Cal Club Autocross Forums

wow, that sucks, sorry to see that poor danny boy.

and yes, the iphone4 camera takes SWEET pics!

Mako Koiwai wrote:Crazy ... Just dropped off the Miata at Steve L to get the clutch replaced. Stopped @ Knotsberry for a chicken lunch. Come out and the Vette won't stay running!!! The Suby is @ Timmons having it's engine rebuilt for the 2nd time in a year. Question, what type of mule should we buy?

... or bicycles?

I've got two words for you, Mako: Toy Yota. But for something modern that's fun you'd have to wait for the FT-86, and that'll have a Subaru engine, so you'd be back to square one.

Seriously, though, that's an incredible run of bad luck. I hope the Vette's ready for the event on the 15th.

--Doug

I have a Toy Ota Previa ... and it's our only running car, and yes, it has close to the same mileage as all three of Karen's combined ... besides the "free"* loaner/rental KIA Rio (harsh ride and uncomfortable seats) from Subaru. You would THINK that Subaru would give Karen a nice new model Suby loaner to try and keep her in the fold. This is our third Suby and last, unless the Toyota/Subaru love child ends up being irresistible.

* Not exactly free. Karen has to pay for the insurance. She could temporarily upgrade her insurance coverage on one of her cars so that the rental car is automatically covered ... but she would have to drive that car in to be inspected before they upgrade her insurance ... but she can't because of course all of her cars are in garages!

Subaru sucks when it comes to reliability, or maybe U should say that YOUR subaru(s) suck.
:unimpressed:

My WRX held up terrifically considering the three years of many hundreds of runs with an over boosted SM tune. The 5 spd stripping 2nd gear was a given at some point. That's when I retired it. Greg and Max retired their's before it happened. Seb waited until the 2nd 2nd went and Mihai is soldering on with his I believe third gear box? Are the new stronger 5 spds holding up? I'd say you've been lucky ...

From what I'm hearing Subaru is now recommending synthetic engine lube and oil changes every 3,500 in all of their turbo engines. We never got any official word sent to us? Last time I checked they said still said dino oil and 7,000 miles when driven easy in mild conditions ... which is certainly what the Legacy was subject to. Basically Karen never got out of Break-In mode, ie. she drives very easy and certainly doesn't go past 4K revs and the car hardly ever sees boost. After the last engine rebuild I asked them if we needed to do anything special and they said just keep it below 4K for the first 1,000 miles. No early oil change although I DID do it somewhat early.

When I was breaking in my WRX I went to synthetic too early apparently which meant my rings never completely sealed, ie. my engine was always a bit light on compression ... which perhaps "saved" me, especially with the added turbo boost. I'm also a firm believer in going to a step colder plugs with a mod'ed Suby engine to help pull some heat out of the cylinder heads. Piston melt downs being a fairly common WRX engine issue ... at least with the earlier models. The STI's use something like a semi forged piston to add some protection, but it didn't help Pete and his STI ?

"I'd say you've been lucky " yea its superstition that has kept my WRX reliable .

Apparently my old STI is now up to 70,000 miles with zero problems since I sold it with 30,000 on the clock.

Max Hayter wrote:Apparently my old STI is now up to 70,000 miles with zero problems since I sold it with 30,000 on the clock.

Must be the driver.

The "module" that sends signals to the fuel pump is NG ... part ordered.

The garage tried to "weld" the cracked oil pan ... fortunately it leaked so they're replacing it. Says they had trouble finding the proper oil pan ... even going through near by Coast Corvette. They located one and it's being sent from the East coast. I told them we NEED that car before the 14th!

even going through near by Coast Corvette

Coast Corvette does some things very well, like restoration of older cars, and general C5 service, but when it comes to C5 parts, they just buy from GM and don't look for deals. West Coast Corvette is no bargain either, but for unusual stuff you're probably better off there because the service manager will usually look for best prices. The "Corvette Premium" applies everywhere.

In fairness to Coast, I should mention that they have been willing to tackle my ABS failure issues and the tech seems to get it. At least for now the initial "fix" seems to be working. I'll know more after Sunday's test.

So the garage side of Commercial Towing has replaced the cracked oil pan but has given up trying to fix the electrical problem that started this saga. Car starts fine but doesn't want to accept any gas and in fact will die after a short time. Vacuum hoses are apparently fine. Either they or I are confused ... I thought they thought that they had traced it down to a bad "module" that communicates with the fuel pump, but now they're not sure that's it.

They want to know where they should flat bed it to so that someone else can take care of the electrical problem. They located in the Cypress/Anaheim area, not that that matters. We're in South Pasadena ...

Coast Corvette, West Coast Corvette, Guildstrands, local GM dealer/garage ( http://www.sierraautocars.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or http://wondrieschevrolet.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

We've got one week to get this fixed before the next event!

