 |
| End it. |
Signed up for an autocross this weekend with the Chesapeake PCA, and has been par for the course this year, canceled my registration.
Sigh. Getting kind of old. It's the fourth or fifth autocross I've canceled a day or two before the event.
As has been mentioned previously, the Camaro had developed sudden fuel delivery issues. It wouldn't even make it up a slight incline at the last autocross I took it to because the engine would die. That same glorious 5.3 aluminum-block LS engine making an easy 360 horsepower to the wheels and a flat torque curve. Like Jerome Bettis in his prime had to roll around on a tricycle.
AFR readings spiked lean pushing any sort of throttle. Eventually playing whack-a-mole (sent injectors off for cleaning, replaced the fuel filter), the fuel pump was the issue even though testing it (Tuner Studio has a mode to run the fuel pump without the engine firing) seemed to show the pump was OK.
The fuel pump (and even played more whack-a-mole because I thought the new replacement fuel pump was bad) was replaced with a Deatschwerks pump and the car ran fine. Sort of. Well, almost too good. Replaced the dead/dying fuel pump with a better pump, and I could tell the car was running a little rich.
Just send it! Finally getting a chance to drive it around the block earlier this week (with the Lightning out of the way after fixing* it), the car sputtered some at light idle, seemed to do OK at part throttle, but popped and sputtered around 4,000 rpm.
I sent Peter Florance a log, and he said it was "pig rich." He emailed me another tune, I loaded it last night and went on another test drive around the block. The car idled and drove better under part throttle, but back at WOT around 4,000 rpm, it behaved as before.
It seems pointless to even load it on the trailer to sputter around the course tomorrow, so another registration canceled. There is an autocross at Ripken Stadium in a couple weeks but really feel like just ending it. Instead of send it, end it!
Maybe next year. It really, really, really fucking sucks because I had such high hopes after firing the car for the first time envisioning ripping around autoross courses this year. But instead I've made two half-hearted runs.
If you've read this far, you deserve BONUS CONTENT!!
BONUS CONTENT!!
BONUS CONTENT!!
After co-driving with Team WTF?! CEO and Executive Officer Clyde Caplan in The Fancy Camaro at a Philly-SCCA autocross at Ripken Stadium, Clyde offered The Fancy Camaro again the following week at the WDCR-SCCA autocross at Summit Point. That's a long sentence. Those are a lot of acronyms. I finished second behind him, a little closer on a longer course. I did have a great off-course run short-cutting the course. It was so smooth, I didn't even notice it until entering the offsets. "Hey, I shouldn't be here yet."
See video below to see if you can notice it. Clyde was nice enough to dub my commentary where I messed up.
* In true soloLOLs return of the clownshoes fashion, I decided to change the coolant hoses on the Lightning. Back in July, I drained the coolant because it looked like muddy water. Then refilled with coolant flush and distilled water plus water wetter. I have kept that mixtured under normal driving since then but decided a few weeks ago to dump that concoction and go back to an antifreeze/water mix.
But, hey, since I was doing that, might as well replace the hoses and thermostat. After draining the engine, I ordered hoses, and of course they were on back-order. This was one of the reasons I ended up in Clyde's Camaro for two weekends. That and unsure if the Camaro actually ran OK (Ron Howard Voice: "It didn't."), and since the Lightning with no coolant with no coolant was in the way, I couldn't get the Camaro out of the garage.
Two weeks after starting that project, the Lightning rolled off the ramps and ran fine.
Comments
Post a Comment