V1 BAustin's Extended Track - 06 SS/SC Donor - #157 Registered

[baustin]

This is the mesh I used, it's big enough I could've messed up one and remade the grill.

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[jayrolls]

On my way home from a short drive I noticed my boost gauge was just reading -20, not actually changing with boost but my phone was showing various pressures based on throttle position being read from the OBD port. I didn't catch this earlier in the drive but I think I found the reason when I reviewed the circuit diagram.
View attachment 14374

One of the fuses I pulled was the wiper fuse, position 15 (10A). I figured that was safe since I don't have wipers but you can see in the upper area of the diagram the pink wire for the boost gauge. I'll have to pull the foot rest out again to reinstall the fuse in the 15 spot. I'll confirm if that fixes it but the diagram sure seems like that should be the issue.

View attachment 14375

This post completely just solved my boost gauge problem. So how during tear down my wiper fuse vanished. Just put the door locks fuse in its place and magic, boost gauge works again.

 

[baustin]

A couple things to add now: installed a front brake proportioning valve (idea from Rttoys link and added a brace for the shifter mounting plate to stabilize it better.

Front proportioning valve installed location, accessible from the driver side suspension opening in the hood, white dot of paint so I can easily see how many turns I've done when adjusting:

Never have made brake line flares before this, so far the practice flares seems to have helped, the actual install isn't leaking as far as I can find after multiple drives.

I put a heated bend into a small L bracket to attach easily to the shifter mounting plate and one of the square tubes at the front of the driver seat, this has been awesome in helping find 5th gear with the aluminum shifter SACTX did a group buy for:

Oh and I know this is merely from HPTuners, not GPS data backed, but I figure it should be fairly accurate. 40-60mph of 1.5 seconds.

With a peak boost psi of 15psi (205kPA), I shifted just a tiny bit before redline here. I have the 2.9" supercharger pulley with 60# injectors. Some day I'll search for a shop with a dyno to figure out how much horsepower my LSJ is making.

 

[Ross]

That dab of paint on the brake bias knob is a good idea... I need to do that too.
My Wilwood brake bias restricter is on the front brakes, and it seems backwards, but when I thread the knob/bolt in, it is full front brakes, when I thread the knob out, it restricts the front brakes. Thanks Rttoys, I like the bias adjustment!

 

[baustin]

That dab of paint on the brake bias knob is a good idea... I need to do that too.
My Wilwood brake bias restricter is on the front brakes, and it seems backwards, but when I thread the knob/bolt in, it is full front brakes, when I thread the knob out, it restricts the front brakes. Thanks Rttoys, I like the bias adjustment!

Yeah, I was expecting that backed out would be like not having the valve however that is the full restriction where I could lock my rear brakes up first. Fully turned in I can lock up my front brakes like it was without the valve. Having the proportioning valve allows me to stop even harder now, it's really quite ridiculous how fast I can stop.

 

[baustin]

This is the data I have from the stock LSJ pulley/injectors/tune for 40-60 mph. Stock did 40-60 (2nd gear) in 1.8 seconds. Quite an improvement to now make that pull in 1.5 seconds (my post above). 1.8 seconds for that is still really fast.

 

[JBINTX]

Yeah, I was expecting that backed out would be like not having the valve however that is the full restriction where I could lock my rear brakes up first. Fully turned in I can lock up my front brakes like it was without the valve. Having the proportioning valve allows me to stop even harder now, it's really quite ridiculous how fast I can stop.

The front brake valve needs to be on everyone's list who plans on pushing the car to its limits. Game changer.

 

[Rttoys]

I believe the adjustable prop valve on the front brakes should be on all goblins or at least some sort of upgrade to get the brake proportioning correct. It truly is a game changer to the brake system. There’s a few ways to accomplish the same results, but I feel this way is the easiest and least expensive way to do it with very impressive results.

 

[baustin]

Next update now that I've gotten a good number of drives in after my last change. I've still been chasing my fuel gauge being intermittent and showing the wrong level: sometimes it would work perfect from startup, sometimes it would not show a value till a while after I started driving and would slowly increase as I drove, sometimes drop during a drive back to empty and then come back up. In general I've only been able to use my trip meter to know my fuel level. I've previously tried using a contact de-oxidizer to clean the 4 pin connector on the top of the fuel pump as well as the wire side, didn't seem to make a noticeable difference (it was still very intermittent, too low, increasing during drives, etc). During this I've never had issue with fuel delivery or the pump priming/running, it's only the fuel level gauge that's been off.

It's pretty easy to find Cobalt forum posts about inaccurate fuel gauges, some were fixed with a reprogram it seemed but most needed the sensor replaced.

