Grumpy Bear

Having a bit of trouble with the X-Gauge package on the Scan-Gauge I dropped Linear Logic a line for some help. Seems not all GM specific codes will report to the device. That said OBDII codes will; and I was directed to a page on their site that gives those codes. I’m looking for Barometric pressure and Air Fuel Ratio. The BAR sensor programed without a hitch. The AFR however never changes. Hum. I’ll try again using one of the host of O2 bank outputs and see what I get. FYI. It reads a rock steady 14.6:1. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been schooled on new technology. First time I got a look at the mapping of my Harley through the eyes of their Race Tuner was the first time I understood the VE of the motor when read on such a device isn’t referenced to the atmosphere outside the motor but the conditions between the intake valve and the butterfly of the carburetor or injector. A motors cylinders can have a 98% VE when the manifold is at 25” HG vacuum when so referenced. I really do like being a student.

I'm hooked on these videos. They talk about two towel methods among others. These people are crazy....in a good way. My glass has never looked so good and I still don't know what I'm doing.

https://www.ammonyc.com/ While looking up the Chemical Guys products I ran across a how to video. You know how that goes. Like chips you can't eat just one so.....I ran across this guy's videos then searched for the link to his site and got sucked in. No one gets to call me picky again.

Get after it Gene. Would love to read your build thread.

Getting glass clean, especially the interior, is pet peeve of mine. Now that the windows are tinted it is doubly so. I don’t’ often rave a product as there are so few that actually work it’s ridiculous. That said…. “Invisible Glass” has made it to my short list of products that do work. Over sixty and not as flexible as I once was; spending time contorted is best spent short. This stuff gets it done quickly enough I don’t’ have to visit the chiropractor afterwards. It not only works but works safely on film tinted glass with equal ease. Some tips from my tint guy and a few I’ve learned myself. Interior glass. Distilled water and a wrung damp-dry microfiber to remove the heavy stuff such as smokers haze and the dogs nose prints. No detergent required. Don’t use paper towels. Many contain a chemical meant to aid wetting action but leave a residue you will chase to your insanity. Short nap microfiber dry and Invisible Glass. Continue wiping until dry. If you have allot of glass this may take more than one towel. Never use fabric softener sheets on your microfiber towels. No detergents. If you do so accidently (dryer sheets). Toss them. If they get mixed in with the good ones you can’t tell by eye. Softener sheets on microfiber is like greasing your glass. Powdered detergents may not completely dissolve and leave a hard grit imbedded in the towel. Liquid detergents can fill the spaces in the fiber that make it work. Grit isn't harmful to the glass but gets ugly on the paint in a hurry. On exterior glass a single edge razor blade will remove tree sap, hard bug guts and anything else sticky. tricky or thick. 0000 steel wool NEW and DRY is glass safe to rid the film left by the razor. Wipe with a wet disposable rag to collect the fine steel fibers (or an air hose works too). Damp wrung dry microfiber to clear any remaining debris field. Then clean as above. If you’ve gone this far Rain-X by the directions. Don’t forget to wipe the wiper blade edges with a damp rag before setting them on the glass.

Top to bottom cleaning today and some chip repairs. I found some flat black Rustoleum automotive touch up paint with the Duplicolor paint pens at Advanced Auto. Paint and primer one step. Front bumper needed a few spots touched up. I’ve seen left alone bumpers. This ain’t going to be that. Speaking of which….. Fella across the road has a 30 something Chevy sitting in the drive on a pallet just full of pumpkin. No running gear. No frame just a windowless body weathered free of paint for the most part. Know what? It isn’t a rusted though mess. So Chevy could build a truck body in the 30’s that would last a lifetime but today not so much? On another but parallel note. Saw a F350 Ford dually sitting in Mickey D’s yesterday. Looked to be about two years old. HUGE chrome grill and bumper. Huge pealing mess is what is was. 60 K for a truck that is falling apart before it can be paid for. Yum. Let me have two. I traded a brand new Scion iA for this half ton. I actually loved that car but…it got no respect and Rodney would have said. Even at the body shop I was told, “These cars are built to have a five year life, period so we don’t spend much time perfecting them”. Wow!! A 20 year drive train in a five year body. There a Mazda 2. Had it up on a hoist a week or so before I traded it off and spent a good deal of time just looking it over under and over. You know what the difference it between the this truck and the Mazda in build design and construction technique? Not a darn thing. No different what so ever. They are both built like a soup can. These trucks will not be sitting on some pallet holding anything 75 years from now. Maybe not even 7 years from now without a huge helping of constant care and a solid prevent defense. If I would have fathomed the bar had fallen this low at GM I would have kept the Scion. It’s not better but it was less than half the price and got twice the mileage. Well is what it is now. In for a penny. In for a pound. I’ll do the best I can but there will be no second helping.

