Sorta Final Impressions
Feeling much better and most of the burns are healed up enough to get back to work.
The failure:
After looking at what happened the hose clamp failed allowing the hose to blow off. The hose has a universal type of end on it with different rubber "bushings" to make it the right size. To fix it I got a piece of hose the right size and used some good "Ideal" brand clamps. Man coolant is expensive and a pain to clean off the walls and ceiling!
Can't tell exactly but the screw just stripped and the clamp loosened up
The hose where it hit the fender and chipped the paint.
First impressions:
Its much easier to drive, idles fair and starts on the first crank with just a turn of the key. All the surging at cruising speed is gone and it smells 100% better. Initially it set some codes for multiple sensors so after a tech call they suggested I double up the ground from the engine to the cab and that fixed the codes.
What's not good:
It will not idle with AC on. The idle hunts all over the place and eventually dies. I did hook up the AC request signal circuit and can read the AC request on the scan tool so this is just a programming issue. I called Howell and they said it may require a chip update but to drive it a few weeks and it might self-learn. We will see, I'm thinking it needs a chip.
Not peppy at all from a start. It feels like it must "spool up" to get going. It was never a rocket from the line but this is really pathetic. Discussed this with Howell also and they gave the same answer, so we will wait and see.
To answer some questions:
Yes they did build me a chip for my combination and to my camshaft spec. I had originally built this to be a TPI motor so I had chosen a cam profile that they had recommended. Still it idles much worse than I had hoped for such a small cam.
I paid just under $1600.00 the set up. That included the distributor and coil as well as fuel pump and heated O2 sensor kit. Its true that you can definitely piece on together for a lot less and maybe free, but I had two days and this is now my daily driver so I wanted as few problems as possible. I also had some prior experience with them and was very impressed. Definitely more impressed then than I am now. They seem very jaded and grouchy, maybe its that sucky Michigan economy got them down, but they were not fun to deal with.