I pulled my fuel pump out and replaced the fuel level sensor, I also tried to compare the old with new. On my workbench, both gave good ohm values but the old once had a far looser swing arm for the float. When trying to move the float around, I found that there was a sharp corner on the fuel pump tank that the float arm kept trying to get stuck on, easily fixed with a little sanding to smooth it out. The float arm also got a shape change from the original, the new one has a longer first leg from the pivot and then a more sloped second portion that would pass over the corner I sanded. I made sure the connection for the sensor to the top of the fuel pump was nice and clean and then also cleaned the 4 pin fuel pump topside connector again. Once it was all reinstalled, I've had a perfect working fuel gauge every time driving so far. Of course the fix may have only been the connector cleaning but I figure the fuel sloshes around enough my float may have been repeatedly catching on that plastic corner I adjusted. Hopefully I won't have to revisit this sensor, it's nice to no longer have an erratic fuel gauge.

Unmodified on left, sanded corner on right:

Old (green and dark float) / New (tan with light color float):

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Good write up, will probably help someone in the future. Always good to share the knowledge.

 

[baustin]

I'm going to need to revisit my fuel level sensor replacement

Towards the end of my first full tank of gas after the change, I never got close to E on the gauge and didn't have a low fuel text warning but still ran out of gas. I thought I had 15-20 miles easy on the tank to get to a gas station but may have lost that amount of gas during the change out the weeks prior.

Currently my gauge is still reading full today despite having 55 miles on the tank. Typically I get 24ish mpg, I would hope the gauge would be more like 5/8 full at that mileage (I know it isn't going to be linear matching due to the tank change from the Cobalt shape). I thought my original level sensor was decent at this mileage before it acted up.

A couple things I'm thinking of looking into: go back to my original float sensor (just needed the contacts cleaned), bend the new float arm to change when full/empty happen, add a resistor in the wiring to simulate the float arm bend (if low resistance is the full level), or see if there is a reprogram option through a Chevy tool (I think I saw something referenced about this after the TSB replacement of the sensors to calibrate their output to be read). Currently I'm leaning towards just putting my old sensor back in to see if the entire problem before was just the connectors.

 

[baustin]

Partial update for now, more to follow.

I got the replacement/upgraded steering arms installed. I also bought a new set of 4" long outer tie rod ends to use with the new steering arms. The previous 3" version I had on the front worked well with my front control arms set almost as short as possible (while keeping camber/caster in a good range), this allowed me to use the wheel adapters on the front to avoid rubbing my rims on the control arms. I now have the steering rack limiter installed to avoid the rub issue so I pulled the wheel adapters back off. With the decreased front track width I wanted to extend my control arms to bring the front track width even with the rear track width. I didn't like how little thread I then had inserted in the outer tie rods, the 4" longer version seems to work really nicely for me. I haven't replaced my inner tie rods so I'm not sure if mine are shorter than others or if they are still stock. I would've needed to rent a ball joint separator to reuse my outer tie rods anyways, those were fully stuck to the original steering arms and didn't budge when I hammered to release them.

To finish the steering arm upgrade, outer tie rod replacement, and track width increase I had to fully redo my front alignment. I was far more specific about noting my rod end turns and the resulting alignment angles, I'll post those up once I've gotten a test drive in to check the feel.

I also revisited my fuel level sensor yesterday. I went ahead and considered it preventative maintenance to replace the entire fuel pump and sensor. I ordered a Delphi pump with sensor. When I pulled out my current setup (Cobalt donor fuel pump and aftermarket replacement fuel level sensor) I found a couple things that were likely my issue causing bad fuel levels. On my original fuel level sensor and my new Delphi fuel level sensor, the float can freely spin around the metal arm, this was not the case on current setup. On my current setup the float was able to be rotated by hand but would not spin after releasing it, the hole in the plastic float was too small, both other sensors I have on my workbench can keep free spinning since they fit loosely on the arm. I checked in the tank to make sure my float arm was not catching on things and measured the internal baffle to be about 6" away from the center of the fuel pump mounting position. With the slight bit of rotational variance when dropping the fuel pump into place, the float that I had was likely able to touch the baffle and not drop all the way down to measure empty. With the new pump/sensor ready to go I dropped that into the tank and made sure to rotate the pump as far counter-clockwise with the float still pointing towards the fuel fill side of the tank, no apparent interference with the new sensor this way. The current float sensor also appeared to be slightly longer of an arm which would make it be more able to reach the tank baffle vs the new Delphi one. All sensors I have measure roughly 40 ohm to 250 ohm (40ish at full and 250ish at empty) with no intermittent signal so the sensors themselves have all been working the entire time. I think my original problem was the cobalt connector was gunked up, my 2nd problem was the fuel level sensor getting stuck on the fuel tank baffle.

