Ok, I really need some help here. This thing is acting like VATs is having issues. Only thing is, this is a 99 Grand Prix GTP computer. I shouldn't have Vats. Got home today, threw the fuel pressure tester on and sure enough, on key turn it had 50 psi. Go to start the engine, and it actually fires up. Then about 2 seconds later it dies.... (thats weird it is acting like VATs. I disconnect the battery for 30 seconds, reconnect it. test again and it fires, this time it runs for about 30 seconds.... and dies. WTF......... This screams VATS but that doesn't seem like it should.

Doesn't VATS set a trouble code? You see anything on your scanner?

Try this. Reset the PCM and start the engine. Then before the engine dies keep the engine running using starting fluid. Do this for at least one min. Then see if the PCM will keep the engine running by itself.

The PCM is programmed that if it loses the VATs signal while the engine is running, the PCM enters a bypass mode and does not require the signal. If this works, the PCM will stay in that mode until the battery is disconnected.

I can't mess with it again until tomorrow, with no exhaust on it it is too loud to try and start at night. HP Tuners is reporting VAT status as Pass so I don't believe it is VATS. I'll try a bit of starter fluid in it then. Tonight I'll probe the ignition module and make sure it is getting power and ground. Tomorrow I can probe it for the crank sensor signal.

Probed power and ground on the ICM harness, both were good. I inspected my wiring from the crank sensor to the ICM and it looked good. Tomorrow I'll test for spark. I also have a spare MAF I may try but I can see in HPT that I am getting readings off the MAF so I don't think that is it.

Is your MAF a -05? It should be for the PCM you are using. It should not be a -04.

Yeah it is a -05. I have a spare duralast one that I grabbed from the pick and pull while I was there that looked brand new. I need to pickup a set of security bits on my way home this afternoon to take the old one off and try this one. I would rather stick with OE but I figure it won't hurt to try.

I have a sinking feeling that it is the CPS but I really don't want to have to drop the motor to pull the pulley.

[This message has been edited by Lancer-AM (edited 10-13-2016).]

I had a very similar problem on my 2000 GTP install. Don't know if they are the same PCM, but for me it was the VATS that was causing the problem. Changed the VTD Present flag to 0, and changed the DTC Fault Type to 3 for the two Vats codes, as well as changed the DTC Fault Enabled for the two codes to 0. It was hard to figure this out, as the program wanted me to set the VTD Present to flag 1. Full Disclosure- I was using DHP PowerTuner, not HP tuner.

Work keep getting in the way of me troubleshooting this. :-P I think I have pretty well eliminated Vats at this point having used the full gamut of 98-2000 GTP PCMs. Need to check for spark then toss a noid light on the injectors.

MstangsBware was texting with me last night helping me troubleshoot. I am happy to say we found the issue and it is running again! I had good spark to the plugs, but when I voltage tested the fuel injector harness I only had .1V to all of the injectors. I checked my C203 connection and had a solid 12V. Tracing my harness up I found a sharp point on the blower that had cut into the harness and was grounding out the line. After I moved the wire it fired right up. Thank you to everyone that chimed in on this. It was very frustrating. I got my exhaust parts in yesterday, got it plated as an Antique vehicle this morning. So here in a bit, I am going to go see about having the exhaust made.

All Your pictures are showing up fine.

Took it out on the road for the first time. It needed an alignment something fierce. Over 40 and it would float. I'm sure I looked drunk trying to get it to the alignment shop. After that nightmare was finished the car drove amazingly. Next I am trying to find an exhaust shop to build the exhaust.

I did notice though that one of my output shaft seals is leaking badly, so before it gets anymore outings, I need to pull the axle and replace that seal. I haven't really got on it hard, I'm trying to take it slowly and make sure everything is safe before I do.

Got the output shaft seal replaced this morning and got it back out on the road. No more leaks so that's good. I dropped it off at the exhaust shop today, unfortunately I don't have the exhaust flange for it so they are ordering one. Should be here on Wednesday, so unfortunately I'm going to have to wait for it to be finished. Oh well, I need a bit of a break from the car anyways.



Unfortunately replacing that output shaft seal screwed up my new alignment so it needs to go back again.

One thing I noticed on the way to the muffler shop is that it did not want to go into 4th. Looks like I'm going to be replacing the 4th gear clutch hub. I have been wanting to drop the cradle to clean up some of the wiring. I guess this gives me an excuse. I'll try and get some pics of the clutch hub replacement. Going to do some test first once I get the car back but I'm pretty sure that is it.

Getting bored not having the car so I am thinking up projects for it.

Phonedawgs, you might know the answer to this but any reason an arduino wouldn't be able to read the high low signals from the gear range selector switch?

