Rauq's Twincharged LSJ in SC - #240 - GOBZILA

[Rauq]

Did you have to add anything to stiffen up the hood for the hinges?

Other than the original riveted mounting plate, no. I did remove the second and fourth rivets so the hinges would sit flush and they're bolted in with washers on the inside against the fiberglass. The front end seems at least as stiff as it did with just the dzus fasteners.

Do the old fastener ears hit the tabs where they used to fasten into? It looks like they would, and limit the hood to only open a little bit.

Not that I noticed. My wife held the hood in basically the fully open position, where the opening is essentially parallel to the ground, while I installed the hood-side hardware on the hinges. We then rotated the hood into position to secure the rear mounts and the swivel action was smooth with no hangups. I think if we'd made anything more than the slightest contact I would've noticed. I could remove those ears but that'd probably require removing the mount plate to protect the vinyl.

 

[Rauq]

Figured it was time to share this with the world. Here's my 3D printed gauge pod. I want to redesign the location of the ambient light sensor. Right now it's centered in height to the gauges but it kind of gets in the way of the hood bolt in the very left of the picture. It looks a tiny bit goofy with the lines running parallel to the steering column mount instead of the hood line, but whatever.

There was a little tab on the side of the ambient light sensor that I snipped off prior to install; besides that, it slides in and locks into place with 1/4 turn just like it was installed in the dash, I guess.

The pieces that the mounting studs are screwed down onto are removable, so I could actually swap the gauges from side to side if I wanted to, or reprint just that piece if I swapped out a gauge. I've got it in my mind that I could make more than 20 psi one day so the stock boost gauge would have to go. Then again, reprinting a part is a drop in the bucket compared to installing engine parts, but whatever. They also (obviously) allow for the gauge to rotate so I can lock it in at the right rotation.

The PLA has held up just fine so far. The thing mounts with the steering column mount bolts (which I replaced with the same hardware about 1/4" longer). I sliced in Cura with 100% infill in the areas under the bolt heads, standard settings everywhere else. I cranked down on those bolts pretty hard and they seemed to torque just fine (and there's thru holes on the top of the gauge pod for easy wrench access!), so I'm not worried about the steering column mount going anywhere. I considered printing around a metal insert but so far I'm convinced that would've been overkill.

 

[Rauq]

Strange electrical issue. Three times now separated by a few days each I've hopped in the car to go for a drive and had no parking lamps, aka running lights. Every other light works on the car- low/high beams, turn signals front and rear, brake lights. I don't have tail lights, license plate light, backlights in the cluster, or the marker lights in the mirrors. There's a fuse for all of these lights, but the fuse is not popped. With a multimeter, I have no power on either side of the fuse with the lights turned on. From the diagram there's a PCB relay in the fuse box that sends power through the fuse and then to the lights, but it's non-serviceable. The real kicker is, though, if I flash a tune, the lights come back. Disconnecting the battery or pulling the PCM fuse does not bring the lights back. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Ross]

Software issue... wierd. I wonder if it is related to the missing tail light stuff.

 

[Rauq]

The only taillight stuff I might be missing is load resistors for the actual lighting elements. I do have the hyperflash turn signal going on, but I don't think the turn signal circuit has anything to do with the park lamps. I do also have the load resistor in the third brake light (not sure if we ever confirmed it's actually necessary on an '06), so cruise control works just fine, but again, as far as I can tell, the CHMSL shouldn't have anything to do with the parking lamps circuit.

I will try getting a multimeter to the backside of the fuse box to see if the PCB relay for the circuit is being triggered by the ECU.

I think the two biggest pieces of info here are that there's not even power coming to the fuse for this circuit, and flashing a tune brings everything back online.

 

[Ross]

You mentioned a fuse box PCB relay can turn the circuit on. That is how the software can turn the lights on and off.
Is it a fusebox issue, or a software issue? I thought we can take the fusebox apart to the circuit board... as people have fixed copper traces when they incorrectly jumped the fuel pump relay.

 

[Rauq]

I can and probably will take the fuse box down to the circuitboard but for starters I figured I'd see if I can get my multimeter to C2 (from the BCM) to see if the BCM is sending any signal to the relay to turn the lights on. I suspect it's not, and the issue is software, because flashing a tune seems to fix things.