Next 2 steps were to chart the fuel level sensor ohms vs float height and to chart the fuel in the tank vs the gauge reading. This will help me know what the gauge markings actually mean but also confirm if the float is hitting the baffle. I used lego blocks to lift the sensor at set heights to measure the contact resistance values, this will give me eyes inside the tank to what height the float is reporting of fuel if I need to troubleshoot later on. I filled my tank 1 gallon at a time from completely empty and charted my fuel gauge readings. I'll enter this data here soon, only thing to mention for now is that 6 gallons took the needle all the way to just a tiny bit below F (possibly reading F, I don't recall right now if my needle actually goes to F or beyond) so my next step is drive 3 miles to the closest gas station to fill up at a pump and see how much additional the tank fills before the pressure cutoff.

I'll have the charts ready sometime soon. It's still on my winter list to replace the rubber bushings on my rear control arms with the spherical ones sitting on my workbench.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Photos of the new steering arms? Curious to see how this install with the longer outer tie rods compares with the 'stock' ones.

 

[baustin]

Photos of the new steering arms? Curious to see how this install with the longer outer tie rods compares with the 'stock' ones.

The new ones are the strengthened ones DF sent out, I just got around to installing them. This picture is with my alignment set and 1/8" toe in. No geometry changes due to the steering arm replacement.

My notes on my inner tie rods are: 2 1/4" of threads, alignment as shown has 1" of threads beyond the end of the outer tie rod, so I've got 1 1/4" of tie rod overlap. If I kept the shorter tie rods DF provided with the kit then I'd be down to 1/4" of overlap and I prefer more even though it's technically enough threads. Main reason being it's blind and if I adjust my control arms to be even longer then I might accidently adjust my tie rods to only have a couple threads of overlap.

 

[Joebob]

One thing to watch out for is you transferred the lack of thread engagement from the tie rods, to your control arm Helm joint threads. The inner ones are blind too and you need to make sure you have at least 1/2"-5/8" engagement or 1 diameter if both pieces are the same strength (and don't include the jam nut in those measurements). I see you outer ends are pretty screwed out. Keep in mind that the farther they are screwed out, the larger bending is applied to them in braking, turns, or bumps. Is the track width change a functional or aesthetic reason?

Joe

 

[baustin]

One thing to watch out for is you transferred the lack of thread engagement from the tie rods, to your control arm Helm joint threads. The inner ones are blind too and you need to make sure you have at least 1/2"-5/8" engagement or 1 diameter if both pieces are the same strength (and don't include the jam nut in those measurements). I see you outer ends are pretty screwed out. Keep in mind that the farther they are screwed out, the larger bending is applied to them in braking, turns, or bumps. Is the track width change a functional or aesthetic reason?

Joe

Good points. I've kept the heim joint threads in mind, and yes I've also measured based on excluding the nut, that's why for the tie rods I considered overlap, not threads beyond the nut (the 1" of threads I mentioned is including where the nut is to get to the distance of threads in overlap). I just haven't had the time/weather to test drive and then put my adjustment numbers in here yet.

Track width change is essentially asthetic. It bugged my eyes that with my wheel adapter on all 4 wheels, I couldn't bring the front track small enough to match the rear. Once those weren't required anymore it bugged my eyes that the front track was smaller, I don't have my notes right now but I think it was 10/8" smaller. So the adjustment to each heim joint is around 5/16" extended vs previous. Due to adjusting my target caster, some varied more or less but basically 5/16" to each got me to my target track width. I was starting from nearly minimal lower control arm length. I may still go back and move some threads from inner to outer heim joints if my lengths overlapped aren't where I want but not sure yet.

 

[baustin]

Here's the gas gauge levels I found for my 06 SC with a brand new Delphi fuel pump/sensor:

I started with a siphoned/pumped almost entirely dry tank, a new fuel pump that had never filled it's reservoir or primed even once, and empty fuel lines. I had the fuel pump relay out of the fuse box during the first 6 gallons of filling just in case I needed to fully pump out the pump is the sensor level wasn't working and I didn't want to have to drain them again.

I added in 1 gallon increments and then turned the key to 'on' to read the gauge. With 6 gallons poured in, the needle read the dark blue line, almost to the mark at F. I then put the car back together, fuel pump relay back in, started up the car and drove 3.0 miles to the closes gas station with 93 octane. When I shut off the car to fill it at the pump my gauge was at the gray line, however I realized that the O-ring included with the new fuel pump wasn't sealing correctly since I had fuel all over the top of the gas tank. I am not 100% how much leaked out but is was more than just 1 drop. I ran the gas station pump till it auto cutoff, it took 3.4 gallons to that point. I'm not sure how much gas it took to prime the pump and fill the fuel lines to the engine but I figure I if the gas gauge matches any of the levels I'm showing the image above then I've got at least that much gas in the system (technically should be just more than my image since the fuel lines would also be full now). Remember I've got an 06 SS/SC, I would expect these levels to vary for the SS/TC version due to the different fuel pump setup.