Got the car back from exhaust shop. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I have a leak at the manifold I need to fix before I can shoot a video. But in the mean time, enjoy the pics.

Got the manifold leak taken care of, so here is a brief video of the exhaust before I take everything back out of the car to finalize everything.

quote Originally posted by Lancer-AM: Getting bored not having the car so I am thinking up projects for it. Phonedawgs, you might know the answer to this but any reason an arduino wouldn't be able to read the high low signals from the gear range selector switch?

You could easily program an arduino to read those inputs. Arduino inputs are 0-5v so you have to knock the voltage down with resistors but that's no problem. Then you could program the arduino to output the gear position digitally.

If you wanted to get really tricky you could monitor the PCM to transmission connections also and then also display the 'gear' the PCM had the transmission in. I say 'gear' because in that situation I would expect that you would just count the TCC lockup as one more gear position.

My thought is that it could relay the gear back to the Arduino and I can utilize a linear actuator for actually moving the gear lever. Essentially setting up a push button transmission selector.

It has been a long month, I haven't been able to work on the car really. For black friday though I hopped on ZZP's website and grabbed both a front and rear Powerlog. Shipped it was a little underr $300 for the pair. I know the rear powerlog doesn't really do much but I figured I would rather have the matching pair. I am about to pull the motor to redo the wiring harness, remove the lid springs, and sound deaden and insulate the engine bay, so I'll put these on while I'm at it and get some good pics.

These just look sexy. Can't wait to see them on the car.

[This message has been edited by Lancer-AM (edited 12-01-2016).]

quote Originally posted by Lancer-AM: Got the manifold leak taken care of, so here is a brief video of the exhaust before I take everything back out of the car to finalize everything.

That sounds pretty calm for just 2 resonators. Anything else in the exhaust system (2.5" pipe) ? Is the exhaust tip resonated too?

There is also a 2.5" catalytic converter on there. It helps keep it calm at idle and I don't have to smell exhaust all the time. After having a catless system on my GTO I decided I didn't want to do that again.

Yeah I plan to coat the crossover. The firewall definitely needs a heat and noise treatment. I had seen people say that the 3800 produced a lot of heat, I hadn't believed it until I got to experience it first hand.

[This message has been edited by Lancer-AM (edited 12-02-2016).]

Well I took the motor back out. There were a few things that were bugging me and needed to be addressed.

First was the transmission. I did not have 4th gear. This is semi normal in 4T65E's but mine was an 04 which meant it should have had a hardened 4th clutch hub. Speaking with David at TEP he also confirmed that the 04 lacks a Pressure Manifold Switch that the 02 and below trans had. I am using a 01 PCM flash. I decided to pickup a 01 GTP transmission and I am currently cleaning it up for paint. I really wanted the 3.29 gears anyways.

Next was the installation of the new ZZP Powerlogs. While pulling the motor I found a flashlight I had left attached to the firewall behind the manifold while I was putting in the motor the first time. It was pretty melted. Everyone was serious it gets hot back there. I also knew this from driving around, I could feel the heat of the engine through the seat. I decided to install some Hushmat Ultra Black on the firewall. I like the black because it doesn't scream at you when you pop the deck lid like the silver stuff does. I wen't with the hush mat because it was a great balance of performance and price. I get the sound deadening and heat reduction and it is not asphalt based, so it won't smell when it heats up. I wrapped the manifold on that side and the crossover tube as well. For now I am leaving the other manifold exposed. I haven't decided if I want to wrap it or not. I had a bad exhaust leak on the firewall side manifold which was just due to my own stupidity. You can see how blown out the gasket was. I installed a good MLS gasket this time.











While I am in there I decided to work on the wiring harness. Since I had to put the motor in earlier than I wanted I wasn't finished with the harness when it when in so I have been cleaning it up. It certainly won't be mistaken for a professional harness anytime soon, but it looks a lot better now. I also decided to do a Big 3 upgrade. The grounds in this car are questionable at best so I wanted to at least give it the best support that I could. This is all 0 gauge wire, true 0 guage, not some overly sheilded 4 gauge with 0 stamped on it. I am updating the alternator to the batter connection, along with the chassis and engine block grounds. The electrical system should get a nice boost from this.





Lastly I decided to change out the transmission cooler. This is a frame mount dual pass 17" cooler. I like it being mounted here better than having to run the lines all the way to the front of the car.

Take the flashlight back to harbor freight for a warranty exchange

Car looks great!

