LIM Mayhem

[DreamNforSpeed]

Okay, I will post the tale of my lower intake manifold install... or at least a few of the highlights. A detailed recap of the 7 or 8 hour trial would be too long. For those who like to skip ahead, everything (mostly) is fine now. The first trouble I had, was trying to detach the negative battery post (good sign, eh?) I stripped the hell out of it and had to drill it out and replace it (trip to PepBoys)... so an hour taken doing the easiest task (so I thought). The rest of the removal of the Upper intake went pretty smooth - took a bit to figure out how to detach all the connections. You gotta love new cars, no two connectors work the same! When we took the upper off, there is some tiny ass green tube that had gotten brittle (or sucked to begin with) coming from the EGR running god knows where that snapped right in two. We gave it a temp fix using the heat shrink black stuff that we used for the wire splices... actually worked pretty well. I still have to call the dealer to see about fixing it (or even finding out what the hell it does).

The lower is connected to all sorts of stuff, including the fuel lines, which use these nifty connectors call spring lock or some such. Requires a special tool - trip no 2 to PepBoys, where we got the set (only 7 bucks - little plastic thingies). I tell you what - there is some black, crusty funk all over my LIM and the runners! If anybody elses car is as nasty as mine after 75,000 miles, get it cleaned! The Lower was actually pretty easy to do - except for being worried about damaging the IRMC cable... all the instructions had bold type DO NOT BEND OR DAMAGE and it had two weird connectors.

We cleaned around the place where the gaskets went as good as we could, but I was nervous about getting into the ports (or holes, whatever) under the LIM cause it would have been impossible to catch the crap from falling into the engine. Then we got the splice in the new adapters for the wiring harness that controls the injectors (the 19lb have a different connector - go f'ing figure. Thanks Ford!) So 6 splices, with soldering iron and shrink tubing later we found out the new injectors don't fit into the cool plastic wire guide... so now they are held in place with electrical tape and aluminum foil (to protect from the heat... guy at PepBoys suggested that, best idea we had, but you can see it through the UIM - no shows for me!)

Putting everything back on wasn't too bad, even though by now, my rump was killing me from leaning over the engine bay so long. The last straw is the ProFlow MAF sensor is longer than stock and the filter is pushed up against the side wall and hood, so I have to hack done one of the sections to make it fit.

And now - was it worth it? I'm not sure (if it blows up tomorrow, no). It certainly runs smoother - and seems to rev quicker. The gains were claimed to be 8 -15 HP, which is pretty modest. It makes a bit more noise - with a kind of "whoop" which sounds a bit like the runners opening. Should get better when I get the exhaust. My biggest prob is my fear of screwing something up. Instead of enjoying it, I'm driving around with the stereo off listening for trouble. I need some hypno-therapy like the guy in Office Space, where I just don't give a F anymore and start having fun.

Anyway, I'm sure no one will read this far - so I will wrap up. Hopefully the dyno this Fri will give me confidence that I'm not messing up the car (or at least evidence that I am, not knowing is worse). I'm like the Woody Allen of car mod-ing. How appalling.

My advice, if you like digging in your car, and you already have a good collection of tools (I used my brand new torque wrench 14 times!) than it's probably not that bad. If you aren't that mechanical or get cold feet easy - check into a garage. It's just across the boundary of tinkering.

[Nemesis]

man , props for installing everything yourself. I definatly would have been hesitant to venture into a project like that alone. I reallllly need a set of tools, because all of mine are junk or were lost at Cougarfest last year. Maybe for Christmas


The dyno this friday should be interesting.


Did you get your Gtech in yet????? Im getting a little worried!!


edit: I called those Gtech guys....they got swammped with orders and ours just processed today. So we should be getting em in about 3 days

[DreamNforSpeed]

Yeah - I got an email late last night from USPS - saying that mine was in-route and was scheduled for delivery for today! Woohoo! Although I am not going home from work - so I work get to play with it till tommorow (if it actually comes).

LIM UPDATE!
My check engine light came on - which wasn't a huge surprise to me since I busted one (two I found out) vacuum hoses coming off stuff around the EGR. I ran it up to the stealership to have a diagnosis run, I wanted it to make sure everything inside was kosher, and there was two little tubes the cracked when we took the UIM off - word to the people - some of the tubing get pretty freakin' fragile after a few years. These little 1/8 inch babies snapped in two with very little pressure. But after just an hour of labor ($79) the CEL is off for now. The mechanic said he'd seen a couple of the Pr Flow aftermarkets cause CEL because the Cougar computer is so picky. But, in my own sick mind I feel better now that a mechanic and his computer have given it the once over. And it seems faster! But that's cause I'm getting on the gas more now that I am getting more comfortable that I won't blow the UIM through the hood.