I was stunned how much difference in pressure there was between the digital and the stick gauge I normally use. 1.5 psi. 35 psig on the stick was anything between 35.5 psig and 37 psig. So…I start over. 35.0 psig and monitor. Okay then different topic. Somewhere around 1978 I rode a Super Glide 1056 miles in just 22 hours and six minutes and never exceeded 60 mph doing it. That’s an average speed of 47.78 mph. Iron butt patch back the days of the double nickel. I’ve run hour meters on vehicles for years. Day in, day out 35 mph +/- a smidgen is about as good as it ever got when simply dividing miles by hours for mixed city/highway driving. You can get a around 40-45 mph in primarily highway scenarios over short periods of time in favorable conditions when submitting to lawful limits. Over 45 is some serious Interstate, keep your butt in the seat, time given a 60 mph ceiling. The kind that makes your legs go numb and swell. Stupid really. Learned some things doing it too about fuel efficiency. Most know that slower is more fuel efficient, as a general rule, but there is also such a thing as too slow. Older cars for example with automatics that do not have lock up clutches or converters can be driven so slow the converter is in constant slip wasting fuel and generating allot of heat. It is why we NOW have lock up clutches. Anyway…. That said, there is absolutely no such thing as too steady. Steady is that thing that allows you to average a higher percentage of your base speed ceiling. I drive 4 hours straight at 60 mph and cover 240 miles. Any idea how many times the same car or truck passes me in four hours that is running 70 mph or more? He drives like the wind, then stops and repeats…often. Often enough that at days end we get a room at the same hotel having started and stopped at the same time and traveling the same distance. He just did in on 40% more fuel and exposed himself to allot more risk. He truck to allot more wear and tear. For a given speed ceiling the higher your running average the higher your MPG.

A set of tire pressure and tread depth gauges were added to my glove box. Not that I don’t have pressure gauges. I have plenty. I have an analog dial gauge and several stick type gauges. What I didn’t’ have was a digital that would read decimal with precision. With the seasons changes come some rapid and drastic temperature swings that produce some rather large tire pressure swings. I try to stay on top of that. The factory tire gets a pretty low rating from Tire Rack’s consumer reviews. Chief among the complains is wear and pressure is a large contributing factor. As is basic tire composition and the users specific driving style. I tend to be pretty easy on tires and brakes. So after 10K miles the wear is 1/32”. Starting with 10 of them and considering 5 my minimum for winter use I project 50K of tire life. Bridgestone wear bars are at 2/32 and driven to the bars would a project 70K life. Across the tread 35 psig cold has given 9/32 center and a 1/64 less on the outer two ribs or 8-1/2/32. As noted in an earlier post I rotate every 5K. I’ll bump up pressure 1 psi and give that a look.

I didn’t buy the K&N for the power or for the fuel efficiency claims. I bought it because it’s a really REALLY good air filter I have allot of experience with. Pretty important as filtering air is their job. It was also $10 off today and the decal is cool. 10,000 Miles today.

Car and Driver tested the 2014 version of the 4.3 Ecotec3 in DCSB trim pounding the quarter to a 16 flat at 87 mph on gas and 15.7 at 89 mph on E-85 making note that the alky performance was in fact quicker than the 07’s 6.2 liter VortecMAX motor and very close to the 2014 LT1’s 15.3 times at 91 mph. I suppose the main stream may have not noticed that the RCSB 6’6” pickups are about a thousand pounds lighter than the DCSB 5’ Car and Driver tested? DCSB 5477 lbs. vs the SCSB 4521 lbs. Yea. That means the 4.3 in the short truck is quicker than the LT1 DCSB. That will frost your pumpkin. Wallace Racing puts it at about 15 flat at 93 mph on gas or 14.75 near 95 mph on alky. That’s a pretty health V6. Perspective is good. 87 Mustang 5.0 is a f 15 flat car. The 70 Boss 302 14.7. 1968 Plymouth Barracuda 14.7. 67 Camaro SS 15.2. 76 Corvette L48, 16.3. 68 Corvette 327 15.4. I love my ¾ sized mouse motor. http://www.zeroto60times.com/

