Now the Fun Begins

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Although we attended a couple of car shows towards the end of this summer, the 33 really was not finished. There is still a lot of engine polishing, hood, engine side covers, engine tuning, transmission tuning and the trailer. None-the-less we can still drive short trips.

It's been a while since my last blog. We have another project started in the house but I'm only watching. Just not enough time to be doing all of these other projects.



This is the before picture





This is the during picture



I need to bring the car in to a dyno tune shop so we can take full advantage of the LS3. Right now it runs ok but according to Dan H, Vetteworks, Auburn  http://www.vetteworksonline.net  he thinks the current tune is way off.

We worked on and off  for about two months trying to get the cruise control working. Very frustrating. Everytime I would hit the "cruise on" button the engine computer would go crazy. It would shut down half the engine cylinders, and I would loose all gas pedel control. I would have to turn the car off and wait about 15 seconds for the computer to reset itself.

 Although I never wanted to have to remove the dash it was necessary so I could track the wires between the cruise control switches and the ECM  (engine control module).

 Eventually the problem was found and not by Current Performance, Florida where I bought the ECM and engine wiring harness. When they put together the engine wiring harness they had one of the two purple wires, in the lower wiring plug placed in pinout #34 and it should be in pinout #30.

It is amazing the information you can find on the internet. The problem could have been solved quicker if the people at Current Performance would have had better customer service. I can understand where their engineering dept, who does their custom harness and was responsible for the design of this harness, can make mistakes, since using a cruise and TUTD (tap up tap down) are a little out of the ordinary for hotrods, but their lack of response and communication is their real problem.

In my search to remedy the cruise control problem,  I contacted Speartech, Anderson IN.  Now you want to talk about a great company, I only wish I would have contacted these guys two years ago. Between Speartech, Dan at Vetteworks and internet searches the cruise is now working.

The final step is to get the TUTD working. We will be going after that this weekend. Dan H. will be connecting his laptop to the 33 and will reprogram the ECM and TCM (transmission control module) to operate the TUTD.

None of this is a problem in a modern day car since there is a BCM (body control module) which is like the master of the modules. In the new Corvettes the BCM controls the brakes to each of the wheels, controls the throttle, security, door locks, temps, ECM and TCM. But there are problems using a BCM in a hotrod.

Therefore the bottom line is, we loaded an early Trailblazer vin (no BCM required and will run a cruise control, but only 4speed transmissions) into the ECM and will eventually do a late model corvette tune at the dyno shop. Loaded a Yukon vin (no BCM required, will run a 6 speed transmission in 08, but no cruise) in the TCM, thereby allowing us to run the engine, transmission, cruise control and the TUTD.

The trailer is almost complete but the third brake light had too much black paint over the red lense. In addition, there was a small line in the clear right along the edge of the lense. The whole idea here, as in the car, is to have the third brake light complete invisible in the black paint until the brakes are applied. So to fix these issues we had to sand down the back of the trailer and repaint.

In this picture the masking tape is still over the red brake light lense. Once all of the grey primer is covered with black color coat we removed the masking tape and applied just enough black over the red lense to make the red disappear. Then clear, buff and polish. What could be easier?

Here's what we woke up to this morning.

Merry Christmas to all, including Phil Robertson