The park, tail, and marker lamps, including the license lamps, are turned ON when the headlamp switch is placed in the PARK or HEADLAMP position, or anytime the headlights are requested. The PARK LAMPS fuse in the rear fuse block supplies battery positive voltage to the PARK LAMP relay switch contacts. The PARK LAMPS fuse in the rear fuse block also supplies battery positive voltage to the PARK LAMP relay coil. When the park lamps are turned ON, the body control module (BCM) energizes the park lamp relay. Current flow is from the PARK LAMP relay to their respective park and marker lamps and to ground. Ground is provided at G101, G102, G401, and G403.

Also:

 

[Gtstorey]

I had to rewire a lot of my lights due to failed PCB relays. After I had what seemed to be likely relay failures of the power feeding the MAF sensor and then O2 sensors in the past few weeks, I replaced mine with the fuse panel from a base Cobalt from EBAY. It was fairly simple, with the service manuals, to swap some of the base and turbo specific circuits around to make it work.

 

[Corgithulhu]

I think there's something to be said about the age of the relays in these cars. When I wired in my taillights, I was getting 6 volts on the stop lamp and CHMSL circuit. As if the solid state relay on the BCM circuit board was failed partially shut. I blew the fuse for the stop lamp due to a hot CHMSL wire touching ground by accident, and now only that CHMSL light blue wire gets a 12v signal since it's getting 12v directly from the brake switch. The green and yellow wires for right and left tail stop lamps do nothing, both brake and turn signal action. I've resigned myself to just using the CHMSL wire to power the stop lamps, and put an external turn signal using the side mirror power (which I tested to be good).

The BCM works well otherwise as far as I can tell. It's like just the SSR for the stop/turn signals went bad.

 

[Rauq]

I had to rewire a lot of my lights due to failed PCB relays. After I had what seemed to be likely relay failures of the power feeding the MAF sensor and then O2 sensors in the past few weeks, I replaced mine with the fuse panel from a base Cobalt from EBAY. It was fairly simple, with the service manuals, to swap some of the base and turbo specific circuits around to make it work.

At this point I think I'm just getting a little ahead of myself, I need to put a multimeter to the backside of the fuse box to see if the relay is being triggered on. If it's not, then I don't really have a reason to think the relay is bad, and the problem is probably upstream from there.

I think there's something to be said about the age of the relays in these cars. When I wired in my taillights, I was getting 6 volts on the stop lamp and CHMSL circuit. As if the solid state relay on the BCM circuit board was failed partially shut. I blew the fuse for the stop lamp due to a hot CHMSL wire touching ground by accident, and now only that CHMSL light blue wire gets a 12v signal since it's getting 12v directly from the brake switch. The green and yellow wires for right and left tail stop lamps do nothing, both brake and turn signal action. I've resigned myself to just using the CHMSL wire to power the stop lamps, and put an external turn signal using the side mirror power (which I tested to be good).

The BCM works well otherwise as far as I can tell. It's like just the SSR for the stop/turn signals went bad.

Not worth getting worked up over just yet, but what you're describing sounds to me like what I've read about the CHMSL integration into cruise control... I think it's been pretty well confirmed for the later model year cars, but not 100% for the early ones, but apparently the BCM sends 6-7v through the CHMSL, looking for a load. If I recall correctly, it goes back to 0v after it's completed its test routine. I believe a few SS/SC builds have gotten cruise control working without this, but I soldered in a 25w 100ohm resistor into my CHMSL circuit so the BCM would see the load and thus grant me access to cruise control. Unfortunately I never did test cruise control without this resistor.

 

[Corgithulhu]

Not worth getting worked up over just yet, but what you're describing sounds to me like what I've read about the CHMSL integration into cruise control... I think it's been pretty well confirmed for the later model year cars, but not 100% for the early ones, but apparently the BCM sends 6-7v through the CHMSL, looking for a load. If I recall correctly, it goes back to 0v after it's completed its test routine. I believe a few SS/SC builds have gotten cruise control working without this, but I soldered in a 25w 100ohm resistor into my CHMSL circuit so the BCM would see the load and thus grant me access to cruise control. Unfortunately I never did test cruise control without this resistor.