About the O-ring: I've got 3 versions in my garage from the adjustments I've made, I tried the brand new O-ring and it leaked. When I set that O-ring in place, it was large enough it shaped itself like a pentagon since it wanted to be larger than the stud circle allowed. I tried adjusting it 3 times after a couple short drives and can't get it clamped down without at least 1 area sliding itself out from under the fuel pump flange. I compared the new one to my original Cobalt one and found the Cobalt one to be noticeably small diameter, I don't remember if these O-rings swell when wet with fuel though so that could be the reason for the size difference. I reinstalled the original Cobalt one and so far haven't had any more gas leaks from the pump area. I guess not all Cobalt compatible O-rings work with the mounting style of the Goblin fuel tank, I know that some other folks have had a hard time getting the O-ring to seal correctly.

I also charted the ohm reading from the fuel pump connector on my workbench. Since the fuel pump pressing onto the bottom of the tank, my height readings were from workbench surface to the pin in the middle of the float. Chart shown here and the zip file attached has the excel data.

 

[baustin]

I ordered the extended version but I needed the seats a little closer to use the clutch and my wife needed it a little closer in general. We normally drive with the seat set the same in all our vehicles so the adapter plates I made should work out great. If the brackets for DF give 0/1/2" from rear most position, the adapter plate adds 3/4/5" from rear most position. Without actually driving, I think 4" position will work the best, 2" ahead of where the extended frame allowed.
View attachment 10098

More detail on the seat bracket adapters:
Here's the details I could look back and get. 1/8" thick, 3" wide steel, probably 4' long covered the 2 finished pieces. There's test pieces in my pictures that were only 2" wide steel but that didn't get me to a good bolt location below the front of the seat (gold bolts). I have a standard width seat, not wide, the seat brackets pretty easily wiggled to allow the adapters to fit between the seat and mounting brackets.

Note that the metal bar with the most holes and square cut ends was my test piece, not installed at the end. In order to move the seat bolts forward, I had to scallop out the clearances for the rearward bolts (I think I did this with dremel or grinder wheel). In order to drill through 1/8" steel with a hand held drill and steel held by my bench vise, I needed the stronger cobalt type drill bit with WD40 type lubricant sprayed occasionally on the drill location. Speed is not your friend when drill steel, drill presses don't exactly go high rpm, so use your hand drill on a lower speed gear or trigger level.

First 2 images give the idea I started with, they bolted to the seat but didn't reach far enough to get 2 bolts between the adapter and mounting bracket

picture of almost finished adapter:

I think I've labeled it correctly. My typical seat position is #6. The adapter has 2 positions, gold bolt stays in B and 1 or move the adapter forward and gold bolt lines up with A and 2. In position A I can use 7 or 5. In position B I can use 6 or 4. remove the adapter and I can use positions 3, 2, 1 (1 is furthest from the pedals). *I think I went back later and added holes for position 5 so I could move my seat back 1" without having to move the seat bracket adapters. The hole marked A is only in the bracket adapter, the bolt doesn't change relative to the DF part.

It was important that when putting the seat in the further back location (like 4 and B) that the steel was just short enough at the front edge to clear the seat front edge. Imagine the 2 steel pieces pictured staying still and move the seat back 2".

The scalloped holes on the DF seat bracket are exactly 1" increments since I think positions 1/2/3 were at 1" increments. I used painters tape to measure/mark on and a center punch before I used the drill bit to prevent wandering too much.

 

[baustin]

Made it out to an autocross in Danville, VA this past Sunday. My goal was to have fun, probably hit too many cones and not wreck my car. Good thing the novice about 5 cars ahead of me hit the shed beside the runway on his first run just before I was going to start... You might notice the damaged door and wall in the videos, his BMW back doors were still outside but his driver door and hood was into the shed. Serious questions about if the event would continue but the airport was fine with it going on. The location is the retired runway portion of the Danville airport, the crossing runway just uphill is still live and multiple small planes took off during the day of autocross.

I had a really good instructor riding with my for my runs, I was too rough the first run but got better on the other runs. Nowhere close to as fast as the car could go I'm sure but it was fun and I'll probably try to do more autocross events with THSCC. I was only a couple seconds off the fastest novice class car but many of the folks in novice were there the day before (I wasn't) for a novice school day getting a feel for their car and autocross (different course layout for the novice school). I had 0 experience prior to this event, I did ride with 1 guy for 1 run just before my runs in his Fiesta ST and it probably led me to be too sudden with my steering and throttle.

Run #1 - DNF, due to hitting the final cone but glad I missed the timing box...

Run #2

Run #3

Run #4 - technically fastest run since run 5 had a 2 second addition for 1 cone

Run #5 - fastest run but did get 1 cone penalty, not exactly sure which one though

 

[baustin]

Google maps view of the course location, main airport buildings are uphill from the autocross area, general course followed the red line: