Midwest GRMer Meetup - Chicagoland $2017 Challenge "Parking Lot Build"

That has turned out really nice.

Robbie, were you able to get it running yet?  I'm cheering for you !

Robbie, You got it looking good, too bad  it took a dump on you....

Found this from one of the participants:

There's always next year...

Indy-Guy said:

There's always next year...

Yes. I will make a more full post soon, but let me quickly say I was experiencing significant dissapointment, frustration, and dispair this year. Hopefully I wasn't too despondent  around everyone. I truly believe this truck would have seriously contended for the pickup class win. And much of that is due to everyone who lent their time to this excellent build.

I woke up Sunday morning and put it all in the past however. The Saab will be back in a BIG way.

In reply to Robbie :

Seeing that you didn't compete were you able to push your entry to next year?

hobiercr said:

In reply to Robbie :

Seeing that you didn't compete were you able to push your entry to next year?

Yeah, I was. I could've pushed the car off the dolly for the concours, but there is real money involved in the entry fee so I decided to try and cut the losses a bit. Grm of course was wonderful about the whole thing. David even sent an expert efi guy from New Zealand over to help us troubleshoot!

It definitely would have given the Miata Truck and the Qute45 a run for their money! The fastest pickup went 13.9s (Q45) and most of the other trucks were much slower. 

maschinenbau said:

It definitely would have given the Miata Truck and the Qute45 a run for their money! The fastest pickup went 13.9s (Q45) and most of the other trucks were much slower. 

Last year the Saab ran 15.8 on a bad boost controller, cycling between huge boost and fuel cut all the way down the track (waaah,ka,ka,ka,ka,waaaah,ka,ka,ka,ka). Last year the Saab was mid pack auto x, with blown shocks, wrecked bushings, loose tie rods, worn ball joints, sloppy motor mounts, stock springs and bad brakes. This year the Saab had fixed brakes, full polyurethane bushings, new motor mounts, fixed tie rods and ball joints, viggen springs and almost new Bilstein b8s up front with stiffer springs and new shocks out back. Not to mention a fairly well executed Ute conversion that shed about 200lbs and likely would have scored well in the concours.

I'm with ya.

I just had a thought, (and if this fixes it im going to scream), but I am pretty sure I know what the issue is. I kept telling Ian (my co-pilot this weekend) that we would solve the issue in our sleep as soon as our subconscious minds had a chance to mull the problem over. Apparently we didn't sleep enough this weekend.

Here's the thought: I bet $100 a loose ground in the bed area is the culprit.

Reasons:

1. I am pretty sure the fuel pump grounds to the body at this connection underneath the driver's side taillight, low fuel pressure was almost certainly our issue since the car would barely idle but would also run great on ether.

2. We noticed that both turn signals were blinking fast, usually indicating a bulb out, but rare to see two bulbs burn out at the same time (and I know for a fact the turn signals were working normally while I did the final stretch of driving Wednesday night when the car was running fine). I'd bet these both ground at the same point as the fuel pump.

3. While we did check for voltage at the fuel pump while cranking we did not check for resistance through the ground at the fuel pump. A bad ground could show initial voltage but high resistance in the ground link would cause the pump to barely run after it started drawing current.

4. I had to disconnect and reconnect this ground point during the truck bed conversion, so it was semi-recently messed with, meaning to me there is a "go back to your last change" logic in play.

5. Darkbuddha and his buddy (the other Saab team at the challenge who worked with us on this issue) mentioned that they had all sorts of interesting running issues caused by incorrect tail light bulbs, seems very likely to me at this point that both cars probably have a similar wiring setup.

6. This is probably the only one thing we did not check or change during our 18 hours of thrashing to fix the issue (process of elimination or murphy's law - you decide). Mazdeuce did suggest to me during the concours Saturday to start by cleaning and checking every single ground on the car - good advice of course.

7. The issue was intermittent, and while the car would never run well, sometimes it would run a little better than other times. A bad ground makes a hell of an intermittent problem.

