I swear...I'm cursed

[Jeff V.]

So yesterday I'm down at the shop helping Dark Helmet get his engine reassembled. While we were on a couple of different breaks, I was fiddling with my AVC-R trying to get it to hold boost properly. Finally got it in the ballpark using some settings provided by Mark Hindlang.

So I took Helmet out for a little 'motivational driving'. We're both feeling a bit better after that. Especially me. The car was running better than it has in months.

Fast forward to about 1am when we finally stopped. I go to get in the car, fire it up, and rev it a bit since my warm restarts suck. The revs shot up to 3500, then jumped again into the rev limiter. I got out, checked the linkage, figured it was a piece of vacuum hose that had shifted.

I got it running, got a block from the shop, and the car tried to run away from me again.

I kept pulling over, checking it, and couldn't get it to stop. It's 1:30 by now, I'm extremely tired, and I'm not in the best neighborhood.

Finally I LIMP it home. I can't go over 20% throttle. The throttle body is fine. It's actually something inside the throttle cable (I'm using a non-cruise Gallant cable) I'm wondering if I melted something inside the cable when I was working with the boost controller. It runs in close proximity to the rear turbo. I've got a heat shield over part of it though.

I dunno. Just when I'm finally starting to feel good about the car again, this shit happens.

Oh, I didn't mention the best part. The MI 3SI BBQ is today. I've been looking forward to this for a couple weeks. If I can't fix the car, I'm not going

[Jeremy C]

I wouldn't think anything is melted, as that would prohibit movement of the cable rather that full open in jumps and fits. I would pull the intake pipe and see if something happened to the throttle body.

[Hans_GZP]

Tie a string to the throttle plate and hold onto the other end while driving the car (with the other throttle cable detached). If it runs away from you again, then you know it's not the throttle cable.

[Jeff V.]

Here's the thing.

I can run the throttle linkage through it's full range of motion by hand two dozen times, and it springs back every time.

When I sit in the car and push the pedal half way, it stops. I get back out and the cable is still taut. If I pull the the throttle closed, I can feel the drag inside the cable sheath.

I just salvaged another throttle cable from a cruise control unit. I'm going to rig that up and see what happens.

[Jeff V.]

I was right. Melted cable liner.

Here's where the cable goes through the firewall and attaches to the accelerator pedal



This little black plastic liner was coming out, preventing the pedal from springing back. It was blocking the pedal, and also binding up the cable inside.



You can sort of see where it started to melt here

[GTO Assassin]

Such a small part can cause you grief like that? Lame. Atleast your goin to the bbq!

Scotty

[Twin-Turbo]

No shit, same thing happened to me a few days ago.

[Jeff V.]

A runaway car is a pretty scary feeling.

[bluej]

[quote=""Gatecrasher""]A runaway car is a pretty scary feeling.[/quote]
heh. i was test driving a guys miata with him in the car and the accelerator got stuck on the carpet at WOT... revlimeter much?

glad you got it worked out and wasn't anything too major.

[Lord Warhammer]

so how hard would it be to have a hand accelerator and brakes like motorcycles have?

[Monochrome]

Same thing happened to a customer of mine last Jan. Interesting thing to keep an eye out for when looking over a car.

[Jeff V.]

so how hard would it be to have a hand accelerator and brakes like motorcycles have?

The throttle is more trouble than it's worth, and the brakes would never stop the car (compare the strength in your hand to the strength in your thigh)

My curse continues. I tried to log the thing tonight. The wideband was reading either 7.xx or 22.4. It would occasionally flutter somewhere in between, but mostly it was those two numbers

Looks like it's time to recalibrate again...

[Monochrome]

Yay for innovative...

[jackhammer]

I had my cruise cable melt on my starion once. I almost shat myself as it accelerated towards a red light

[Jeff V.]

I'm not so sure it's the LC1 now.

My laptop is losing active communication with the emanage. I restart the emanage program, and the displays start tracking the values again, at least for a little bit.

Is it vista? Is it the emanage software? The cable or USB/serial adapter? I dunno

[Chris95RT]

Easy way to check, do you have access to a laptop on XP and a known to work USB/Serial adapter?

[Jeff V.]

Not easily.

I might be able to get it loaded up on Jeremy's laptop though. The emanage software is a pain in the butt.

[Darkhelmet]

[quote=""Gatecrasher""]Not easily.

I might be able to get it loaded up on Jeremy's laptop though. The emanage software is a pain in the butt.[/quote]

Use my wifes laptop.

[Jeremy C]

It should load on my laptop easily enough. It's not the fastest, but it's solid.

[Chris95RT]

I have a spare USB-Serial cable (I should say my gf has a spare USB/Serial cable) that I can borrow.

Also have a laptop just needs a HD (on order), if Jeremy's or Steve's wife's notebook doesnt work out.