My '95 Caprice Classic STW, "Sally"

[gadget73]

The 1-2 in my S10 was a bit too much, it would regularly bark the tires on a 1-2 on dry road at anything over about half throttle. Kind of a pain in the ass in the winter on snow.

[GM_Guy]

On shifts, without being able to feel what you are describing, it is something that is usually wanted on this side of the ocean when one builds up a trans. Firmer = faster shift & engagement. Unless its doing it under light throttle, don't worry about it for the winter. I've never had issues with any of my trans that shifted hard enough to snap your neck. Our golden yardstick in the old days was if it can't scratch the tires (squak the tires) during the 1-2 shift, its not firm enough. If you are scratching them on the 2-3, you've got everything you can out of it. =-)

[gadget73]

if someone did work on this, its quite likely the pulse-modulated converter lockup has been deleted. It was a common thing, mostly because the PWM lockup roasts the lockup clutch. When that is deleted it engages and disengages the converter like an extra gear. Its done in the transmission, don't know the fine points but apparently its quite simple to do.

[Arquemann]

Through the process of elimination I have come to the conclusion that the jerkiness is caused by: the converter lockup.
The factory tune just happened to hide it pretty well.

Oh well. I'm not replacing a torque converter anytime soon, if at all for this car, so it'll be what it is for now.
I will probably play around with the TCC engage/release maps and such to maybe have it release earlier and with less TPS%.

Also replaced the old ill-fitting license plates and put in a new air filter. New front shocks and trans mount came in, those plus the fuel filter on the to-do list for this year. The trans mount might be a thing for a shop to do, it seems like a proper PITA.

[Arquemann]

thick walled line? hm, I thought GM used standard 1/4", unless its the armored crap. That looks like its got a steel wire wrapped around it, and to splice it you have to un-wrap the wire which usually doesn't actually work.

Eh, dunno. That's what he said to me. I don't think I've seen the spiral guarded line on this car.


Anyways, cottage trip (again)! This time in the Chevy. Really takes the washboarded dirt roads like a champ, except everything rattles...
Friday was cruise night, then saturday morning off to a car show and to the cottage from there. A night of rock n roll, beer and booze, got home today afternoon.

Now I'm really noticing the effects of the stock tune vs the tune that was on the car. It doesn't jerk anymore, but the MPG took a considerable hit. 570km this weekend and the tank is empty, mostly highway driving at 80 to 110 kmh.
I don't like the jerking but I really don't like the fact that the highway MPG went down by like 5 mpg...
First I'll reflash the jerky tune back in and fill it with premium fuel, see how it does. Looking at the original tune on TunerPro, the spark tables are super spicy compared to stock.



In the middle of nowhere, old ass cottage, friends and good times. And a dog! with the newest favourite chew toy, a piece of firewood.

[gadget73]

thick walled line? hm, I thought GM used standard 1/4", unless its the armored crap. That looks like its got a steel wire wrapped around it, and to splice it you have to un-wrap the wire which usually doesn't actually work.

[Arquemann]

I fetched the car from the shop earlier this week, they did the oil change and replaced the busted brake line.
Apparently the line itself was some weird thick-walled stuff, which they didn't have in stock and had to go get it from elsewhere.

They also confirmed that the trans mount is completely shot and torn, and that the front shocks are kinda done. Checked some leaks aswell, guy said the engine oil leak is from the timing cover / dizzy and not the oil pan. Wet trans crossmember is most likely just from the engine oil and not the trans leaking. I ordered new front shocks and a trans mount. 11.98€ per shock on closeout from RA, Gabriel ProGuard, police/taxi spec. Local shops didn't have any HD shockss, only overpriced cheapo tier Gabriels.

Installed the aux high beam this week aswell. Ended up buying the 180W LED bar from a friend. Trying to mount it nicely proved to be quite hard, so I went the crude yet effective route. Two M8 bolts right through the top of the bumper and into the crash bar.
Sure it's a clean install, but I got (more) holes in my bumper now. The front license plate mount decided to shatter among the process, I've got the plate ziptied for now. I ordered new single row plates without the EU-tags, should fit and look better.
Also installed the new Philips Nightguard Platinum bulbs I bought, old ones were already XtremeVisions. Conclusion is that I won't see SHIT with these headlights.