Between Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Tucson lies Arizona Highway 86 at a length of roughly 125 miles. A 250 mile two way trip across perhaps the flattest highway I’ve ever driven runs right down the middle of the Tohono O'odham Nation Reservation. There are no stop signs I remember. Almost no traffic. No towns or services of any meaningful size. Just 250 miles of fairly uninterrupted driving in some of the most fuel efficient conditions possible. Provided you’re not there during monsoon season. I made that run about 15 years ago in a 98 Honda Civic HX 5 speed on a very hot windless day and netted 55 mpg at 55 mph. Highest number it ever recorded in the 200,000 miles I owned it from new. 11 mpg over its EPA highway estimate and 7 mpg over my person next best with the car. The HX model was Honda’s economy box before the introduction of the Insight the following year and featured a rather novel two sensor wide band AFR strategy coupled with VVT that is pretty common place today. Under certain conditions it would allow the mix to lean to a maximum and rather scary 22:1 and ignition advance well past 50*. Lean mix flame speeds are creepy slow. Or as rich as 7:1. Anyway….point is; that particular road permitted best case scenario conditions for close loop extended cycle operation. It was hot enough. Flat enough, slow enough and I was patient enough to maintain that pace for almost six hours, without air conditioning on a 105 F + day. That boy ain’t right but he is a machine. Obtainable but in no way natural results are possible with a bit of knowing. Mechanically there is little anyone can do to a modern engine that will affect the types of improvements to efficiency we could once hope for and often received tuning in the 60’s. But simply being aware of that is a useful tool. ALL of those things we did then plus a host of new strategies we could not implement or even conceive of are already under the hood today. We have some room in heat management and some in aero but the remaining larger nuggets lie in understanding the environment. Both that which occurs naturally and that you opportune. Shopping for operational bargains. That same Honda I exampled above use to give up about 40 mpg driving back and forth to work in the summer. Winter would be closer to 32 even garage kept. Installing a lower radiator block heater on a 3 hour timer restored the winter numbers to nearly summer values and provided instant heat. Just an example. One I'm working on for Pepper right now.

300 mile trip today which brings the miles run at or about 55 mph on primary highways to 1359 miles yielding a shade over 25 mpg. Adding this to the information we accumulated at 50 mph with the grill open and it’s a dead ringer for the 10 mile short term test we did under cross wind conditions. To me, that makes perfect sense over a longer time period. You would encounter a greater verity of conditions. Interesting is the fact that the standard deviation is the same. Not numerically but on a percentage bases. 2.5%. A 5 mph increase resulted in a 17% increase in fuel consumption. A loss of a bit more than 4 mpg.

09/29/2016 9200 miles. Third oil change. Switching from Mobil 1 5W30 to Quaker State 5W20 UD. 2nd Tire rotation. Next service 15,000 miles and every 5,000 after that.

Yesterday I added, as opprotunity permitted, data points for against and into the wind. Added that data to the previous chart. AC off. In addition yesterdays local weather charts which are dead ringers for the day before. Say if you need to see those. Using the resettable short term Scangauge-II program and running each speed for exactly ten miles along I-88 toward Moline Ill into the wind. I left at 10 AM and returned at 3 PM. I-88 is about as flat a road as one can travel in the Midwest. There is a lengthy construction area along the highway with a 45 mph limit that allowed the lower speed data without bothering anyone. The "with the wind" 40 mph point is actually a guess based on the curve and a three point best fit poly extension.

