tWell it was time for a really good shake down and I needed to get the Novak tune on the ECU verified and or fixed. So I made an appointment with Wayne Hardwig in Spokane Valley Washington for a custom tune. The 400 mile drive each way would give it (and us) a good work out. It did that!
Speed varied from 55 to 75 and gas mileage varied from 9 to 17. Note: we were fighting hellacious winds on each leg of the trip and on the way up I had 23 pounds in the tires. Doing 75 into a 35 mile an hour wind gave us 9mph. - I’ll get to why we were going so fast in a minute. 55/60 in some wind-sheltered areas got us the 16+. On the way back mileage was much the same. Then, however the winds had picked up. Half way I increased the tire pressure to 32 pounds without a sacrifice in ride comfort BUT with the winds it really didn’t make much difference in mileage. Going to make some adjustments and get a true figure soon,
Why were we pushing so hard? During a particularly vicious rain shower I found out the dash lights didn’t work. From my post several days ago you may guess that the plug in on the Multifunction switch wasn’t secure. I pulled the steering column cover off and monkeyed around with all the wiring and beat on the switch. Nope! No dash lights and no tail lights. We were in a hurry to get to the motel before dark!! Didn’t make it. We got to Spokane Valley just about dark and with all the motels figured no problem. We’ll just hold up until the appointment the next day. Except when we tried to find a room we discovered that there was a major sporting set of tournaments and some huge conference this weekend and there were no rooms anywhere within 20 miles. One may just guess the verbal response I was spewing! We had gone to Wayne’s shop first to make sure I knew where it was. A couple of blocks from there we saw a Roadway Inn. The draw back was that it was in a highly industrial area with lots of truck traffic. When we found out there were no rooms Faye took the chance and called Roadway. Yes, they had one room left-—-We will take it was all I heard from my side of the phone call. It really wasn’t that bad but there is nothing like a Peterbuilt firing up outside the room window at 0500!
Room problem solved we found a bar and grill close by and just as it was turning fully dark we pulled in for the toughest patty melt I’ve had in a while. We had not eaten since breakfast (after finishing up the ball joint back in Sisters that morning) The patty melt was fantastic and the bottle of Sam Adams was even better but I digress.
Used the 4 way flashers for the one-mile trip back down the freeway to the motel.
Next morning, we met Wayne at 0930 in a pouring down rain storm. He opened the overhead door to his shop and I’m looking at his off road race car on the 4 post lift up in the air. The plan was to pull Stinger in under it. Ya right 6-inch lift on 315s—that aint gonna happen. So he had me nose it in and we stood kind out of the rain while he hooked up the lap top to the OBD port and read the tune. Then back to his desk inside to see what the tune was. There were many things that were not correct. Such as the wrong size injectors were listed which cause the engine to run very lean. (now I understood why I got a backfire when I stood on it to say pull out and pass someone) The ring and pinion ratio was not right, the tire size was not right and several other things were off. Plus, Stinger was throwing the P0315 and O0150A codes. In addition, the tranny gear selector and the actual gears had no correlation. First was 2nd. Second was first and 3rd was 1st. Drive was okay as was reverse, neutral and park.
Wayne fixed all the stuff over the course of the next two hours. AND said he tuned it for efficiency which meant more horsepower. Then it was time for the first test drive. We drove down the industrial area street testing gear shifting and it was great. Next was onto the freeway. I got on the entrance ramp and floored it. Holy crap!!! That was what I was saying. Faye wasn’t talking! When that thing shifted into third it buried our heads into the headrest. We were doing a “tad” over 70 by the time the on ramp ended. Back to the shop.
Wayne spent an hour or so fining tuning the MAS stuff and got it down to 3% difference. GM say 12 is fine. Took it for another test drive this time with Wayne and the laptop/HP tuner hooked up. I was and still am giggling like a little girl at a birthday party. Stinger is purring and shifting like never before. Found an 8% grade and put it under load. All was good.
Back to the shop and paid Wayne his standard custom tune rate of $150. I could have put it on the dyno for another 150 but neither of us really saw the need.
We headed to the gas station for a fill before starting back home. By now its 1230 and I have no taillights and the drive back is 7 or so hours. So onto the freeway and about 3 miles down the road the CEL lights up. P0150A bad word, followed by more bad words and still more bad words. Have not got time if we want to get back before dark so it was clear the codes and press on. See comments above about the freaking winds.
Somewhere 150 miles later I was trying to figure a way to make the tail lights work. I didn’t remember which pin in the MFS was the tail light pin and didn’t have any tester with me to help figure it out. Faye also suggested something along those lines about just hot wiring the tail lights. Maybe stop some place and buy a roll of wire and some tape. (those two items are now on my add to the tool box list) That really got me to thinking. I have a permanent towing wiring harness behind the front bumper that I plug into the coach for flat towing. I wonder if I can just run a wire from the battery to that harness. But wait. Just behind the right headlight I have added a fuse box for those thing I want hot all the time. Why not just splice into one of the pins? But wait again. When I found a rest stop and popped the hood then ran the tow wires back inside the grill I saw that the end of the harness would slip nicely over one of the hookup prongs of the fuse box. It slipped right on and Viola: taillight and dash lights.
What else shook out? Stinger has a rotational medium frequency driveline vibration noticeable at about 55 mph and it increases to a high frequency vibration at 70+ It actually got better towards the end of this 800-mile trip. Most noticeable upon deceleration. I have played with pinion angle and think it is about as fine as I am going to make it. So now I am wondering about the balance on my TW driveshaft or, because it is much more noticeable under deceleration that neutral or acceleration that I have a pinion or carrier bearing problem as the FSM indicates. Guess I need to pull the diff cover and see what’s up.
