Using the Mopar Peformance PCM I had sitting in a box, the Neon is now running again. Took it up to the dealership this morning, they plugged it in, and I guess it started right up. The gas light came on as I drove it home, so I guess that's the perfect time to fill it up with a tank of premium. ;-)
Like I said the other day, the PCM has very little in the way of cooling. I'm thinking of adding some RAM heatsinks to it or something, maybe that will help. :-D
Yes, the Neon is now having more problems. It has had a stalling problem ever since I got it back together in the spring, but it would only be when the engine was cold, particularly when the engine was cold but the car was warm (like sitting in the sun). Today it was worse. It stalled on me once with a fully-warm engine in traffic. After pulling into a parking lot I could get it restarted. Later I started up the car, and didn't even make it a mile before it just stopped working completely, this time as I was accelerating away from a light. I couldn't get it restarted, so off to the dealer it went.
Several hours later I get a call from the dealer, saying their equipment can't talk to the PCM, and I'll need a new one. Unfortunately the new one is on the other side of the country (odd how the parts I need are always on the other coast), and would be around $400ish. Fortunately, however, I have the Mopar PCM that one of the previous owners bought. I'll be driving that up to the dealer tomorrow morning for them to try, and hopefully that will work.
It might actually fix all of the stalling problems, as I can kind of see how that might explain the situation. After talking to Evan, he said the PCM on his Dodge Spirit ('92 maybe?) was replaced at least once, maybe twice, as it would overheat and fail. They have very little passive cooling, so I can sort of understand this.
I'll have to start running premium fuel, but it sounds like there's a decent power gain to be had, and it's a lot cheaper than buying a new PCM. At 25mpg and a $0.20/gal price difference between regular and premium, I'd have to drive 50k miles for it to be worthwhile to buy a new stock PCM. There's no way the rest of the car will last that long. :-P
That was me immediately after going to the Nine Inch Nails concert on Monday night. Actually, the impaired hearing lasted a much shorter time than some others I've attended, probably because I was sitting on the other end of the arena from the stage. That, or maybe I've already lost some of my hearing. ;-)
I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Didn't play that much new stuff, played all the popular old stuff. I've really only come to appreciate their music in the last few years so perhaps I wouldn't get the enjoyment out of it that a long-time fan might, but it was worth attending nonetheless.
My only regret is that we didn't buy floor tickets. If I had known for sure that I'd be standing the whole time, I would have pushed for the floor tickets. As it turns out, some of the lower sections stood for the whole show, some didn't. I could hear the music just fine either way. :-P
It felt good to be autocrossing the Integra again last weekend, especially now that I have some competition with Clint running DSP. I was able to stay ahead after each run, but it was only by four tenths in the end. Given the tire advantage I had, it kind of takes away from the victory. On paper I should have won by a lot, but I'm just not as good a driver. Despite running in the morning, I still paxed a 956. Looking back at past stats, that's pretty consistant with my scores in the spring (952, 950, 953 in Jan, Feb, Mar respectively).
In the morning I was pushing everywhere, and just generally running poor lines. My last run I tightened up some of the lines, blew about 3 turns and a slalom, and didn't lose much time. In TO's I cleaned up those turns, kept the better lines, and the extra grip from running later dropped my times almost two seconds. That was good for a score of 980, easily the best score I've had at a Phoenix area event. In January I had a competition run that would have been a 974 were it not for a cone, but...well, there was a cone. So I'm happy with my performance for the weekend.
In afternoon fun runs I ran the Saab a few times, and those stock tires are just terrible. The best I could manage was only good for about an 895 on the DS pax factor. I was surprised at how easy the car would rotate with the pressures we were running, however (suggested by Jay B). Well, easier than I would have expected, at least. It really needs some better tires, particularly in a better size. Something tells me that 205/55-16 isn't the hot size for STX, no matter what car you're driving.
Got my car back from the shop, and it looks like I won't have a/c this weekend. There's evidence of dye at both the compressor and condenser from the last batch of freon they put in. :-( Not sure when I'll be doing that, but since I'm not driving it every day (at least, not during the day), it's not exactly a top priority right now. Going to be a warm drive back from the autox.
Well just one part really, but it always seems like I'm buying more parts. I should have checked it when it was suggested to me, but it does in fact look like I'll need a new clutch master cylinder. I'm still leaking a little fluid, and it's not a big leak, but the seal is definitely all wet and there's evidence of leaking. I'm sure it'll be fine for this weekend, but that's still another $100 I didn't want to spend.
It's certainly hard to get around to my "should replace" list when parts keep getting added to my "need to replace" list. :-P
Found my leaking coolant line over the weekend, and it turned out to be one that I had to replace when installing my intake about 4 years ago. Once a little pressure was applied to the system, it was a pretty obvious leak. Replaced the hose, added yet more coolant, and I think it's ok now.