Are you kidding? I'm going to mount that thing like a trophy on my toolbox :-)

Thank man, It is certainly coming along. I picked up the new transmission. Next I need to pull the engine off the cradle so I can swap out the trans. After working on it all week. I decided to be lazy and I did nothing with it this weekend. Honestly I am feeling more daunted by taking the engine off the cradle and putting it on an engine stand than I was about pulling the whole thing out of the car. Oh well, I'll get it done. Going to try and pretty up the transmission before cramming it back into the car this time.

Wow I like the idea of that trans cooler mounted on the cradle, less lines to unhook and leak all over next time you pull it out also!... Got a link to where that comes from I was just literally looking at my old rusty fiero lines and the way to hook up that to the ports on the 4t65E....

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-...s/555/60363/10002/-1

I was lucky to catch it on sale for 29, but even at 49 it is really good. I like this setup way better than the old way.

Do you have any way to monitor trans temp info? I just wonder if these are really good enough on their own or what, part of the reason the front mounts work well is the huge travel distance just to get up to the cooler is acting as a radiator in itself, I'd really like to keep it out of the coolant part up front though I had a jeep where the internal lines in radiator went bad without me knowing it for a while and leaked atf all into my coolant system...

I had also contemplated a plate cooler with integral fan possibly placed flat under one of the engine vents....

The 4T65E has a temp sensor inside of it that you are able to pull values off of through the OBDII. I am not really concerned with the performance of it. there are guys running a lot more aggressive setups with these coolers and they work great. These are effectively giant heat sinks and where it is on the cradle, it will get good air flow. Think about the way these were factory cooled, which basically ran the fluid up into a side tank on the radiator right next the engine. Also the Fiero cooling lines going up to the front of the car are tiny, this should allow for better flow.

I'll have pictures and videos to post up this evening, but I'm exhausted right now. The car returned to the road today! Very happy to get it running again. It hasn't moved too much from the last time I posted but I finally built up the motivation to get back outside and get it done. Temps all look great, and the new transmission is shifting smoothly.

[This message has been edited by Lancer-AM (edited 03-27-2017).]

That's good to hear get out their and Finnish it looks great so far I was wondering how that trans cooler held up as I am looking in to options.

So here it is in all its glory. So glad to have it back together



I installed a ZZP Aluminum trans pan, mainly for a drain plug.



The ZZP Power Logs looks great



Finally, she's out of the garage. I only have the Eibach rear springs installed at this point. I was too tired to turn around and do the front. I need to get them in so I can have the alignment redone.





the temps are holding great. I really like running that trans cooler. It made install so much easier and less of a worry.

[This message has been edited by Lancer-AM (edited 03-28-2017).]

Looks great I was following this tread for a while glad to see it complete. The power logs do look great I was going to try to flip my fuel rail around or bend the tubes but may end up doing what you did. Just keep on eye on trans temp with a scanner I have read so many different threads on subject now confused.

Hopefully in the next week or so I'll get the front springs done, and I'll run some logs of the tranny temp for you.I made a quick 10 minute loop out to the highway and back to my house and it was good, but I wouldn't mind putting a log on it.

Won an eBay auction for some C5 brakes that are already setup for a Fiero. (Sorry if you were bidding.) All I need for them is the brackets which I'll get from Embrace. I'll get some pictures from all of that pretty soon.

Got it aligned and it is driving so much better now that I got those 4 cylinder springs out of the back.

So the Fiero was up, but went back down. I originally plugged the lower intake manifold with a rubber plug, I now realize this was a bad idea.

So since the motor was in, I tried plugging it with a freeze plug and some JB Weld. I think I had some spider passages in the JB weld and could not get it to stop leaking. So I hit the local pick and pull for a new LIM. I proceeded to tap it and add in a real plug this time that I JB Welded in. I did this yesterday so I will find out this afternoon when the JB Weld is done curing if that is my final fix.

New intake going in


All back together, now we wait.....



I am also currently adding built in USB ports to the center console. I ordered a 3d printer that should arrive today, I hope to print a replacement panel for the cig lighter that incorporates the USB.




I started work on my replacement cluster. I am going to be running an android tablet with Torque Pro. I have the tablet fully automated now to start running when the tablet receives power. I have an extra cluster housing that I am currently reworking to fit the tablet.


And finally, my junk yard gem. I found a complete L32 top end still buttoned up at the yard. I grabbed a N* throttle body while I was there as well. I have some research to do before I start the upgrade, but this shall be sweet.

Started installing the C5 brakes, had to clearance them a bit to clear the wheels. It is tight fit, but it clears.


This is Sluppy123's bracket. It is a very nice piece. I am very happy with the fit.

Thanks for the pics and info on your build. You put together one nice Fiero. I have a Genn2 SC on stand buy