Cascade Crew

[Twilightoptics]

When you shortened them did you use new ends?

You can cut plug wires to any size. Most good kits come with the plug end attached and you cut to fit the rest. A good spark plug wiring crimping tool is a worthy investment.

Or atleast I used to think so until I started working with engines that don't have such devices.

[aaron_sK]

I have reused the ends before, but sometimes they don't like being bent repeatedly. Depends on the quality of the unit.

I'll second buying a good crimp tool as well. I have had good luck with my Taylor tool.

[Al Hasse]

No new ends, but I did have it running after I shortened them. A good set of Taylor wires are going on shortly, these MSD Street-Fires I have found out (and heard) aren't what they're cracked up to be.

[Twilightoptics]

Crane or Taylor is all I'll buy. Accel is okay, but ugly yellow.

MSD's are crap. Had a set. Never again.

[Al Hasse]

New wires on, idle set and timed 6* and seemed to idle OK. I have an exhaust leak where a bracket was welded to hold the AIR tube for the cat, but nowhere near the starter this time. I was able to start the motor first try every time with Paul's starter, great piece.

I took a short trip around the block and found that the cat gets really hot and starts to glow, it's not had AIR injection since I installed the EBL Flash because it doesn't support it. Do I need a little more timing to cool off the cat, or get one that doesn't require AIR?

[aaron_sK]

Not pumping air into a cat that needs it will clog it up.

You're in Kitsap so I would just get a straight pipe, or gut it. Or if you want to keep it all legal-beagle get a high-flow.

Also take a look at timing and fuel to make sure it's not an engine issue causing to much fuel to end up in the exhaust.

[Al Hasse]

The cat is supposed to be high flow already, I bought it several years ago from West Bay when I put the exhaust system together, it hasn't had air pumped to it for more than a year because the EBL doesn't support the diverter solenoids, air pump exhausted to atmosphere that whole time. It does, however smell very rich out the tail pipes.

I have the values for 61lb/hr injectors set into EBL and 13psi fuel pressure, I'll have to look at the gauge tomorrow and see what pressure it's really running at. Other than that, timing is at 6*, I'll play with that some tomorrow and see where it likes to be, maybe it needs some more.

[rjmcgee]

Bump the timing up.

[aaron_sK]

Have you conformed that the ECM is actually adjusting the timing?

[Al Hasse]

I did, but not by how much. I may have set it wrong too. I have a dial-back light and it may not have been set to zero when I started, will verify tomorrow what I'm set to.

[Al Hasse]

I bumped the timing to about 12-13 degrees, idle seemed smoothest there. After plugging the EST wire back in, the ECM commanded the timing to about 20 degrees.

I think I'm quite lean on fuel though. There isn't much for acceleration and, although the cat didn't smoke like before, the exhaust is hot enough at the muffler to boil what little fuel I have in the tank.

[Al Hasse]

I just may have to start over with the idle and timing. I just discovered that only one of my injectors is firing, which more than likely accounts for the lack of power on acceleration and general roughness, also for the extremely lean condition

[aaron_sK]

[Al Hasse]

Dial it in with one injector? I don't think so.

I'm not doing anything else until I replace them with some 80 lb/hr 454 injectors. I've been shopping since I found out this is a stock 350 TBI unit and found the upper part of the TBI with injectors and regulator (non adjustable) for less than the injectors by themselves.

[Al Hasse]

I acquired another pair of injectors today, still 5.7 but they'll keep me out of trouble for a while Both work good, I drove the car around the block and pickup was very good.

It's throwing a CTS code at me though and I think it's affecting how the motor runs. Either the CTS is faulty or it doesn't like how and where it's mounted, I had to use an adapter ring to fit it into a larger hole and it sits a bit higher than it should, but still in the coolant flow I think.

Tuning runs as soon as I figure out why I have the CTS code I'm thinking sensor because it's been intermittent since the motor has been running - on the drive with only one injector, the code was detected by EBL, but hadn't been set by the ECM.

[aaron_sK]

When the CTS fails it will fail max low, therefore the engine is always trying to fuel as if it was like 24* below. Cheap to replace.

[Al Hasse]

When I disconnected the laptop, CTS temp was 40*C, and at operating temp, I would think it should be at least double or closer to 100*C. My t-stat is 180*, so that makes operating temp about 82*C or so. I know I was at operating temp because my fan came on for a while.

A new sensor for tomorrow then. It could be the connector though, the locking tab has broken off, but always seems tight when I check it.

[Al Hasse]

Aside from some tuning, I think I'm done I replaced the connector on the CTS, though I bought both pieces, went for some tuning runs and all codes disappeared from the EBL display. Now that I have both injectors working, this motor has some great acceleration, and though I wasn't trying to, I only broke the tires loose once at a stop light.

Here it is all complete, later I plan to replace the air cleaner with a black piece and the valve covers with red trimmed black ones.

[Schultzy89GTA]

Great news Al! Congrats!

-Schultzy

[iansane]

That's exciting. I can't wait to see what she puts down.