I haven't been able to do a ton of work lately but there has been progress at least!
Two things were accomplished:
- Make the column shift ... shift normally. (easy)
- Re-hook up the tranny's kick-down (supposed to be easy but ohmygod)
Extending the 'shift throw'
So after reattaching the column shifting; the arm is so small that not only does it not match up with the P R N D 2 1 letters any more, I have to precision shift it in micro-inches; I can "throw" it from Park to friggin D1 in now less than an inch's worth of movement. Ugh. This means the shift arm is too small.
Solution - GET A BIGGER ARM!
The old shift arm.
Got a new universal one from Summit. See all those swiss cheese holes? My shift linkage will go into one of those holes. (SPOILER -it will be the last one on the right)
Easy peezey - just drill those holes out a bit and everything fits.
Pretend the foreground is in focus and go "Wow Mike, great job."
Boom! Now when that orange needle is on the 'D', that means I'm actually in drive now. Which is good.
So now my only issue is that I still reach for the ghost "floor' shifter whenever I want to put it in reverse.
Kick down the jams
So I had to disconnect my kickdown sometime back when switching to the new throttle body. It just didn't fit or reach correctly. Nor did the throttle body have the kick down linkage I needed.
What's a kick-down? On my old automatic transmission, let's say I'm in 3rd gear and I step on the gas to pass someone - the kickdown would get engaged and "kick down" the gear from 3rd to 2nd, giving me MORE POWER! Or hell, even 2nd to 1st if I'm at a low enough speed.
So solution? Get an aftermarket "kick-down" cable, hook up brackets to the throttle body and at the transmission area.
Friggin Lokar was selling one of these for like 100 dollars. YEAH RIGHT dudes, way to be the MONSTER CABLE brand of car parts. (CLICK THAT LINK, I'M NOT EVENING FOOLING HERE)
Instead, I turned to eBay and found a knock off one for 30 bucks! Boom.
Rad.
K...so kickdown lever is pretty simple, I just need to find that area on the C6 where the trans-cable-bracket goes...should be simple enough.
Kay - trans-cable-bracket located. Now let's locate that area on the C6
Found it. Difficulty, the space around it is only big enough for my finger tips to get too. Also, it is literally in a little cubby space. No wrenches allowed here!
4 or so hours later....I successfully, threaded a bolt into a nut, securing a bracket in place.
That is 60 minutes, plus another 60 minutes, plus another 60 minutes, PLUS ANOTHER 60 MINUTES. And probably more!
That is 4 hours of me, on my back, under a car, crud on my face, with my hands and arms twisted into some exorcist-movie-demon like pose, tickling a goddamned bracket-nut into place. I'm sure there is a life analogy to be found here.
FRIGGIN TADA
Guys, just look at that bottom nut. Notice it is in a cubby hole? No wrench is getting in there. It was basically me, shoving a screw driver in there to wedge it into place while I somehow managed to double-swivel-to-hex-nutdriver the top bolt into place...while holding the screw driver in place with my cheek.
And that's the kickdown lever part, in place.
And that is the throttle body end. Imagine this is after I got it all tightened/clean up.
Measured out the wide open throttle as well as full kick down engagement and made sure ONLY at wide open throttle would I engage full funky kick-down.
What's next?
A few things.
- I snagged a magnehilc gauge, I need to test airflow on the scoop while at high speeds to make sure it is actually getting air flow.
- I need to test if I have enough air flow going through the scoop while under load.
- Complete my arduino project to live-dyno my car.
- Put in bench seats.
- Put in new carpet.
Stay tuned!
