Well.........that sucked.
Today I installed the catalytic converter. To be sure I was installing it the right way (since there wasn't any reference for which direction it was supposed go,) I called
Flowmaster.
"Install it with the arrow oriented in the direction of flow" Dude says..
"There isn't any arrow on it" I tell him. " It just says Flowmaster on it, and when you look in the end,..one end says WUP" I added.
The guy says "Install it so flowmaster goes from front to back w/ the f up front."
Uhhhh,.......OK...
So,....here's where I start..
I wanted to keep that flex coupler in use, so the addition of the CC was a little more involved than just slipping it onto the exhaust pipe and welding it in in place. I only had 15" before the first bend, and both the flex coupler and the converter measured 10.5" long.......respectively.
Nothing that can't be changed w/ a cutoff wheel.
From there it all goes to hell in a handbasket.
I lowered the car back onto it's tires, and got my laptop. I opened TS because I intended to load Steve's revised tune and take the car out for a test. When the software opened,..it asked for permission to update itself to the latest version.
(I allowed that to happen)
I watch as the update loads, but when it does, several boxes at the bottom of the screen are now framed in red, w/ a circle and a slash in the middle.
I start the car to see if that will go away.
Nope.
Undeterred, I let the car go through it's warmup cycle. It all seems normal enough. I decide to take it for a drive down the same path I alway go.
It starts to run weird. I decide to abort the drive. Didn't matter though,...........It dies. 2 miles from home.
My phones dead,..it's starting to get dark,...It's getting colder, and I'm literally in the road and the shoulder is a mud puddle.
What could be better than this?
I start walking w/ my computer under my arm.
I get a half block away, and a guy picks me up. Takes me to the house. I call Steve,...He's not sure what has happened. I call a tow truck. I got 30-45 minutes to wait.....it's gonna cost me 70 bucks to get the monster home.
I get in the Mini, and go back to wait for the tow truck.
My absolutely screwed camera phone, and me,.....waiting on a flat bed.
The Monster is not tow friendly. I tell him that he's gonna have to back it into my driveway, so he loads it from behind.
No place to hook his chain.
After a few minutes, he manages to find a place and we start to pull it on. It gets almost to the front tires, and the oil cooler shroud starts to make contact w/ the road.
The guy asks me to watch it,..I think so what? I got no choice but to let it drag.
Fortunately, I think it squeaks by. I'll know when I look at it again, but not tonight.
When we get it home, my down-sloping driveway exaggerates the problem. He has to put the car on the pad facing forward, because it's elevated, and that allows us to get it off. But then he leaves.
I had to jockey a non-running car into the garage by myself. Something that I have always gave up on as impossible to do by myself. But somehow I managed.
I'm not looking at how bad the car is messed up tonight. There's plenty that I know about w/ laying on my back.
Plastic trim is cracked from being pushed and pulled on to move the car. Blacked out trim is flaking and scratched from the same.
When laying on the ground to help dude find an anchor point for his chain, I grab a giant honking piece of separated body putty covered in orange paint that is now hanging from the tail pipe.
This is giant piece #2.
I just didn't think that tail pipe would get as hot as it does,..but clearly it does. the paint is all bubbly, and where there was body filler used to flatten the bottom of the thing has completely delaminated.
It's a complete do over in high temp black paint. w/o the benefit of any body filler to smooth the thing out....
Steve asked me to try and start the thing w/o it being hooked to the computer,..didn't matter. Whatever has happened to the tune/software has corrupted the current tune. Trying to load a previous working version doesn't change anything either. Something is phcked.
So,...all-in-all a suck-ass ending to today.