Now, I did crack the fuel filter at the end of our thrashing (at about the same time they closed the autox on friday) so I need to fix a fuel leak before I can test this theory. But.... oh well.

In reply to Robbie :

As much as it may be an "easy fix" now, it is always an easy fix once you find the true issue. Since you have yours figured out can you come fix my LS400. 

Didn't get a new fuel filter yet so not 100% sure it's fixed, but I unloaded the Saab bed tonight and sure enough that ground was loose. Wiggled it and the blinkers started working again...

That is a rough lesson to learn, but I can assure you all I have learned it.

In reply to Robbie :

I know the feeling man. Want to track down a 3 car trailer and we can have the Midwest Mafia roll up next year?

In reply to Robbie :

At least it's a zero-dollar hit to the $2018 budget? :)

It was a real bummer to see it sitting on that dolly through the whole autocross.  I came over to introduce myself and hear the story, but you had been off doing something else so I got the five part harmony from Ian.  Totally heartbreaking!

It's a little late but here is the story and some photos.

Ian came in from Detroit late tuesday night. We made sure everything was prepped and packed a little. We went to go pick up the truck we were planning to borrow to tow the saab down with. The truck lives about 15 minutes away from my house at my friend and Ian's cousin's house. Went to sleep.

Woke up early Wednesday morning, with the goal being to leave by about 8. Well that didn't happen. The tow vehicle had an issue with the hood latch, issues with the topper latches, and a few other general things. We fixed those issues, packed up, and went to my old garage about 15 minutes away to grab the tow bar, race tires, and hitch the saab to the truck.

Got to my old garage and started hooking up, but we were already running late and running into issues. Saab bumper has to be removed in order to hook tow bar, and wont fit anywhere so we unload and reload the whole tow vehicle. We are worried about tow vehicles diesel exhaust mucking up the nice white paint on the saab so we tentatively try to put a tarp over the saab. After messing with that for 15 minutes we give up.

We finally are packed up, so we hook up the lights and give them one final check. No lights. WHAT!?! Check the tow vehicle. No brake lights there. Crap. Check fuses, all good. Prod around the wiring, poke at the brake switch (which is covered in brake fluid - uh oh), check owners manual. After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting, we decide the truck is not worth the effort. Unhitch saab. Re-install front bumper, unpack truck one more time, and re-pack only the essentials in the Saab. Finally leaving about 10-10:30.

Our plan was to take the 15 minute drive back down to drop off the truck and leave from there. No problem. But we realize I left my Saab license plates at home. Crap. Drop off truck, realize we left truck topper keys on truck rear bumper. double crap. Drive 15 minutes back to my house, get license plates and put them on, drive 15 minutes back to my old garage just to check if we can find keys laying on the ground. We can't. So now we are leaving again about an hour later. Stop for mcd breakfast (at noonish) and hit the highway.

Next we met Bobzilla at his place of work in Indy to grab a carb for dusterbd13. Snapped a photo since it was light outside. Took off again.

Next time we stopped was in downtown Nashville for BBQ dinner. We had some excellent food at "Peg Leg Porker" (I think). But, we were in a hurry to get to Ian's dad's house in Auburn AL so we hopped back in and got back on the road.

Got to Auburn a little after midnight exhausted. We went right to bed. Next morning (thursday), we had a wonderful breakfast and chat. We had only 5 hours to go and we had just a few tweaks to make to the saab when we arrived. Around 9 am we went out to the car and had some pictures taken of us with the car.

Then, disaster struck. We did the 3 point turn, but the car was clearly not running right and stalled. We pulled up next to the house and jumped out to troubleshoot. Car would kinda idle, but had no power and would die when you stepped on the brake. Under the hood, there was a whooshing noise like a vac leak.

We checked, vacuum leaks, brake booster, pcv system, evap system, swapped DIC modules, etc. We found a vac line that had become disconnected. But it didn't fix the issues. We found the negative battery cable a bit loose. Also didn't fix the issues. At this point, Ian and his dad ran to grab some starting fluid for more specific diagnosis.