Illegal yellow tint because I find yellowish light wayy easier on the eyes and seems to help visibility in the white winter.
Still need to aim the LED and adjust the headlights a bit aswell.

[gadget73]

had one pop in my old truck just around the corner from the house. Turned around and came straight back home. At no point had I gotten over 25, and it was only the back brakes so I could still stop. I lost a fuel pump in that truck in the driveway too. One morning it just wouldn't start. Things break, but its awful nice when they break with 'convenient' timing.

[87gtVIC]

Blew two brake lines on my cv ages ago. Once while going onto the emissions machine (when that was still a thing) for inspection. The other in my driveway. Both happened in a very safe manner/area.

[Arquemann]

Better than blowing it after. Like you said...add it to the list.

Yup, happened to blow it less than 5 minutes from home. Futzing around a parking lot, late at night with some friends.
Sucks to spend more money again, but I'm very glad the line blew now and in a somewhat controlled situation. Going on a 500+km cottage trip next weekend, would suck to blow a line 25km from the nearest paved road or way further from anything resembling a repair shop.

[87gtVIC]

Better than blowing it after. Like you said...add it to the list.

[Arquemann]

Cool, just blew a rear brake line.
Add one more thing for the shop's to do list.

[Arquemann]

Well, I ended up flashing a stock '95 Caprice tune to the PCM. Found it online, happened to be with the correct 2.56 gear ratio, doesn't hurt to try.
The shifts got a wee bit smoother, I'd say it requires more fiddling to call it good. I'm a bit cautious on this since those hard shift can cause traction loss, especially during the winter...

Now, I'm not 100% sure, I need to do more testing, but it seems that the jerkiness is gone. During my test drive it did not jerk or did very little during uphills and light acceleration at 80-110 kmh.
My guess is that the tune might have too aggressive spark tables at that RPM/load/TPS% -area, for E10 fuel atleast, I haven't tried putting premium in this and I won't either.
So, no wonder the slip value wasn't showing anything if the trans wasn't slipping. It seems it was just misfires causing the jerkiness.
I still want to adjust the line pressure to try and smooth out the shifts and adjust the TCC engage speed in 4th so it'd engage around 80kmh. With the stock tune it now engages at 88 kmh (55mph). 80kmh is a very common limit here.


Among other things, I fixed the passenger front window guides, removed the old speakers and a shitton of crappy speaker wiring. Why shorten wires when you can just stuff 2 meters of speaker wire between the door and moisture barrier? There were some cheapo 4" speakers and tweeters jammed in the stock speaker buckets. I installed new 4x6 (factory size) speakers in both front doors, cleaned up the wiring and installed new door panel clips.
Drivers window mechanism probably hadn't seen grease since it was made in '95. Bone dry...

Also installed a cheap 18W led work light under the rear bumper, used the old fog light wiring so I didn't have to wire anything really. The light is purely for reversing, being able to see anything at all during the dark winter is pretty handy.
Gonna figure out some aux high beams with a friend at some point, the lights on this car are absolute garbage. This two ton land whale isn't stopping too fast in the winter, so I'd like to see well atleast.
Either 3x 9" round halogens or a 55cm 180W led bar from a friend. The big round lights would fit the car better, but are way more of a hassle to mount.



Ordered a pair of the most powerful 9004 halogen bulbs off RA, aswell as some service items such as air and fuel filters.
The car is going to the shop on monday. The oil filter is in a shitty spot for my tools so they're doing an oil change. Snagged a 5l can of Genuine GM 5W30 on sale, only the best for the Chev
The oil pan is also causing the biggest oil leak, they'll tighten it a bit more if possible. They'll also check on the transmission mount and why the trans crossmember is wet, output seal is dry.


Loadsa stuff.

[Arquemann]

Apparently this thing has an actual performace tune on it, not just some trans meddling. VE tables, spark advance and retard tables, MAF calibration almost everything is fiddled with.
Fuckin' shiet... It complicates things.

[Arquemann]

I used a program called flashhack to load the tune file from the PCM. Changes to the tune file are done in Tunerpro. Modified tune file is then overwritten to the PCM with flashhack. No chips required, even though those "tune chips" are/were available for the LT1s.