Between Morenci and Springerville Arizona lies the Devils Highway. Roughly 117 miles of the most twisted highway in America. Forget the Dragons tail in North Carolina which boast 318 curves along its’ 11 mile reach. Old US 666 does it over ten times longer at elevations peaking near 11,000 feet . About 427 curves between Clifton and Alpine. Enough at a walking pace to be downright unsafe. Scary even for a seasoned rider. Springerville itself rest nearly 7,000 feet up from the sea bed. Coming from the south there is a small B & B and on the trip I have in mind the only gas along the route that day. I was riding a Shadow VT 1100 Tour which sports a four gallon tank and on most days is good for around 50 mpg. This wasn’t most days. Plugging along at under 15 mph in first or second a good deal of the time the gas was going like water bottles in the Mojave. This gets compounded by a storm of freezing rain and a stiff wind starting about 15 minutes past the point of no return. Add in walking through an Elk herd for a half hour and meeting one of the biggest bovine bulls I’ve ever seen standing on the road in the peaks meadow eye to eye. The temperature dropped from 92 F at my entry to the Devil off route 70 and fell to under 30 F before it was said and done. I reached the B & B soaked, frozen and blue unable to feel anything past my torso. Arms and legs numb from the cold and ice that formed on the denim under my leathers. It was early September and my brain was ready to shut down. I thudded against the door to the closed Inn an hour or so after the owner and his family had gone to bed. I had literally rolled to the pump out of gas dropping the bike on the drive and stumbled the last twenty yards to the door hoping someone would notice. They did. I lived. I’ve wrung out every vehicle I’ve ever owned since to find its limits and weakness. So yea, I’m an efficiency freak. It's meant my life more than once.

2015 4.3 Ecotec3 RCSB Fuel vs Speed. AC on. Best fuel economy device is knowledge.

Ran out the first ‘full’ tank to base line the error correction to the fuel gauge. Not bad. Scangauge-II showed 21.7 gallons. We took on 22.263 gallons. 2.5% error but on the wrong side. Any error I wish to have is to be in the favor of safety. Made adjustment. Next few data points and will see how this correction does. No longer concerned with a maximum or a condition and just driving netted for this tank 24.6 mpg in mixed rural situations that included some Interstate driving at 70/75 MPH with the air on. Having discovered within the gauges capabilities a short term meter and having a nice day for it I ran some comparatives. This is running north on I-39 into a WNW 40 mph wind for the first two data points then moving over to Ill 251 for the next two slower points. Runs dead parallel to I-39 75 MPH 17.0 mpg @ 98 - 110 hp. 60 MPH 22.5 mpg @ 45 - 48 hp. 50 MPH 29.0 mpg @ 28 - 32 hp. 45 MPH 31.0 mpg @ 22 - 25 hp. Turning east on Ill 72 and now having a stiff tail wind 60 MPH 31 mpg @ 25 hp. Friday is oil change and tire rotation. Refrigerator shaped vehicle. Wind. Hills. I’m not use to such large swings in efficiency having three Civics in a row. Living a week now with the paint mask and all I can say is WOW. Love this stuff. Ditto on the tinting which gets a bit clearer every day.

Difference in the glass looks more appearant when two photos are posted together. Above and here are as close as I can get it. Went for a sundown ride. The visor strip is wonderful. The 80 % base tint under it made oncoming lights tons easier on the eyes later in the evening. Especially from those who love those "I'm the only one who needs to see" ultra bright and aimed to blind crowd. The rear tint is highly effective at knocking down the "I need my lights on high beam with my light bar on" followers. Reflection off the bed cover in the rear view is diminished but the internal reflection from the back light is worse.

Five hours later at the Johnson’s Tinting Shoppe in Sycamore Illinois and this happens. Ryan Kelly (owner) provided all I hoped for and more. Actually the look is a nice aside. I was after heat rejection and glare reduction so ponied up hard for ceramic tinting films and was rewarded greatly. It’s 85 F here today at 1 PM and not a cloud to be seen. Perfect conditions for roasting pork on the spit in the cab of a red truck with a dark interior. Not todays friends. Air on the lowest fan speed drawing from outside and the cool knob set back more than half way puts you in the meat locker in short order and from the get-go. Before you ask? On such a day this WAS full cool knob, recycle and 1/3 fan after the cool down. In an hour or so you might get blower speed to minimum pulsing fresh air now and again. My UV activated photo grey eyeglasses that normally tinted up in the cab under the factory tint are now visibly unaffected. Glare? That will have to wait to be seen at night or in the rain. An 80% ceramic film is full on the windshield along with 6” of 5% visor film. After the fact 4” would have been plenty for me. I’m long from hip to lip so I’m getting a bit of the bifocal effect. I expect I will get used to it and will welcome it later today as the sun is setting. My 5’ 5” wife will love it as is. Back glass is also treated to ceramic Infrared/UV blocking film. I know most tint glass for “The Look” and this look can be had for a fraction of the high ceramic $$$$ if you like. Me? Well, I like my comfort. I also like protection. UV is an interior killer. I can toss my foil shade now. Hated messin’ with that thing anyway. What you can’t see, in this picture anyway, is the clear paint bra. Can’t hardly see it from a foot away. 18” on the hood and leading fender edges. Chip guard on the trailing door edges along with the door handle cups plus entry lower sill guards where everyone including the dog loves to kick the paint silly. Ryan full wrapped a Tesla the other day with this stuff. Both films I’m told will be a bit hazy for a week or so. I was instructed not to roll down the windows for three days and wait on putting the suction cup EZ-Pass holder back up. No automatic car washes for at least a week. I'll report on that later. ​Ah, the day I have been waiting for arrived and I am not disappointed. Click on the photo to get a full screen view. Much better view.

