Rally Pat

The flat earthers are having a field day with the video cutting out from the drone ship landing, despite the fact that its happened on nearly every single drone ship landing before and every time they land back at KSC we can see them perfect fine. This video explains whats going on. For funsies, I also added the Falcon Heavy test flight that had nearly synchronized landing of the side boosters, although the center core was lost.

“Weather is go”

Sounds like it blew up after the test fire had finished. Hopefully they have clear data on what failed.

They haven't said anything (and often don't about the Starship tests, given they don't even publicize they are testing them), but it actually looks to be a failure with the LOX and Methane lines leading to the test fixture and where they hook in to the rocket. On one of the last static fires, they actually had a small insulation fire on the sleeving around it. May be related to that.

Unrelated, but if you guys wanna see a boom SpaceX Starship SN4 just blew up on the test stand at the build site in Texas following it's 5th static fire test. Unexpected, but not a big deal, SN5 was basically already done and SN6 is about done. For those who don't know, this is SpaceX's next gen methane rocket that will replace the Falcon 9 and go to the Moon and Mars. This one was actually supposed to make a test "hop" on Monday.

As someone who has had a fascination with space my whole life, watch every SpaceX mission and livestream, have had job interviews to work there, etc etc, this is the most exciting thing relating to space flight that has happened in my lifetime. I have the main SpaceX stream going, but i also have the Media stream going with just the comms on it. When Bob and Doug were getting strapped in, I got very emotional, and when they were doing the initial comm checks I got choked up again. This is going to be awesome! Commercialization of the "mundane" stuff like cargo and people is the way to go! It frees up NASA to do the really important exploration.

Godspeed, Bob and Doug!

Where are you now?

I’ve been a SCCM admin contractor for the last couple of years through TEKSystems. Ironically, my current client is my old employer lol

I texted Scott asking him to confirm if the issue I was having seemed consistent with VATS being enabled, and he seemed to think so. He volunteered to come over and check the PCM out with HP Tuners the next day.

In preparation, I buttoned up stuff here and there, like putting the wheel back on and letting the car back down where the fuel pump was changed. Not pictured, but I also used the newer 944 Turbo fuel pump cover because it was in better shape than mine.

Scott arrived, and fired up his laptop and verified that I had a basically stock Silverado 4WD ECU. Welp. Anyway, he turned that off, and made several parameter changes that would at least let the engine to start and idle and let me check and test things. I am missing an IAT sensor to have proper speed-density and its on the way, as well as probably having vacuum leaks I haven't figured out how to plumb yet, but stuff happens now! Thanks Scott, you're the man!

Listen to that cam! Hard to believe its the exact same cam that came out of this engine, reworked to different specs! Awesome! Not a bad value for $140.

Spent the next couple days recharging my husband score with my wife, I'll resume work this week. I think I am going to try and button up the dash, then try to figure out the power steering pump/hydroboost situation.

Another test fire, this time reaching the conclusion that the VATS probably isn't disabled like I was told.

Battery was dead as hell from all the testing I had been doing, so on the charger it went overnight.

I turned my attention to wiring up the fuel pump relay on the Chinese harness. All you need to do is put the power and the load on it, everything else is done. At least temporarily, I ran these to the two relay pins I had been jumping directly in the relay box. Maybe I will clean this up, maybe I'll leave it, I don't know yet.

A quick test fire to check the fuel pump and the plumbing.

The next day started with a very important stop. In my neighborhood for the warmer months, there are food trucks that stop by several days a week, and wouldn't you know it: Derek's food truck stopped by! I don't think he remebered who I was, but everything was delicious. Highly recommend! Moving on.

I have no idea how long this car sat before I got it, but I decided to flush the fuel lines out to clear any debris that may be in there. Simple enough, stick an empty water bottle on the feed and run the pump. I did this twice. First time there was a bunch of garbage, second time it was pretty clear.

I apparently cut my hard fuel lines a little too short, because the corvette regulator to fuel rail line didn't quite reach. Unfortunately, during this whole lockdown all the parts starts near me are closing early and I wasn't able to buy longer rubber line to fix it. Luckily, basically everything on an LS is reversable so I just temporarily flipped the fuel line around so I could do more testing. Like the wiring, I will clean this up after we verify everything is working.