As the day drug on, we found zero vac leaks. But we did find that the engine ran great on ether. Ok, so its either a fuel system issue or a bad sensor to the ECU so the ECU isn't firing the fuel pump. But no OBD2 codes. No check engine light. I connected my laptop up to the ecu and was looking at the sensor values in t5suite. Everything looked mostly normal. I happened to have a new crank position sensor, so we swapped that. Seemed to be better, so we rushed to repack everything and get on the road. By the time we got all packed, car was awful again. What a bummer.

We stopped for a lunch and then got back at it. I also had a spare fuel pump, so we decided to try that, even though we had good voltage at the pump and the pump did seem to come on when we turned the key. We cut a big hole in the decklid with tin snips and got that pump out.

Took the whole thing apart and replaced the pump (I only had the pump unit itself). We also had to run to the store for some fuel line since I didn't have any in my spares box.

Everything connected back together and though we were hopeful, no dice. It was about 6pm by then, so we got a ride to uhaul and rented a truck with a tow dolly. We still had 6 hours to gainesville (5 drive plus one hour time change), and it was thursday night. Maybe we would be able to fix the saab in the morning in gainesville.

Hit the hotel by about 1 am, went to bed. In the AM, we grabbed breakfast, and I ran to a local junkyard while Ian took a nap (he had done the late late driving the night before). I actually found a yard with a 1999 9-3 (I thought our luck was ready to change!), and I pulled everything that looked useful. MAP sensor, IAT, IAC, Boost pressure controller, TPS, fuel pressure regulator. Ran back to hotel, grabbed Ian, and ran to the raceway.

At the raceway by 11 am, we swapped in our junkyard parts one-by-one hoping for a good result. Nothing worked. We found another team with a Saab and tried one of their DIC modules just for fun. No dice. Finally, about 10 minutes before they closed the autox for the day (2pm ish), I cracked the fuel filter after I had pulled it, checked it for major blockage, found none, and was trying to reinstall in. Since we had missed the autox we decided to finally call uncle and just enjoy ourselves. We were exhausted, and we had literally tried everything we could think of.

We had replaced: IAC, MAP, IAT, TPS, crank sensor, DIC, fuel pump, and fuel pressure regulator. We had checked: and found no vac leaks, found good voltage at fuel pump, and found no blockage in fuel filter.

And unfortunately, none of those was the problem.

I would have loved to see the Saab run. 

Are you bringing it again next year because I’d be up for a rematch of the non truck trucks. 

Andy Neuman said:

Are you bringing it again next year because I’d be up for a rematch of the non truck trucks. 

The saab will be back. I'm up for a rematch too - but I still have $500 of budget and another year now so I might be back with e85 and many more boosts. And heck, I might even get to do some testing on a challenge car.

Whats going on with the LS400?

Stampie said:

I would have loved to see the Saab run. 

haha. Yeah, us too.

singleslammer said:

In reply to Robbie :

I know the feeling man. Want to track down a 3 car trailer and we can have the Midwest Mafia roll up next year?

The saab is a pretty good truck, but im not sure hooking it up to make it pull a 3 car trailer is a great idea...

wae said:

In reply to Robbie :

At least it's a zero-dollar hit to the $2018 budget? :)

It was a real bummer to see it sitting on that dolly through the whole autocross.  I came over to introduce myself and hear the story, but you had been off doing something else so I got the five part harmony from Ian.  Totally heartbreaking!

Sorry I missed ya! Maybe next year?

In reply to Robbie :

Ls400 has electrical issues.

I think I’m going to take the Q”Ute”45 and make it into the Q45 all-sport... Should be able to get into the low 13s next year so you better plan to keep up. 

In reply to Andy Neuman :

*quickly heads to drag racing calculator websites and starts plotting a low 13 pass*

Just installed new fuel filter during lunch break. Can confirm that the issue was a bad ground. Saab runs great again.

TSSCC (Tri-State Sports Car Council) runs a test and tune at Grissom in the Spring. If you bring it down I will go (I usually just go for the points event on Sunday) and you can also get some national trophy winners and champions to drive it and help dial in the suspension.