I’m done with the grill blocking experiment. Needed to strip the grill cover to clean Pepper for the paint protection film and window tint. I will not reinstall it for one additional data point. I dropped the first (low) data point from the base line instead, which favors the baseline. I’ve also decided to change the charting report that’s been tracking point by point median average for a cumulative mileage running average. This provides a mileage “weighted” average which once again, favors the base line. 3 of 5 runs with the blocked grill have been under high wind which never happened during the base line test, which favors the baseline. I’ve held the speed to 50 mph, which favors the baseline. Each test now has consumed nearly equal amounts of fuel over nearly the same miles and same four circuits I run. 41.942 gallons used on 1240 miles for the open grill base line. 41.675 gallons used 1251 miles for the closed grill option. 29.56 mpg open. 30.02 mpg closed over a distance exactly that between Chicago Illinois and Grand Junction Colorado. Stacked the deck to heavily favor the base line and still showing a positive result. The opposite of what marketing would do if selling something. I’ll be bumping up the speed now to 55 MPH. Have an oil change coming up and a block heater I want to install. Garage is full of Buicks so the truck will sit outside.

I’m OLD. Old enough to have seen a few things come into this world like scanners at the checkout of your grocery store for example. I checked and stocked in the days of hand ordering in a ledger and checking on a 10-10 NCR tabulator register. Pretty high tech back then. Eventually the powers that be wanted the store to convert to automated ordering and scan registers which work hand in glove with that process. The checkout process removes an item from inventory which the computer adds to the order in nearest full cases. We got trucks twice a week. I stocked an aisle that contained baby food, Jell-O, oils and greases, pasta, dry beans and marshmallows. Lots of variations. Lots of room. The object of the game for a stock boy is a full aisle on the smallest back room inventory possible. What we called “no-go” was stored on pallets in the back and each aisle had a “quota” of exactly one pallet stacked not higher than you could reach standing flat footed on the floor. Actually not higher than our five foot five night manager could reach. I miss those days. Ordering by hand I was able to keep my isle “tight” and faced on a quarter to a half a pallet of inventory except during the holidays where I might reach a full pallet but no more. By tight I mean when the manager went down the aisle he could poke any item with a finger and not find a void behind that product. A full inventory on the self and little no go. I was very good at this. Along comes the computer and I am FORCED to oblige the powers that be and within a month am carrying three pallets of no-go and the aisle is half empty. That could get a fella fired except….every aisle in the store was in even worse shape. Ya see there are some things a computer can’t do. Like know that two weeks prior to Thanksgiving day your Crisco order needs to be doubled and on St. Patrick’s day you better have six extra cases of Lime Jell-O at the South side store where all the Irish live and none at the North end store. It doesn’t know that Aunt Millie and her sister who has bought two cases of Fluff-O for the last ten years at Christmas has been moved to the county nursing home and won’t be baking this season. In other words…it can’t “anticipate”. Oh you can write programs to FIX the expected but the unexpected…..not so much. Statistics is somewhat like that. It can measure and evaluate any data set you’re interested in but the numbers have to be representative of the world of data your considering. For example. Our fuel mileage survey. If the drain bung were to fail on the tank or we were to spring a leak in the fuel line and we ignore that fact and log the extra fuel usage with the standard miles; the result tells you nothing. This also means you cannot “cherry pick” that data you wish to include if it indeed represents the “real world” even if it does not favor your wishes, expectations or your marketing groups planned roll out date. Now there’s a concept. Honest effort and reporting. In the end it improves the process if you let it do its job. It’s why I’m including the “windy day data” from the second sequence that wasn’t an issue in the first. It’s part of the “real world” of operation. By the same token I’ve exclude some runs that include city miles as the study is open road. Still I make note of it. Not to make excuses but to identify items of note that impact the study results so that a ‘better mouse trap’ can be made next go. No one is so smart they can anticipate every variation nor the impact those variation may have.