So I'm feeling pretty good - and if anyone in the area needs to disconnect their fuel line, torque some bolts or spread their front brake piston, we can set up a mod day and I can bring all the tools I bought to do these couple projects!

[Nemesis]

Is your dealership really helpful with solving problems with aftermarket things? I honestly havent had any problems so far **knock on wood** but If I do I would like a dealership that isnt so gay sometimes. Everytime I go to my dealership every stupid employee is like YOU GOT NAWZ yet??!

[FuzzyRag]

Pugmire definately isn't a dealership I'd recommend. Well, the one in marietta and kennesaw anyways. They gave me hell over my alarm, ask me about it sometime.

[DreamNforSpeed]

Well, this is the first time I went - cause it's close by my new job. And it would appear there is no good dealer then, cause I gave up on the Baranco up in Gwinnett, they sucked. The only thing I can say about Pugmire is the mechanic who patched my vacuum lines warned my that he had seen aftermarket MAF sensors give CEL warnings... and he was right! Not long after leaving the dealer, it's back on. Soooo, I plan on bringing my stock MAF to the dyno test and swap it out for my last run and see if there really is much difference. The Pro Flow doesn't really fit all that great right now - so before I do any work to make it fit, I'm going to see if it's worth keeping... although I have no idea what the hell I'll do with it if I take it off. I doubt SPMotorsports will take it back since it was a package with the LIM.

I will update my LIM Blog after the dyno this friday, so tune in to see how this exciting tale ends up!

[DreamNforSpeed]

UPDATE! Sorry it's late (I know, it's so darn exciting)

Obviously things didn't go quite as planned at the dyno test. I didn't even get my car on the rack cause they were trying to figure out what was wrong. The CEL was coming from the O2 sensors - and it was a weird fluctuating reading. This is sort of hard to tell, but the aliminum foil we used to keep the heat off was actually trapping the electrical "noise" from the injectors in with the O2 sensor wires, which makes sense now. Although begs the question - why the F are O2 wires running through the LIM harness? Ford.

I tried on Wednesday to get back under the UIM and replace the foil wth something less static prone. There really isn't that much space between them and I had to use that flexible wire tubing stuff, which I am not too happy about cause it doesn't have much heat resistance. So I am looking for some sort of thermal tape or wrap. Or the plastic harness from an SVT contour or maybe late model Cougar since they have the SVT style LIM already. But it ran all funky and the CEL came back on.

This morning, I was back at Balanced Performance (regular garages now treat me like the plague since I modded internals) having them check everything out. The O2 sensors were back to normal - and the ECU was reading "incomplete" Seems that the Ford ECU is so freaking picky sometimes, you actually have to do a relearning trick when it is reset. The mech had to take it out and drive a specific way for the program to reset right. Stupid - but it worked! And he used their machine shop to hack down my Injen pipe to make room for the slightly larger Pro Flow and installed it for me. So all the parts are in a working. Seems to have decent pull (but barely noticable for all the trouble and gosh darned money) - and I am getting really good gas mileage or my speedo and computer is way off. Still haven't figured that one out yet.

So, on to the suspension... or the exhaust. But pro installed, I guarantee you that.

[SamuraiCougar]

I'm glad you finally got the sucker runnin' how its supposed to be. I'd say go for exhaust man. Nothin like that growl when you crank your car in the morning.

[Nemesis]

or wait a little, and get MSDS headers at the same time!!

[DreamNforSpeed]

Yeah - the headers and exhaust are about the only thing left to do for more power. I don't want to mess with cams - and I just can't convince myself the SVT UIM and throttle would really make much difference for the money. The only problem would be 500 for exhuast (I want a full cat back Borla) and 650 for headers and guessing 300+for install - well over a grand. Maybe...

But suspension is next, mostly cause I have a Freedom Design front brace and the ST200 rear sitting in my garage right now. And the stock springs and struts don't feel like they are going to make it to 100,000 The Balanced Perfomance guy mentioned that he would do some research if I sent him the websites we get our stuff from - so it looks like I have a garage now. He mentioned adjustable struts, but not for height, but ride quality - says they have an adjustor nut on the top of the tower. Open the hood and use a hex nut to stiffen or soften the ride. That sounds really, really cool. He also mentioned they've installed the cross member supports on Mustangs and gotten great results... crap, someone used to have some, they are basically square tubing that welds under to some of the frame. Not sure I will go that far, but they are usually just 150 bucks or so.