A little something to offend everyone
- Thread starter DRIVEN
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Chapter 6:
Fire it up!
I guess I forgot to mention, everything since the middle of chapter 3 (when I got the second engine) happened in the span of 1 week. You see, there was a car show on Sat/Sun and I didn't actually tear the car down until the previous Monday. I got cocky and it bit me in the *ss. It was Friday at about 4pm by the time I got everything hooked up. I cycled the key a couple times to prime the fuel pump the over to the crank position. It fired right up...then died. I forgot all about VATS. URG yet again! I hoped I could get away with one of those $20 ebay simulators. Nope. I did a little research and discovered that the '96 ECM was the only one that had no aftermarket tuning support. Without the matching steering column and gauge cluster that were in the donor Grand Am i was out of luck. Sooooo, I had to go back to the yard to get a '97-'98 ECM. Problem with that is that the connectors totally different. I had to re-pin my harness for the newer connectors. The '96 is on top.
I contacted Trifecta Tuning and they sent me a box and cables. He then emailed me the program which I loaded from my laptop. Not cheap but no alternative.
I hit the key and it came to life. Once I was certain that it would run I mounted the ECM and hit the streets. All I can say is WOW. The car starts right up no matter what, gets better gas mileage, runs waaay smoother and best of all has at least twice the power it did before. I've been driving it almost daily since July and have slowly been smoothing out the kinks. I had hoped to tear it back down this winter for body and paint but it just isn't in the cards. Probably going with an aqua/turquoise lower with white top. I like 2-tone on these and rarely see it done well. So here's the parting shot until I get some more work done on it.
Fire it up!
I guess I forgot to mention, everything since the middle of chapter 3 (when I got the second engine) happened in the span of 1 week. You see, there was a car show on Sat/Sun and I didn't actually tear the car down until the previous Monday. I got cocky and it bit me in the *ss. It was Friday at about 4pm by the time I got everything hooked up. I cycled the key a couple times to prime the fuel pump the over to the crank position. It fired right up...then died. I forgot all about VATS. URG yet again! I hoped I could get away with one of those $20 ebay simulators. Nope. I did a little research and discovered that the '96 ECM was the only one that had no aftermarket tuning support. Without the matching steering column and gauge cluster that were in the donor Grand Am i was out of luck. Sooooo, I had to go back to the yard to get a '97-'98 ECM. Problem with that is that the connectors totally different. I had to re-pin my harness for the newer connectors. The '96 is on top.
I contacted Trifecta Tuning and they sent me a box and cables. He then emailed me the program which I loaded from my laptop. Not cheap but no alternative.
I hit the key and it came to life. Once I was certain that it would run I mounted the ECM and hit the streets. All I can say is WOW. The car starts right up no matter what, gets better gas mileage, runs waaay smoother and best of all has at least twice the power it did before. I've been driving it almost daily since July and have slowly been smoothing out the kinks. I had hoped to tear it back down this winter for body and paint but it just isn't in the cards. Probably going with an aqua/turquoise lower with white top. I like 2-tone on these and rarely see it done well. So here's the parting shot until I get some more work done on it.
Thanks for the positive feedback guys. I forgot to mention this. Once I got it together I did a couple cruise nights and a Datsun show. Instead of being ridiculed for my choice I was mostly met with confusion. The vast majority of people have no idea what it is. At the Datsun show I parked, popped the hood, and walked away just to see how it was received - from a distance. I spent some time looking at the 200ish cars there while keeping an eye on mine. There was a steady crowd of 3-6 guys around it for the 3 hours I was there. I overheard some guys talking there and later read on a couple of forums that they loved the look but had no idea what it was :lol: . Perfect!
Only 2 things offended me
1: How could you ditch those wheels!? Perfect late 70s/early 80s vibe!
2: Wife pics....not enough of 'em
Cool project
1: How could you ditch those wheels!? Perfect late 70s/early 80s vibe!
2: Wife pics....not enough of 'em
Cool project
i like the car im a wagon guy and gm is what i like so it having a gm motor i like my mom has a 99 alero twin cam and shes drove it for years with no problems but fuel regulators every once in a while but i like ur wagon nice
I'll see what I can do about wife pics :lol:Ribbedroof said:Only 2 things offended me
1: How could you ditch those wheels!? Perfect late 70s/early 80s vibe!
2: Wife pics....not enough of 'em
Cool project
I still have the Shelbys. Ran them on my other car for a while.
Thanks. Keep in mind that your mom's Alero weighs over 1000lbs more than my wagon. Traction can be an issue on wet pavement. So far it's been very reliable. Any issues it's had were related to my work not the GM factory.magoo_oner said:
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