Mako Koiwai wrote:So the garage side of Commercial Towing has replaced the cracked oil pan but has given up trying to fix the electrical problem that started this saga. Car starts fine but doesn't want to accept any gas and in fact will die after a short time. Vacuum hoses are apparently fine. Either they or I are confused ... I thought they thought that they had traced it down to a bad "module" that communicates with the fuel pump, but now they're not sure that's it.

They want to know where they should flat bed it to so that someone else can take care of the electrical problem. They located in the Cypress/Anaheim area, not that that matters. We're in South Pasadena ...

Coast Corvette, West Coast Corvette, Guildstrands, local GM dealer/garage ... ?

We've got one week to get this fixed before the next event!

Call up Hiro's and see if they will let an American car in the shop. ;)

Fuel filter or fuel pump? Check the injector rail pressure when you open the throttle. It should stay up.

I had a partial fuel pump failure on my VW that gave strange symptoms (e.g loss of power under load, transient lean mixture etc) . I took it in and told the guy that it was probably the fuel pump ( I noticed it started making a different noise) but he didn't believe me until he had swapped out a few hundred bux of vacuum hoses. He became a believer when the pump finally had a hard failure at his shop and he had to start pushing the car around.

Sorry to hear your tale of woe. Let me know if you need to borrow a working car.
Wait. What am I saying?? Why would I loan you guys a perfectly good car?!?
steve

Mako Koiwai wrote:So the garage side of Commercial Towing has replaced the cracked oil pan but has given up trying to fix the electrical problem that started this saga. Car starts fine but doesn't want to accept any gas and in fact will die after a short time. Vacuum hoses are apparently fine. Either they or I are confused ... I thought they thought that they had traced it down to a bad "module" that communicates with the fuel pump, but now they're not sure that's it.

They want to know where they should flat bed it to so that someone else can take care of the electrical problem. They located in the Cypress/Anaheim area, not that that matters. We're in South Pasadena ...

Coast Corvette, West Coast Corvette, Guildstrands, local GM dealer/garage ( http://www.sierraautocars.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or http://wondrieschevrolet.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

We've got one week to get this fixed before the next event!

I assume you have pulled the codes, what are they?

If not FIRST THING is get the codes.

Don't let anyone touch it unless they pull the codes 1st, as that will indicate they are incompetant or just gonna soak you for unneeded parts.

They don't have every part but always try Pacifica Corvette for any mechanical part. They are great, inexpensive (realatively speaking) and fast and local.

Still feel best corvette repair shop is Cormier.

Hey Mako:

I have a spare oil pan for my LS6 C5 Corvette engine if that will help you make your race date. I have been known to experiment with alternative non-asphalt lines when road racing so an extra oil pan is a plus.

Phone nine-four-nine 436-4OLI (4654) or e-mail me, oli at Alvaka.net.



Oli

Mako, whats the current story with the car?

Probably going to Cormier tomorrow ... since we didn't hear back from "Mike" the mechanic on whether the experiment with cleaning the MAF sensor worked. There was a suspicion that the (new) K&N air filter's oil had fouled that sensor.

None of the other recommended garages have gotten back to us

Mako Koiwai wrote:Probably going to Cormier tomorrow ... since we didn't hear back from "Mike" the mechanic on whether the experiment with cleaning the MAF sensor worked. There was a suspicion that the (new) K&N air filter's oil had fouled that sensor.

None of the other recommended garages have gotten back to us

total myth.... did an experiment/demonstration at school (UTI) with K&N about this issue and how many people claim the oil harms OEM MAF sensors. We drenched these mass air flow sensors and the oil didn't do anything to harm/affect performance.

Jonathan Lugod wrote:

Mako Koiwai wrote:Probably going to Cormier tomorrow ... since we didn't hear back from "Mike" the mechanic on whether the experiment with cleaning the MAF sensor worked. There was a suspicion that the (new) K&N air filter's oil had fouled that sensor.

None of the other recommended garages have gotten back to us

total myth.... did an experiment/demonstration at school (UTI) with K&N about this issue and how many people claim the oil harms OEM MAF sensors. We drenched these mass air flow sensors and the oil didn't do anything to harm/affect performance.

I thought the myth was the dirt that doesn't get filtered, gets stuck to the MAF sensor because of the oil from the filter and it affects the performance? Or is that wrong?

We've got the Suby back, with basically a new engine ... That Story here:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4263" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oli says that it's twice happened to him that he's put in a new K&N filter and the car/truck lost performance ... which was completely restored by either cleaning or replacing the MAF sensor ... and I believe going back to the oem air filter

Mako Koiwai wrote:Oli says that it's twice happened to him that he's put in a new K&N filter and the car/truck lost performance ... which was completely restored by either cleaning or replacing the MAF sensor ... and I believe going back to the oem air filter

Who's Oli Did he dyno them to see what the performance lost was or was this on a butt dyno? Maybe the computer had to relearn around the abundance of airflow it was seeing?

Oli Thordarson: SCCA T1 Corvette racer ... who did a couple of AX's with us ... and wrote that nice article for SoPac on how difficult AX is.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/souther ... diary.html