sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I didnt even get everything I wanted off it. I just took the interior and the front end pretty much. I actually left a lot of parts because I was in a rush, my parents wanted it out of their driveway.

I am sure they stripped it more at the yard.

Thats pretty funny though. Goes to show how rare these cars are up here in new england

petechapter50

iTrader: (1)

haha yea and when you do find them there all hit in the front... i was looking for a hood, fenders and bumper at the time. i ended up going to bufallo ny to find the stuff i needed. found a guy there that only deals with parting out lsx's and lexus.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I actually just thought of something it may be which would be a very simple

obviously I have 5 lug cause this is an s5 well on the rear wheels I remembered I lost a few of the generic tuner lug nuts that were on the car sometime along the 3 years of working on it. So I used 2 of those old tuner style lug nuts and the remaining 3 lugs on each rear wheel I re-used the trans ams lugs.

I still dont think that could be causing this issue but I am sure the fbody lugs are heavier than the tuner lugs creating an imbalance. That being said its very close to the center of the wheel thus the imbalance wouldent be as noticible as say a tire imbalance where smaller weight deviations create larger problems.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Actually replacing the odd ball lugnuts helped the vibration quite a bit. Now I dont really feel anything till about 60 and when I'm just coasting theres no major vibrations. Its still not what I'de call vibration free. In anyones normal car they'de still think something was wrong with the car, but its better than it was.

That being said when I'm on the gas at all the vibration is very strong, just as bad as it was before, and its deff driveline.. Just trying to figure out what part of the driveline.

I do have some fucked up alignment out back and I deff have some negative camber in the rear (warmed the tires up a bit coming from a stop sign and got out of the car and the outside of the tires were ice cold and the insides were nice and warm) and I've deff got some toe in in the rear as well.

I think you can see the toe in, in these pics




Other side


Even though I deff need an alignment, I dont think its far enough off to make the half shafts bind.

Although the CV joints may not be binding after doing some reading on other boards as said earlier on there may be play in them. On raxles.com they have a troubleshooting guide that says if you have a vibration under acceleration its prob either the driveshaft (beaten that dead horse) or excess play in the inner CV joints of the half shafts.

I forgot to check it before leaving the car today but I should have swapped in the extra set of half shafts I have sitting around to see if it would make a different.

Getting an alignment is on the list, I am just waiting for my rear camber link to come in so while their aligning it they can dial out the negative camber in the rear while they're back there.

BTW I forgot that I had some good news today though. As you guys know I have been dealing with high TPS readings at idle, but maybe my pcm is microsoft based because today I started it up and the TPS was reading 0% at idle. SUCCESS! and stayed there. Now if I only knew why I had an issue to begin with, but it seems like the TPS values at idle kept gradually falling until now. Who knows ? Idle is now down to 800 which is the lowest its ever been. Still not 700rpm like its supposed to be though..

I did pull 2 codes though after going for an extended drive. I had a couple backfires so I was pretty sure I was getting intermittent firing on one coil I know is an issue and what do yah know I pulled these 2 codes.

P0354- GearChatter.com :: View topic - DTC P0354 Ignition Coil 4 Control Circuit
(I have a loose connection to this coil somewhere, I dont know where though yet)

and

P0650 - GearChatter.com :: View topic - DTC P0650 Malfunction Indicator Lamp (MIL) Control Circuit
(Dont know what the hell this one is, or if its really all that important in this application)

petechapter50

iTrader: (1)

the vibration deff sounds more like a u joint than a drive shaft imbalance. usually a drive shaft imbalance not to affected my throttle but vehicle speed. a u joint will usually vibrate more under throttle and hardlly any off the gas ....unless its really bad. as far as the dtc p0650 gm service information says its a problem with you're check engine light (MIL)? the info on it is not too specific but check the harness going to you're gauge cluster. there could have been a problem durring the swap. theres also a MIL fuse somewere. good luck, pete

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Beaten the driveshaft to death. I wish it was just a ujoint. I pulled the driveshaft initially thinking it was a u-joint. Brought it to a driveshaft shop they checked it over and the u-joints look brand new and they re-balanced it just to be sure. I re-installed it and it was the same thing. The only other thing I can think it would be is excess play in one or more of the CV joints in the half shafts.

petechapter50

iTrader: (1)

ohh....yea i gess the cv joints are the next gess......btw so am i gonna see this thing at NED this summer or what? looks sick!

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

You bet!

But dont expect much initially, the car may be quick but the driver (at least right now) is still running 14s.

Right now the car has serious issues hooking up and going straight. I meen serious. In reality right now if I just went to the track and tried to see what I could sixty foot I'de be lucky to be under 2.5 even with the nitto drags. I gotta get a real alignment, do some more bushings, and ditch the sway bars for the track and get lots of seat time on the street before hitting the track.

I pulled this car out of maine from a guy who had a SBC in it and was using it for circle track racing but no one local seems to recognize it. I will also be bringing it to autox events, maybe hillclimb.. maybe circle track. With enough adjustible suspension goodies and some know how this car is a pretty flexible performer. Can go to NED one weekend and then should be able to adjust camber and tires and go autoX it the next weekend.

Today I did a couple semi WOT runs getting in and out of the throttle through first second and third and the back end was skating around pretty good, but I'm getting more confident every time I drive it. I was pattin the gas around some corners to rotate the rear end a bit mid corner. Its really fun even now.

petechapter50

iTrader: (1)

nice... glad youre havin fun with it. come sumertime im shure you'll have little extra grip. theres just sooo much salt and sand on the road right now. btw you better watch out hitting the gas going around corners ....before you know it you'll get hooked on drifting haha to bad theres really no good sactioned drifting events around.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

Got back from some skiing in Colorado for 5 days and had some packages waiting in the mail for me.