Drove it to the gym last night (I'm trying to drive it at night, since the air doesn't work), and I figured I should get on it a few times after it warmed up. For some reason it felt really fast - probably a combination of the following:
1. Been driving the Neon the last two weeks
2. Haven't been up near redline much since the new clutch & flywheel
3. When I was driving the Integra, I would always have the air on.
So now I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it'll feel on Sunday with the 13's on it again. Hopefully I can get the air fixed so the ride home is somewhat comfortable.
I should have said one down, one-and-a-half to go, I think. Seems that I'm still leaking a little bit of fluid from the clutch reservoir, but I'm not sure what part is leaking. :-\
Much to my delight, I beat the Tahiti Maze rally license test yesterday. When I finally got it, not only was it beautiful, but I beat the gold time by a couple tenths.
Went karting last night at Bondurant again, this time with Teresa and Evan, who happened to be turning into an old man of 25. Throughout the day I'd be thinking about the track layout, trying to remember the turns and such...then I get there, and they're running it backwards. Great. :-P Still a lot of fun though, plus there was an actual braking zone into a tight corner. I was thankful for my facesheild (or whatever you call it) after something sizeable hit it on the first lap, then I followed someone through some on-course dirt a few laps later.
Inspired by Clint's performance and my own inability to win even the normal difficulty dirt/snow rally races, I'm making an attempt to get golds on all of the license tests. So far, it's going ok. Two nights ago I started in on the B licenses (I was already done with the first half), and finished all but the last one. After spending 40 minutes on it, I finally gave up in frustration. Last night, I got it in less than 10 tries. :-P
I continued on with the A licenses, and I think I'm on 11 or 12 right now. I was doing pretty well up until the rally portion, which has constantly frustrated me in GT4, as I always thought I was pretty good (or at least, not terrible) at it in GT3. It feels like cars are more difficult to drift now, imo. I eventually passed the first test at Grand Canyon, most likely by luck. Now I'm on Tahiti Maze, a few tenths off gold. I'm getting better at drifting around the corners, but still having a surprisingly difficult time getting the drift started. I'm definitely fearing the Grand Canyon 1-lap test on the S license. :-o
Hopefully when I'm done working on these licenses, my skills will be improved to the point where I can win some of the races that currently elude me, such as the rallies and challenges. One downside is that a license test only proves that I can do something right once, and it seems that I usually lack the skill to take those turns right repeatedly.
Don't wake up at 1pm and think you'll get to bed at any kind of reasonable hour. It just doesn't happen. >:-O
I actually slept a lot over the long weekend, and as such, didn't get much done. I should have checked Autozone to see if they rent pressure testers for the Integra, but that didn't happen, so I might stop by after the gym today.
Played poker one night with a different group of friends than usual, that was interesting. We started with 6, and after 3 hours there were still 5 people left. I finally got one good hand, the guy next to me goes all in with about $3k, and I call him...except I can't cover about $75 of his. I win, but he's left with $75. That later comes back to get me, as he wins a few lucky hands, gets some money, and he eventually put me out of the game! Bleh.
I also spent some time this weekend trying to burn some tivo'd shows to dvd, to clear out some hard drive space. Victory by Design and Good Eats episodes were taking up about 70gb on a 160gb drive, and I only had 10gb free, so that was no good. I finished off the VBD, and 5 episodes of Good Eats. At 5 episodes per disc, I only have about...14 more discs to go. Awesome.
The good news is that as I use it more, the less I hate Nero for basic video editing. It's pretty easy to take commercials out, so on a normal tv show, it just takes a few minutes now. VBD has about twice as many commercials breaks as a usual show (though they're about half as long as usual), so it takes twice as long to take out the commercials. Thanks VBD.
I tried the Arrive & Drive at Bondurant last night, and it was a lot of fun. Of course, I wasn't looking ahead, so when the 2nd turn came up way sooner than I thought, I overcorrected and spun right there. I had to wait for the rest of the pack to pass me before I could safely turn around and continue. A couple turns later I was a bit distracted when I saw some fireworks going off in the distance, and put a couple wheels off into the dirt. ;-) After that though, everything was good. Lap times were consistantly coming down, as I got used to the grip and tried some different lines.
The grip level seems pretty good, and I think that's what seems to make it so much more tiring than the indoor karts, but I don't know. That, and there's nothing holding you in the seat, so you have to work to stay in place. The bigger seats are definitely welcome for drivers of my size, even if it's harder to keep yourself from moving IMO. I'm sure skinny people would disagree with me. ;-) I like the banked turns and slight elevation changes, and rumble strips/grass/dirt are a welcome change over tire barriers right at the corners. $25/race seems like a pretty fair price for the experience, especially since by the time I was done, I didn't know if I had enough in me to race again. It's a lot of work being a slow driver.
I ended up finishing 6th out of 9 or something, with a time in the low 41s. Clint won the race with the only lap in the 39s.
Now my problem is that I still have a card with two races on it at F1 race factory, and my motivation to go back there is low. :-P
