The trans quit on me again. Upon taking it apart I noticed that the rod fell off the end of the Sports Machines' reproduction TV cable. Normally, the rod is held in place by the cable housing and requires disconnecting it at the throttle body to pull the cable out far enough to detach the rod (most GM vehicles). However, it appears that the housing on the reproduction cable is too large among all the other issues that I have had with the cable. As mentioned, I will be looking at the option of a repair kit that allows me to cut the bottom portion of the reproduction housing off and install a different housing end on it. The other option is a B&M universal TV cable. I will play around with both and talk it over with my trans builder. He is a co-worker of mine and we have been working diligently to get this pesky 700r4 to hold together a little better.
Forum member Proptop suggested I talk with Chris at CK performance transmissions in NY and he advised me to pay close attention to the clutch housing for 3rd and 4th gear and to check for hairline cracks. He also suggested I use an oil diverter in my trans oil pump to send extra fluid to the non lock up converter for better cooling. I have also purchase a larger trans cooler and will be swapping out the 4 pass unit the truck came with. I know that the factory trans is junk when it comes to trying to go fast in these trucks...but I'm only aiming for low 12's at this point. My only other option is a turbo 350 because I can't afford a 4L80 right now and I refuse to chop up the truck to install a T56. Hopefully, we will get this trans built up nice and get a decent TV cable in her. This is the 3rd rebuild since my ownership and 4th rebuild in the truck's life...with only 37k miles, that's nuts when you put it like that.
Also, I have been working with forum member WyoSyclone who helped me to get my Tuner Pro working with his code 59 software. We successfully datalogged the truck the other day so that was good news because it has been months since I have had the datalogging portion of tuner pro operational. I was contacted by Turbo Tweak who suggested I deal with a few things before buying his stuff. He said I needed to get the IAC working correctly before buying his chip because he didn't think his tune would be able to fix that issue. He said he has had problems with aftermarket throttle bodies not allowing the IAC to do it's job properly.
As mentioned, I have replaced the IAC motor, checked/replaced any questionable vacuum lines, and sprayed carb cleaner around the intake manifold to see if I had any leaks, nothing turned up. I think next I will use a smoke machine to check for leaks and if that yields nothing then I may look at trying to find an original throttle body. Just to reiterate the issues with this system...basically, it stalls when I use the IAC. So, I disconnected it and turned up the idle a little. Once the truck is warm it no longer stalls. However, I know that this is not the correct way to deal with this so I will try and find the issue. Turbo Tweak also mentioned that I can't tune his system with Tuner Pro, he said I can data log but can't adjust the bin files. He didn't suggest what software I needed so I'm not sure what to do about that. He is one of those guys that gives one sentence answers to things, you kind of have to dig to get a decent response out of him, but I'm sure he's tired of dealing with the uninitiated like me when it comes to OBD 1 tuning.
WyoSyclone also suggested I get my wideband running through the ECM so that I can data log it so I will be working on that as well. Once the trans is back in I am going to install the larger injectors again and see if I can self tune this thing a little bit. More updates to come...