Kitty couldent wait to see what was in the box


Tomorrow I'm gonna switch out the half shafts hoping the CV joints are bad and fix that vibration. Then I gotta put in the camber bar and also change the diff fluid and get it aligned.



As you can see I also got some of that spray on/brush on sound insulation which I'll brush on the rear wheel wells if I have time. I also got DTSS eliminator bushings which I'll do later but for now I just want to get the car driving straight and vibration free.

Looking for some alignment advice though

I think toe is the only thing I can adjust out front without camber plates. So what do you guys think of these specs?

Front
Toe - 0
Camber/Caster - stock


Rear
Toe - 0
Camber - 0
Caster - whatever is stock

Trying to get a little traction out back so thats the main focus. Would like to dial in a little more negative camber out front but I dont think I can.

I have KYB struts/Racing Beat springs/Racing beat sway bars.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

wtf changed the half shafts and made no difference

Took it on the highway and like usual at 60 and on throttle it was vibrating away like crazy but this time I figured I'de push it a little faster and see if it'd go away. It did seem to start settling back down around 80 but the car felt pretty unstable at that speed

Getting the camber link installed tomorrow and getting it aligned. If that doesnt work I'm stepping away from this car for a while.

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

I got it aligned and alas nothing was really wrong with the rear alignment. The toe adjusters are frozen in place but I only had about half a degree of toe in at each wheel. Also rear camber was -1 Caster was close to factory spec


Front camber was right around zero caster was perfect only thing on the whole car that was way off was front toe. One wheel was like 1 degree toed in and the other was like 7.5 degrees off. Obviously a result of me taking the rack out and taking it appart.

Now I'm completly out of idea as to what the insane vibration could be in the rear end. Driveshaft has been checked and balanced, Halfshafts have been replaced, tires have been balanced (deff know its not the tires or wheels because the car vibrates the same no mater what pair of wheels I have on there)

The guy doing the alignment used to have a 60s tube chassis vette fully tubbed in the back with something like a 572 with 35" tires out back. He showed me a pic of it that he had on his tool box. He felt the tail of the transmission was not lined up with the rear end which is pretty common with swaps like this and ujoints should account for minor differences in lateral angles as well as vertical angles.

Also he felt the tranny should be moved more towards the passengers side a side which grannys mount is already up against the frame rail and can be moved no further without modification. I'm not sure I really believe this being the issue. Like the vertical adjustment of the tranny in relation to the rear end, the lateral adjustment is only at most an inch either way. Between the end of the tranny and differential thats only about 1 degree of angle difference. Enough that the U joints should be ok with.

While I was at the shop I also had them install the dynomax bullets in series with the the sweet thunder resonators and I love the sound. Its deff quieter and more mellow around idle and part throttle, also a ton less drone while driving but still screams when you open it up. After they installed the dynomax bullets one of the guys took the car for a quick drive to check the alignment and he even mentioned that over bumps the rear end felt like it was moving side to side. I hope that goes away when I do the DTSS bushings. At this point though it was dark and starting to snow hard. I drove right home and got home right in time before the snow really started piling up but driving on lightly covered roads with Azenis 615s in this car was scary :ohnoes: I parked it in the garage cleaned up and 15-20 minutes later I was on the road home. There was enough snow on the road that I wouldent have made it in the rx7. Man they finnished working on the car just in time.

So still trying to figure out the rear end vibration but like I said before I think its time for a short break from the car. I'm getting really sick of dropping the rear end and pulling ****. I'm gonna rewire the gauge cluster tomorrow to get it to work 100% and bring it out on the highway to see at least if the alignment helped the high speed stability. I am deff open to listening to more suggestions on what it could be. I am just out of ideas.

I am also getting misfires on cylider 4 and now.. yay cylinder 2 as well. Still hauls *** for a 6 cylinder.

JohnHF

iTrader: (5)

pinion angle? mine would vibrate around 60 when the diff was posistioned too far up

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

How did you end up changing the pinion angle and how much did you change it?

Space the rear subframe down a little bit? Very interested in this

JohnHF

iTrader: (5)

the two bolts on the front of the diff that tighten down that plate against the subframe... well you know under hard acceleration the front of the diff can slide up if those bolts dont hold thus changing the pinion angle. i welded my plate to the subframe so once the studs on the diff come through the 2 holes they can not slide up, your not depending on the tighteness of the nuts to hold it down anymore.

but im sure yours is setup properly and you probably have the pinion snubber too. i dont think this is your problem i was just throwing it out there.

also when i bought my car it did have spacers in between the front subframe mounts and the body of the car. the guy said he did this to correct the pinion angle. this was spacing the front subframe down though, i believe it was a halfass fix to offset the problem of the front of the diff never being properly held down.

jfg455

iTrader: (5)

If you have the front and rear u joints out of phase then it will vibrate no matter what you do. If the front u joint is 2 degrees down then the rear has to be 2 degrees up. If they both go down then massive vibration will ensue. Same with side to side alignment. The angles need to be equal and opposite. Make sense? both @ the same degree IE: 2 deg and opposite IE: front neg and the rear pos. Unphased u joint vibration always gets worse under load either accel or decel. Hope this helps.

yessir

iTrader: (5)

lol howd u get the dude from pinks to be ur tranny, lol

sciff5

iTrader: (1)

What?

JohnHF

iTrader: (5)

nate pritchet? kind of looks like him i guess a little...

Lurk

iTrader: (11)

I've heard something as simple as taking the driveshaft loose at the diff and rotating it 180 could yield a change?

I'd be interested to see what happens when you put the DTS elims in. It could also be the issue from what I gather.

I'm really interested to see how the quietcar application treats you! I was eyeballing that stuff.

Great thread! btw.