well, shit. I went to flush the cooling system today. Drove it a good long time, adjusted the tune and improved drivability by a significant margin, and went to drain the radiator and the drain bolt snapped clean in half inside the radiator. Shit. I wasn't even cranking it that hard, just loosening it.


Ah well. This radiator was full of rust, possibly leaking, and is 12+ years old. New one is already ordered and on the way. Anyone want to buy a piece of history in the form of the Mishimoto Radiator from the AMS Talon? Lol.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Intrusive though in my brain almost had me attempting to fix this with JB Weld. Or some FLEX SEAL, THE HANDY MAN IN A CAN!

I won't though. Plus, it'll be nice to have another nice, new shiny part in the engine bay to detract from the bits that are rusty, dirty, and massively old.

 

[Stapl3]

Edit: I will ask one favor from the tuning gurus here. It's calling for me to add like 20-24% more fuel in the 150-400hz range. That seems like a lot. I feel like I remember I added a decent amount of fuel there before and it just ran pig rich. I will ask for tips in that one spot.

The datalog suggests your MAFComp adjustments from 500hz to 1600hz (you've adjusted between 300 and 1000) are wrong and I interpret that as they should be zero'd out and the dust around it will settle. Why are your MAFComp adjustments like that anyways? How did you arrive to that?

This circles back to suggesting to use a "stock" SD table, which is the same action as zeroing out ALL the sliders. I suggested you do that but you ignored me. Then you reappear and had Makenzie Lange suggest it and "and boy what a difference".

It's your car and do whatever you want but sure is weird.

 

[CrackedDSM]

The datalog suggests your MAFComp adjustments from 500hz to 1600hz (you've adjusted between 300 and 1000) are wrong and I interpret that as they should be zero'd out and the dust around it will settle. Why are your MAFComp adjustments like that anyways? How did you arrive to that?

This circles back to suggesting to use a "stock" SD table, which is the same action as zeroing out ALL the sliders. I suggested you do that but you ignored me. Then you reappear and had Makenzie Lange suggest it and "and boy what a difference".

It's your car and do whatever you want but sure is weird.

I think there's a communication or understanding issue between you and I. IIRC, you told me that after I had already signed out and left. I had no way to view your advice. And honestly, I didn't know the VE table was so screwed up or so different. I thought it WAS stock, but it wasn't. Every cell needed to be changed, so I had to go cell by cell and change it to match a stock VE table.


I wasn't intentionally ignoring you if you did post the advice before I left. I wish people would ask me before assuming anything. Sometimes I just miss comments, or I speed read and miss an entire sentence, or I simply just don't see a comment. Don't chalk up to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity/incompetence. I'll let people in on a secret...I pretty much am completely unable to ignore anyone unless I outright block you or just don't view your responses. If I read your comment, it's gonna be responded to. So if I "ignored" you, you're either fully blocked(which no one currently is, I've unblocked the one person I had on ignore), or I just simply haven't seen your comment.

As far as the current MAFComp settings, I don't know what I'm doing so I'm going solely on what I read or videos I watch. Only real explanation I can think of, is I haven't been able to take the car on long drives yet so when I adjust it it's probably wrong due to short/minimal logging time. I do think the more I adjust it the better it gets though, as I started to see where it's probably better to just zero out the sliders, or get a better, longer log. I have since changed the MAFComp table after I posted that log and feel like they're better. The car also runs waaaay smoother during cruise and part throttle.


As a bonus though, one of the logs I didn't post due to the radiator shitting the bed has a nice full 3rd gear pull. That helped a ton. It pointed out a lot of errors.

 

[Justin DuBois]

It took a multi year journey, and a serious amount of seat time to wrap my head around ECM Link v3.

I did it like the tutorials, and I got it wrong so much.. so many wrong ways - .

The tutorials are not wrong, but they jump past fuel/injector pressures and global fuel way to fast, cause you need to know some of the end stuff to give context to the first stuff.

 

[CrackedDSM]

It took a multi year journey, and a serious amount of seat time to wrap my head around ECM Link v3.

I did it like the tutorials, and I got it wrong so much.. so many wrong ways - .

The tutorials are not wrong, but they jump past fuel/injector pressures and global fuel way to fast, cause you need to know some of the end stuff to give context to the first stuff.

That's good to know. I figured the best thing I can do is just keep plodding along and learning by doing. Just this week alone I was making good progress I feel, before the radiator stopped me.


I'll get there in the end. Thankfully I'm well comfortable in the AFR and Timing tables. I have tuned with Jackal SD and TunerPro a lot, so honestly it's just learning the ECMLink software and its ins and outs. I do regret not jumping on the ECMLink bandwagon sooner, when there were a metric ton more users and way more input. But hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

 

[92AWDHX40]

I love buccees

 

[CrackedDSM]

It sucks being stupid. Went to install my shiny new polished radiator today, and after modifying it to fit everything perfect I somehow punched a hole in one of the tubes on the back(towards the front bumper) of the radiator.


Sigh. I hope they'll send me a new one. This is such a stupid problem to have and what's worse is it's 100% my fault. Blarg. I really wanted to do more tuning and to actually drive the car, but yeah. This is my penance for being a moron and not being more careful I guess.

So I will probably have to cancel the Buccee's meet as I'm not gonna be able to make it with the DSM.



Edit: They're sending another one out to me. Absolutely fantastic. Thrilled honestly. This radiator looked awesome. Had a nice polish to it, and was actually thicker than the Mishimoto that came out of the car. Not by a LOT, but noticeable at least. So I'm happy to have another one. This time, I'm removing the damn bolts that hold the condenser in, because they're what punctured the back of the radiator when I installed it. Damn A/C stuff.

 

[CrackedDSM]

So yeah, officially pushed the Buc-ee's meet to Oct 12th. Two weeks from this weekend. So not outright cancelled, just postponed. I have no clue how the weather will be then though, but we'll see.


So sad I did this. Lol. I really wanted to drive and tune the car. But alas.

 

[CrackedDSM]

Well, shit. I was adjusting the front end(the front bumper sat just a little beyond the turn signal housings so there was a gap that bothered me. While I was messing around and got it perfect, I dropped a bolt down the front timing cover.


God damn it. Lol. Guess I'm pulling the front timing cover off. Since I'm doing that, I'm gonna change out the oil pressure relief spring to the weaker mirage spring I've had for forever.

I'll say it again, life is so much harder when you're stupid.


But, I daresay it looks way better. I'll dig out some before pictures later(maybe), but don't mind how FILTHY the car is. The car also has definitely been in a low speed front-end collision before though because everything is off, and the core support is bent ever so slightly inwards. I may honestly try to take a hammer and "fix" some of it, but I may not mess with it. I'd hate to break something or ruin something. I'm not a body guy.

Baby steps. Waiting on a new radiator now, but man the car has come so far.