Back on Road, Tuning issues

[haydenm315]

The car is back on the road and running. I took it up to the station for air and ultra 94. It's running pretty good but has some tuning issues to be worked out. If there is a loss of torque, the weakness of my tempo has completely masked it and I don't know. I'm having some idleing issues at times. Sometimes it will idle fine in the 900's I think. Sometimes it will start to choke on itself and drop below 500 and the low oil pressure comes on. I think part may be my lack of high flow y pipe and new maf and intake. Gotta get that soon. I've also noticed that I'm losing my power brakes when the engine is ideling. When I tap the gas my brake pedal regains feeling. The car also backfires if I hit the gas too fast from a lopey idle. All in all it's driving nice and the valves sound good even though it was cold enough for me to lose feeling in my toes. I notice a whine that I'm sure is coming from the timing belt area. My thoughts are maybe I tightened the idler pullies too much or the belts are too tight. What kind of noise should a new timing belt make. I've left the upper cover off for monitoring purposes currently. That timing belt was out of package for a while and I ran the motor with it already before I ripped it all down for the second time.

 

[shojuan]

You might need an LPM if for nothing else to raise the base idle. This is a very common problem with stage 2 cams. Wild cams give you a lopey idle.

WRT the timing belt area whine: The timing belt shouldn't be making much noise and I doubt if that is what you're hearing. The brand of accessory belts you use can have a big effect. I put on goodyear gatorback accessory belts and they have a profound turbo-like whine that I love (although it has diminished a little bit after 4000 miles). Scott has these same belts and I don't think he likes the whine like I do.

You can always try doing a complete computer idle reset (reset computer, idle 30 seconds with no load, then turn on all loads (AC max, lights on highbeams, stereo on, food on brake, turn wheel left and right a bit, then drive for at least 5 minutes, when it's up to normal operating temp drive the snot out of it)

Assuming you don't have a bad MAF or some other condition that would give you a bad idle with stock cams, the only option I can think of is getting an LPM.

Have fun!

Rick

 

[haydenm315]

The whining I heard was actually air leaking out of a runner on the manifold. Sounded real mean like I was eating something up on the inside of the engine. Ironically it was the runner right on top of the lash cap I heli-coiled. I was preparing for doom. I was about to rip off the manifold when I found 2 loose bolts. I tightened them up and the engine has never sounded nicer. It was causing all kinds of problems like backfires and such. The idle has somehow set itself up correctly if not maybe a little too high at times. It's between 900-1000 on the tach. I'm quite happy with the stage II cams in their own. They are working nicely but I plan on putting a ypipe on very soon along with some intake help and some gauges.