Speed varied from 55 to 75 and gas mileage varied from 9 to 17. Note: we were fighting hellacious winds on each leg of the trip and on the way up I had 23 pounds in the tires. Doing 75 into a 35 mile an hour wind gave us 9mph. - I’ll get to why we were going so fast in a minute. 55/60 in some wind-sheltered areas got us the 16+. On the way back mileage was much the same. Then, however the winds had picked up. Half way I increased the tire pressure to 32 pounds without a sacrifice in ride comfort BUT with the winds it really didn’t make much difference in mileage. Going to make some adjustments and get a true figure soon,
Why were we pushing so hard? During a particularly vicious rain shower I found out the dash lights didn’t work. From my post several days ago you may guess that the plug in on the Multifunction switch wasn’t secure. I pulled the steering column cover off and monkeyed around with all the wiring and beat on the switch. Nope! No dash lights and no tail lights. We were in a hurry to get to the motel before dark!! Didn’t make it. We got to Spokane Valley just about dark and with all the motels figured no problem. We’ll just hold up until the appointment the next day. Except when we tried to find a room we discovered that there was a major sporting set of tournaments and some huge conference this weekend and there were no rooms anywhere within 20 miles. One may just guess the verbal response I was spewing! We had gone to Wayne’s shop first to make sure I knew where it was. A couple of blocks from there we saw a Roadway Inn. The draw back was that it was in a highly industrial area with lots of truck traffic. When we found out there were no rooms Faye took the chance and called Roadway. Yes, they had one room left-—-We will take it was all I heard from my side of the phone call. It really wasn’t that bad but there is nothing like a Peterbuilt firing up outside the room window at 0500!
Room problem solved we found a bar and grill close by and just as it was turning fully dark we pulled in for the toughest patty melt I’ve had in a while. We had not eaten since breakfast (after finishing up the ball joint back in Sisters that morning) The patty melt was fantastic and the bottle of Sam Adams was even better but I digress.
Used the 4 way flashers for the one-mile trip back down the freeway to the motel.
Next morning, we met Wayne at 0930 in a pouring down rain storm. He opened the overhead door to his shop and I’m looking at his off road race car on the 4 post lift up in the air. The plan was to pull Stinger in under it. Ya right 6-inch lift on 315s—that aint gonna happen. So he had me nose it in and we stood kind out of the rain while he hooked up the lap top to the OBD port and read the tune. Then back to his desk inside to see what the tune was. There were many things that were not correct. Such as the wrong size injectors were listed which cause the engine to run very lean. (now I understood why I got a backfire when I stood on it to say pull out and pass someone) The ring and pinion ratio was not right, the tire size was not right and several other things were off. Plus, Stinger was throwing the P0315 and O0150A codes. In addition, the tranny gear selector and the actual gears had no correlation. First was 2nd. Second was first and 3rd was 1st. Drive was okay as was reverse, neutral and park.
Wayne fixed all the stuff over the course of the next two hours. AND said he tuned it for efficiency which meant more horsepower. Then it was time for the first test drive. We drove down the industrial area street testing gear shifting and it was great. Next was onto the freeway. I got on the entrance ramp and floored it. Holy crap!!! That was what I was saying. Faye wasn’t talking! When that thing shifted into third it buried our heads into the headrest. We were doing a “tad” over 70 by the time the on ramp ended. Back to the shop.
Wayne spent an hour or so fining tuning the MAS stuff and got it down to 3% difference. GM say 12 is fine. Took it for another test drive this time with Wayne and the laptop/HP tuner hooked up. I was and still am giggling like a little girl at a birthday party. Stinger is purring and shifting like never before. Found an 8% grade and put it under load. All was good.
Back to the shop and paid Wayne his standard custom tune rate of $150. I could have put it on the dyno for another 150 but neither of us really saw the need.
We headed to the gas station for a fill before starting back home. By now its 1230 and I have no taillights and the drive back is 7 or so hours. So onto the freeway and about 3 miles down the road the CEL lights up. P0150A bad word, followed by more bad words and still more bad words. Have not got time if we want to get back before dark so it was clear the codes and press on. See comments above about the freaking winds.
Somewhere 150 miles later I was trying to figure a way to make the tail lights work. I didn’t remember which pin in the MFS was the tail light pin and didn’t have any tester with me to help figure it out. Faye also suggested something along those lines about just hot wiring the tail lights. Maybe stop some place and buy a roll of wire and some tape. (those two items are now on my add to the tool box list) That really got me to thinking. I have a permanent towing wiring harness behind the front bumper that I plug into the coach for flat towing. I wonder if I can just run a wire from the battery to that harness. But wait. Just behind the right headlight I have added a fuse box for those thing I want hot all the time. Why not just splice into one of the pins? But wait again. When I found a rest stop and popped the hood then ran the tow wires back inside the grill I saw that the end of the harness would slip nicely over one of the hookup prongs of the fuse box. It slipped right on and Viola: taillight and dash lights.
What else shook out? Stinger has a rotational medium frequency driveline vibration noticeable at about 55 mph and it increases to a high frequency vibration at 70+ It actually got better towards the end of this 800-mile trip. Most noticeable upon deceleration. I have played with pinion angle and think it is about as fine as I am going to make it. So now I am wondering about the balance on my TW driveshaft or, because it is much more noticeable under deceleration that neutral or acceleration that I have a pinion or carrier bearing problem as the FSM indicates. Guess I need to pull the diff cover and see what’s up.
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