Interesting. After I blew that fuse and replaced it, I get zero volts to the light blue wire coming out of the brake switch while it's open. When I close that switch, the CHMSL wire gets the 12v that the brake switch allows through, but the green and yellow wires still get 0v.

On one hand, you've got me curious....on the other, as long as it works then I'm happy. I don't mind not having cruise.

 

[Rauq]

I did about 200 miles yesterday, including to/from this route, plus some backtracking on these roads. This thing is a monster, and I am not anywhere near good enough of a driver to take full advantage of it. Plus, public roads with cliffs on the sides and everything, you know. I still need to do some fine tuning (ha). Yesterday morning I had no parking lights. I flashed a tune and they came back. The lights worked normally during the whole trip, but as of this morning, I have no parking lamps again.

 

[Gtstorey]

I'm not sure how the flashing a tune would affect the lights since you are doing that on the ECM and the lights are controlled through the BCM, other than flashing a tune seems to reset the ignition, so it may be causing the power to be cut to the BCM. You might try disconnecting the battery and seeing if that does the same thing. This is where a Tech2 clone could be handy since it can give the status of the light commands and also turn them on and off.

 

[Rauq]

I'm not sure how the flashing a tune would affect the lights since you are doing that on the ECM and the lights are controlled through the BCM, other than flashing a tune seems to reset the ignition, so it may be causing the power to be cut to the BCM. You might try disconnecting the battery and seeing if that does the same thing. This is where a Tech2 clone could be handy since it can give the status of the light commands and also turn them on and off.

Already done that, pulled the PCM fuse as well. Individually and together, disconnected for at least 10 minutes.

 

[Corgithulhu]

I did about 200 miles yesterday, including to/from this route, plus some backtracking on these roads. This thing is a monster, and I am not anywhere near good enough of a driver to take full advantage of it. Plus, public roads with cliffs on the sides and everything, you know. I still need to do some fine tuning (ha). Yesterday morning I had no parking lights. I flashed a tune and they came back. The lights worked normally during the whole trip, but as of this morning, I have no parking lamps again.

View attachment 26591

Nice! My buddy has a couple cabin rentals just east of that, near Saluda and Tryon. I've driven the roads in cars before, but I told him I'd meet him for lunch once the Goblin is ready just as an excuse to drive on those roads. The Carolinas' mountain roads are absolutely awesome, and I'm so excited to get the Goblin on them!

 

[Rauq]

I'm scoping out F23 transmissions for a swap, and I've seen some delineation between '05-07 transmissions and '08-10. Is this just because 2008 was the first year of the XFE 3.63 FD option, or is there some other difference to the trans like updated synchros or anything like that?

 

[Justinreed7]

I'm scoping out F23 transmissions for a swap, and I've seen some delineation between '05-07 transmissions and '08-10. Is this just because 2008 was the first year of the XFE 3.63 FD option, or is there some other difference to the trans like updated synchros or anything like that?

Snag a new one from DF Kitcar if they have any left. Thats where i got mine from

 

[Rauq]

Snag a new one from DF Kitcar if they have any left. Thats where i got mine from

I may scope that as an option and order that and the F23 mounts when they release the shifter to us plebs.

On a related note, do you have a good way to get in touch with Team Green? I can't raise them via Facebook or their @live.com email address.

 

[Rauq]

Autocross playlist

My last run was the second fastest of the entire event, 55 cars total... until my codriver went immediately after me and bumped me down to third.

Video quality was ok on my old GoPro, but audio is garbage. Not sure if I'd be better off running an external mic and syncing later or getting a newer/better GoPro, but I'd rather not get a newer/better GoPro if it's still going to require some external mic setup. I've come across recommendations for running lapel mics but I'm not sure that's going to sound much better at these volume levels.

 

[DCMoney]

Autocross playlist

My last run was the second fastest of the entire event, 55 cars total... until my codriver went immediately after me and bumped me down to third.

Video quality was ok on my old GoPro, but audio is garbage. Not sure if I'd be better off running an external mic and syncing later or getting a newer/better GoPro, but I'd rather not get a newer/better GoPro if it's still going to require some external mic setup. I've come across recommendations for running lapel mics but I'm not sure that's going to sound much better at these volume levels.

Go external mic. Hero 7 black with the below external mic, mounted to one of the engine cover brackets.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P7P6M2J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1