Getting closer........

[Motown 454]

Glad to hear its going in your favor with the upgrades.

[Jim Nilsen]

I just got my setup back from accel and they went over the whole thing and even put more shim in the distributor just to be sure. I went from version 3.1 to 6.1 5 . I am able to monitor the cam and crank signal now and have a whole bunch more troublshooting and help info in the program along with a much faster system.

It is sleeting outside and the garage is getting warmed up and I am putting it back in.

[Jim Nilsen]

While the garage was warming up I posted a couple of videos on youtube.The link above should get you to them. They are from a bit of a drive I took to go to the Sonic drive in that is located in Belvidere. You get to see a decent shot of the gauges when it is dark outside about 2 min into the larger one. The quality isn't the best but it does have sound and the sunset wasn't too bad for a late November day.

It may take a bit for them to post them up. Just put the number 4 or 5 in place of the title and you should get them.

[Jim Nilsen]

It's been a long time waiting for the damn weather to get a bit warmer so not much has been going on in my garage.

I have just started to get back to things and my computer is back in the car along with the dual sync distributor ,it is definately not the same so it hopefully is going to work now. I tried to get my laptop to connect with the ECU but the ECU still wants com port 3 and I am going to have to get my laptop repaired or get a new one. It's almost the same price to do either. I have a friend that I am waiting on to bring over their laptop to just get the car up and running again.

The break away from the car has been a good one too, I was getting stressed out over the whole EFI situation, the more I kept trying to force it to go my way the farther I went the wrong direction in my bank account,lol. I have a plan and am going to follow it thru.

More to come soon.

[Bryce]

very cool Jim. Thanks for sharring with me.

[Jim Nilsen]

I finally have a laptop that got me into the ECU last night. I have the distributor in position and plug n play program in with most of my startup procedures done. I am going to go back over it again today to double check some of the parameters to make sure I didn't overlook something in the excitement.

I was able to get in with com port 4 and not 3 for some reason on the laptop. It is a laptop that I had used before from a friend and it liked com port 3 the last time but why it changed ? Could be the plug on the laptop? I had to move it from the bottom usb plug to the top one to get it to work at all. It is good to know that things are different as hopefully it will be all different since it didn't work right before.

I am trying to find someone to make it over and be the timing light person. Not even going to try and do it all by myself. I know the engine is a running engine that has no problems that can plague me as before and as long as I follow the instructions and what I have learned from all of this I hope I will be able to go past 3,000 rpm without igniton timing problems.

[Jim Nilsen]

I just got done going over everything in the ecu 1 more time and found a couple of things I hadn't gotten to in the VE predictor table that will make start up a lot easier.

Everytime I go into the ecu I learn something new.The new program has a much better help section and when I talked to dave at accel the other day I feel more confident in the dual sync dis. having been gone over. It even had torx screws replacing the phillips screws to tighten the rotor adjustment.

I am pretty confident that I everything setup correctly, plugged in and can go to start it up as soon as I get a helper.

I have been through the routine so many times with bad results and nothing to be found wrong at the very end ,that along with all the nightmare stories of ecu's coming back and not working at all I am just going to expect something and if it works right I will feel blessed for once.

Everyone keep their fingers crossed and positive thoughts, This unit really needs it !!!!!

[Bryce]

[Jim Nilsen]

No more igniton problem, AMEN

the car runs great when it gets enough fuel by pooring it in, the rpms go up like right now and will go up to 4 grand like it never has.

The problem I am having at the moment is getting it to start without pooring fuel in. I have talked to Don Bailey and he says it is more than likely just the starting fuel enrichment that is not enough to get it to fire off and it is cold. 56 degrees makes it harder. I am warming up the garage to around 70 and going to see what happen while trying to enrichen everything until it starts on its own.

If it would have been warmed up more and not been stupid to try I think it would have gone to the rev limiter

[John Wright]

woot!...waiting to see how it acts once warmed up...woot!

[Jim Nilsen]

Got it to start and idle nice and it revs to 5500 rpm with no ignition problems noticeable anywhere

I have to thank Don Bailey , Jeff Jasiek and Dave Seidel from Accel for their help today to tell me what to do and for me to get it straight in my head and answer the questions about what to do next.

And a big help from my friend Jim who came over to pour gas in the top to let me know it was going to run and not an ignition problem.

Now I can finally move on to finishing up the rest of the engine bay and the interior.

I have to wait for the snow to melt and streets to clear to have some driving fun but I can at least start it up and keep tuning it bit by bit until I have it as close as I can and then it will be off to get a max tune on it to complete the search for power.

Thankyou to everyone for hanging in there and praying for me to get the beast running. It's been a long hard road to get this far.

I will try to get a video up as soon as I can on youtube.

It sounds better than it ever has !!!!!


!

[wmhjr]

Good news, Jim! Spring isn't THAT far away... Pretty soon that thing will be on the road.

[Jim Nilsen]

Good news, Jim! Spring isn't THAT far away... Pretty soon that thing will be on the road.

I've had the car up and running for only a few hours and I already have the itch to go for a ride real bad. It sounds so sweet at over 5k that I know I will be pushing it to 6 soon enough.

I finally have the smile on my face that I was looking for the 1st time it started up. The next drive out of the garage is going to be as soon as possible. My mind has had visions that were broken but they are back and I am excited again.

A lot of nervousness has finally left and I won't miss it one bit !!!!!!

Now I just have to make sure it doesn't look like Bad Penny at the moment for any length of time. The front clip won't come completely off but I do have to pull the grille and header panel to finish up the hood hinges and get the header panel repainted.

I am going to drink a beer and celebrate

[NOT A TA]

Congrats Jim! As soon as you get a time when the roads are dry and the driveway mud frozen take her out for a rip around the block! And don't forget to have someone take some pics or video.

[Motown 454]

Glad to hear you got it whipped. Now all you need is some 70 degree weather to drive in. lol

[David Pozzi]

Great news Jim!

[Jim Nilsen]

Congrats Jim! As soon as you get a time when the roads are dry and the driveway mud frozen take her out for a rip around the block! And don't forget to have someone take some pics or video.

You saw the end of my drive in the video didn't ya !!!!!!!

That is more than likely what will happen too

As long as it is together the morning sneek down the frozen tundra to the clear and dry street in late March is more than likely going to happen. The thought of the car being show perfect left my mind when I saw what the track does to these cars so quickly

Function over form has been the philosophy and the show car people will just have to deal with a little bit of wear and tear when they feast their eyes on it.

Yesterday was a good experience for me, it made me a better tuner right out of the box by neccessity. The guidance I recieved from some of the best to get it running forced me to learn the basics and get more confidence in a hurry. Now I have to keep playing with it to get the practice it takes to keep that info locked in my mind. The parameters of tuning are something I understand but the ability to translate that into a computer to make it do what you want are a whole new ballgame.

My mind has been racing since it started and if that is any indication of what the car is going to do by kinetic energy I think we are going to get to the track and have a lot of fun.

[Jim Nilsen]

Great news Jim!

You more than anyone knows how long the journey has been for me with the car. It's been a long time since the Camaro Research Group days. I hope you like what you see and feel when you get to get the close up view and go for a drive

[Jim Nilsen]

Kind of ironic that the last post number before it started and ran well was 267.

[John Wright]

Great news Jim! Glad that thing is revving for ya now. I know that is a load off your mind, since you have battled that gremlin for quite a while.