Meanwhile, the fuel pump on the 944 Turbo fuel pump cover had a rusty clamp that wouldn't let go. A touch with the death wheel (far away from gasoline, obviously) got it off. Replaced it with a fresh Harbor Freight clamp! Temporarily, I just let it hang there so I could verify that it still worked and the car wasn't going to burn down. Immediately, anyway.

My ex-roommate had a pile of 91 944 Turbo Parts laying around that another friend of his left behind at his house for years, and gifted them to me for my car. Among those parts, just so happened to be basically a complete fuel pump assembly! A quick jump test and sure enough it whirred indicating that it was working! Should I have replaced it with a new one? Yeah probably, but this is supposed to be a relatively (for a 944 anyway) budget build.

I found a wire in the original engine harness plug that appeared to be switch power, so I have it temporarily wired up just to check function with the stock ecu. When I turned the key over, all the relays in the PCM clicked to life, so that seems to be a good connection. I will clean it up after we get it running properly and verify plumbing/wiring is correct.

Next is a job that I hate doing on practically any vehicle, but at least its external here: the broke fuel pumped needed to come off and be replaced. Time for that fuel shower. My hose clamping seeming to not stop enough of it, I still smelled like fuel for a few days.

Sorry for the break in updates! Just been bustin more ass trying to get this thing going! I knew as soon as the car wouldn't properly start without starting fluid that I had something going on with the fuel pump. I checked voltage at the connector to the fuel pump, and nothing. I googled online how to jump the fuel pump, and sure enough, no noise coming from the tank.

Porsche has this crazy relay that controls the fuel pump and the ecu together, making it a little weird to track things down, but I found what I needed online. I made a little jumper, and tested to make sure I had power at the fuel pump. Fired up my old pal the $5 Harbor Freight Multimeter, and found I had power. This gave me where I needed to have the GM PCM control the fuel pump and told me that the fuel pump that was in there was dead.

Presented without comment.

I'm going to have to do something about the driver side coils. They hit the Hydroboost unit and the old alternator mount bracket. Will solve this later. In the meantime, I just plugged everything in and laid the coil bracket there. Passenger side seems fine for the moment. Time for lube!

Another thing that I picked up that has prevented day ending work stoppage is this metric nut and bolt set. I have already had to use it several times. I had two of the bolts needed to hold the fuel rail and injectors down, but needed two more. Pushed the injectors in their respective ports, and cinched the rail down.

I laid the intake manifold on top of the engine, ran the bolts down quickly, and plugged everything in.

Before adding the oil, I put my ebay dipstick in.

Time to install some fire. My buddy Mike gave me some 80k mile spark plug wires and plugs from his Corvette and I took them just in case I needed them, but decided last second to buy a full set of new plugs. Whatever was cheapest at AutoZone for a 2001 Silverado.

Always keep a magnet around for when you drop sockets. Its a lot easier than just getting pissed off about it.

With most of the harness plugged in, I wanted to get a basic test fire done that day. I pushed the harness out of the way, and turned my attention to the LS1 Intake Manifold I got from Scott.

A truck MAP sensor has two sets of ears on either side of the sensor to plug it in to the truck intake manifold. Cut one set of them off, and boom: Corvette MAP sensor.

Picked up some goodies from Harbor Freight: a rack that has several types of wire on it, a ratcheting crimp tool, and an easy wire stripper.

I wasted a little time here because the manual said that I needed to run the purple wire to the +12v feeding the brake light switch. I didn't even look deeper in to that. I made this ground extension and +12v Y adapter to tap in to the switch. Turns out, this was for a torque coverter lockup which my manual/T56 harness doesn't even have provisions for an Auto. *facepalm*

Did the work, so I left it anyway.

I had been wanting to remove more of the console so that I could run wires and tap in to things, and in order to do that you have to remove screws that are located under the little storage flap thing under the arm rest. I had not been able to open this since buying the car. I figured it had a stuck latch or something, but ultimately I discovered that a previous owner had glued said door shut. Da fuq.

After fighting with that bullshit, I worked on getting the guage cluster out so I could access stuff behind the dash easier.

Since I was at AutoZone anyway, I picked up a new battery ($180 wtf) and the cheapest 5W-30 they had, which just so happened to be Castrol GTX High Mileage. Appropriate!

The video shows my first test of the starter wiring and the first time this car has had power applied in I don't know how many years. This is also the moment I discovered the starter has a sticky solenoid. I will replace it, but for the moment its fine for testing and the sticking has been intermittent. Just been giving it a big wack to stop it between sessions lol. But hey, she turns over and the wiring is working correctly!