No updates in a while, I've finally had a little time to work on the car and make some more progress. At the last update I was having a handful of running and drive ability issues with my swap. I pulled the codes with Torque on my phone and came up with a few codes to give me a little direction.
P0102 MAF low frequency....I don't have one and apparently when my baseline tune was done he missed that note.
P0122 TPS intermittent low voltage - caused hanging idle
P0342 Cam Position Sensor low voltage - caused hard starting
P0118 ECT Sensor high voltage - probably didn't help any with the starting 160 degree reading on scan tool no matter the actual temp.
The first issue I decided to tackle was a high, hanging idle because it was preventing me from driving the car. Here's what it was doing.
I was sure that there were no vacuum leaks, turns out I was wrong, I pulled the manifold to install new gaskets because those were among the very few I didn't replace. While the manifold was out I discovered that the cheap parts store rubber cap I had used to cap the brake booster line had split down the middle. And I completely missed a small (about 6mm) opening under the MAP on the back of the manifold, but we're not going to talk about that one. After replacing the caps with EPDM rubber caps from McMaster Carr the issue was
nearly solved. The hanging, not returning to proper idle, turned out to be caused by a faulty TPS sensor, another part I had went cheap on with some no name ebay part, I replaced it with an OEM AC Delco part and that problem has been solved.
The next most important problem I was having was the hard starting. I had to break out my firewall plug wiring chart for this one. I started tracing wires on all sensors affected by the codes back to the PCM plug. It turned out that my 12v power for my cam sensor somehow was switched for the 5v ECT power (late night wiring session), I switched those two at the plug and now it starts much more easily and I have a proper temperature reading. That let me finally get my hot mess of a car out of the garage for a little driving and a car wash.
After a little driving I noticed that the car really struggled with hot starts, back on the stands it went. I pulled the starter and took it into autozone to test, to my surprise it kept passing. I had them test it like 10 times in a row to attempt to heat soak it a little to see if that would cause it to fail, no luck. While it was out I went ahead and heat wrapped it for good measure.
After a little internet research, I found that a lot of people with ls1's have the same trouble with odyssey pc680's when they're mounted in the trunk, but not under the hood, due to the extra wire length. Then the search was on for something that I could run in the trunk without a sealed box so I could keep a similar set-up. That limited me to sealed AGM batteries, most of what I was finding was designed to be used in motorcycles and atvs. I finally found something that looked like it would work, a Total Power TP1200, its designed for sand cars and race cars, just a little larger than a Harley battery (deka ext30) and claims 700CCA and 1200amps. So I ordered one along with their fabricated battery bracket and installed it in my trunk.