Takes a long time to run down a tank when the tank is 26 gallons and the mileage hovering 30 mpg. And I’m running two scenarios at the same time that have different needs and yet do not interfere with each other’s measurement but do interfere with the data collection thus the result a bit. GM does not encourage running the tank below a quarter tank. That puts the maximum fill at 19.5 gallons. I have the data base set at 20 gallons. Scan Gauge adjustments to tank size are in whole gallons. Close enough. That’s a 600 mile range. More than I can do in a single outing these days even if I had the time which I don’t on any one day. 15 to 20 gallons on a fill gives the finest adjustment to the usage portion of the Scan Gauges MPG calculator. Adjustments are made primary by 1/10 gallon corrections between what the gauge says was used and the pump measured use. A tenth of a gallon on a four gallon fill is a 2.5% adjustment. A tenth of a gallon on a 20 gallon fill is a 0.5% adjustment. After four fills averaged we were under a 1% error. .89% to be exact. I made a 1/10 adjustment today on a 16 gallon fill or a .625% correction. I would like to get this done in my lifetime. Running the tank down that far meant the mileage data suffered an additional negative hit in that the 470 miles it took also happened over three outings meaning two additional cold starts. Yesterday’s entry was based on gauge values not the fill values. That was corrected today when I filled up. A penalty was paid to the tune of about 7/10 mpg on nearly half the total test distance miles. It hurt the unweighted average but not so much the median average. We have two runs and just under 400 miles left for this test. What I am suggesting is that the final result I already know will not reflect the full effect of the modification. The actual result will be somewhat better even if the data shows otherwise. I’m good with that an know exactly the cause and effect. I’m not selling anything so who cares as long as I’m honest about the process my conscience is just dandy. Which brings me to a story. Separate post for that

The last two days have been trying. I hurt my back and driving has been uncomfortable meaning my concentration is suffering. Add to that, two of the windiest days of this set of trials and the deck is stacked heavy in favor of failure. Despite that the results of the last two days are actually encouraging. Todays 29.61 mpg for the outing is much better than the trips first half into the wind 27 mpg return and gives a running median still better than the cumulative average of the first six tanks. Better news is the tank fill deltas are nearly canceling each other at the current calibrations. .037 gallons apart on 35 gallons of total charge. 1/10%! The MPG meter error is a bit more as the mileage isn’t perfectly matched but as close as the adjustments allow. ½ % maximum. It is a small error. Small enough to make the Scan Gauge results at a glance VERY reliable. I bought a small roll of a wider black Duck-Tape to replace the cello to give me some latitude in adjustments. And yes, because it was black. I have some grades on some of the test circuits steep enough to have passing lanes (5-7-1/2%) that make Pepper huff and puff some and yet the temperatures remain unfazed even with the air temperatures in the mid 80’s. I have room to close off more.

E&G classics says: This grille is a call to arms against the facelessness of today's commuter boxes. T-Rex says: Don’t talk about how tough your truck is, show them with an X-Metal Grille. Race Mesh says: Take your vehicle from ordinary to extraordinary with the help of this product. Paramount says: Add some drama to your front end with a perimeter grille from Paramount Restyling And my personal favorite: RI says: When you’re driving down the road, the front of your vehicle is the first thing people see. With this distinctive Mesh Grille, you’ll make a statement people will remember. Go on now. Tell me they are selling grills. LOL. For between $150 for the cheapest overlay to $2,900 of the full Monty I want my grill to do more than empty my wallet and stroke my ego. ​A dime well spent.

Shhhh....I have ten cents worth of Scotch Tape talking to me. Yard will have to wait. ​