2008 Trailblazer SS

Update your progress on your various car projects.

Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus

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Maverick
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by Maverick »

Good news!!
Maverick
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

More good news. I picked up my newly finished TBSS on Saturday Jan 14th. I am very pleased with the results. It looks great. Not only did Lloyd repair the damage, he fixed several other minor scratches on different parts of the body including one on the plastic of the right rear tail light. The body is virtually pristine now.

State Farm paid the entire bill for all new Chevy parts (including the chewed up wiring harness) so I'm thrilled with that. I think my agent intervened when I complained to him about the attitude of his estimator.

There is one (hopefully) minor issue with wind noise from the driver's door window. Lloyd had to disassemble the door to paint it. If I can't find a simple fix for it, I'll have to drive it over to have him look at it.
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Basement Paul
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by Basement Paul »

I'm sure it feels good to have it back. Cuts down on the anxiety, especially since it looks good.

-BP
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MostMint
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by MostMint »

I'm going through a claim with Progressive right now. Pics to come on this. It seems they often quote low then when the body shop goes to work they say come back for "adjustments" which get the cost back close to the original estimate. The only compromise so far is they wanted used parts on the car instead of new. My car is 9 years old so I'm OK with that.

In cases like mine (times how many thousand they do a year) if they estimate low and the owner takes the check and does not fix the car they can save 15% on those claims, which adds up over time.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

I came here to post about yesterday's activity, but after reading Andy's last post, I decided to bring this thread up to date on the deer collision. I believe, from my experience, with State Farm that Andy is right on the money. They low-balled me with the first estimate, my body shop guy evaluated the actual damage and then negotiated with them. The end result was satisfying to me. I got all new factory replacement parts, including a new factory headlight on the opposite side to match the demolished one. I also got a factory front wiring harness instead of the splicing of wires as originally proposed. I got a top quality paint job and all is well with no extra cost to me. The only shoe left to drop is whether my premium will go up. I don't expect it to.

Now to the real reason for the post. With the good results Maverick and I had with our tuning of his Lincoln carb with My Powerdex AFX wide band, I decided to re-install it in the TBSS to monitor the air-fuel-ratio in preparation for the 100K tuneup that I'm anticipating. The unit comes with a wiring harness that makes it difficult to bring inside the cab. The wiring bundle is terminated with large connectors that are difficult to get through the firewall without cutting a large hole. I really don't want to do that because this will probably not be a permanent installation. For the Lincoln, Maverick had it temporarily mounted outside in front of the windshield.

After cogitating on the problem for some time, I decided to order some matching connectors and build my own extension cable with a smaller, 8-wire bundle of wires that would require a much smaller hole through the firewall. Once I get the smaller bundle of wires through the firewall, I can attach the matching connector on the engine side to mate up with the original harness. The other end of my new harness, now under the dash, will go to the display unit on the dash with another matching connector to plug into the box. The new cable will be permanent since it is trapped by the connector on the other side of the firewall, but when I'm not using it, it can be stashed, coiled out of sight, under the dash.

I found a source for the required connectors so I will be contacting them to get them on order. I'll post some pictures when I have everything built for the install.
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

Two months went by and I haven't finished telling you about my extension cable for the Wide band display. It worked out great. Just as planned.
I drove with it and watched to understand the state of the AFR. It turns out that the current tune has it a bit too lean on wide open throttle and not lean enough on cruise. I'll either have to pay for some dyno time or learn how to adjust it on my own. Right now this is on the back burner for a while. I gave Maverick the AFR display to tune the El Camino carb.

Big event today. I can't remember any of my vehicle crossing the 100K mark, but it happened yesterday.
IMG_0402.JPG
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GMJohnny
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by GMJohnny »

You guys who aren't in the snow belt are lucky! Vehicles that have over 100k miles up here
are starting to rot. It's nice to only have to consider mechanical issues when thinking about
how long to keep your car. Current technology making cars go to well over 200k miles means
that you can probably keep the Trailblazer as long as you care to before you get tired of it.
Keep on trucking!

GM
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

That horny spiked buck sacrificed his life and I got a fresh new factory front end on the TBSS. My body man, as a customer service, went all around the truck and fixed all the little nicks and scrapes so the truck looks great. 200k is within reach as long as I don't fall out of love with it. So far, the love is strong as long as I can stay competitive with Maverick. :mrgreen:
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

Since I hooked up the wide band and saw that my air/fuel ratios aren't as good as I would like, I've still got tuning on my mind, so I dug out the books and started reading to refresh my memory. The first thing that struck me was how important the MAF (Mass Airflow Sensor) is to the overall tuning precision of the system. The vehicle's ECM must know the exact mass of air entering the motor to accurately calculate the AFR. It gets the air mass info from a table that the tuner has built by using a process called mass airflow modeling. This process is best done on a dyno and is unique to every intake track. So all this got me to thinking. My air/fuel ratios or not off by much, but after working with Maverick's Lincoln carb, I saw that some tweaking can make a noticeable difference. As far as my truck is concerned, the tuning/MAF modeling was done early on in the truck's life, before I added the cold air intake and different air filter arrangement. It's possible that the MAF table could use a little tweaking to make it more precise, but I've decided that the process would require a tuning session on the dyno and I would have to decide if that's something I want to step up to at this point. It also occurred to me that there could be some other things that would effect the air mass coming into the engine. Since my TBSS has now over 100K on the odo, I put together a list of items to check and clean to see if I can see a difference.
-Check and clean MAF sensor and Throttle body
-Check and clean air filter
-Check the health of the O2 sensors on HPTuners
If, after this is accomplished, I see no improvement, I may be able to go in with HPTuners and update the AFR table to fudge some numbers to get the results I want. This is not the right way to do it, but It might work.
This update is just some notes to myself for reference.
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Basement Paul
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by Basement Paul »

To make things more complicated, my LS1 does not have a MAF sensor. Hutter tuned it without it and says it's not necessary. I wish I could tell you how or why that's the case, but it saved me buying a huge MAF. It only has the TPS and the air inlet temp sensor.

-BP
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

Yes. I'm aware of that method. It's the speed density method where the ECM calculates the mass of the air entering the engine without using a MAF.
Lots of guys use it for the same reason that you do.
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

Today I checked the Mass Airflow sensor and it looked pretty good but I cleaned it anyway. As I was spraying the cleaner I saw a couple of muchkas get washed out. It looks real good now. I also took a look at the throttle body and cleaned up a little carbon so it is also good as new now. The K&N filter down near the road was a bit dirty so I soaked it down with cleaner a few times, dried it out and re-oiled it. I was out of K&N cleaner and oil so I used the Green Filter cleaner and oil I got from Carlisle a few years ago. Remember the guy selling the Green Filters?
Next on the agenda is to check out the O2 sensors from the log created by the HPTuners.
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

I seem to be on a roll with 100K maintenance items. After 9 years, it's about time to clean out the cooling system. Yesterday I ordered new hoses, two gallons of DexCool antifreeze and I decided to try a 160 degree thermostat. This engine normally runs around 195 degrees and I thought it might benefit from reducing the working temperature. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
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Basement Paul
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by Basement Paul »

I am running a 160 thermostat and I think the fans are set to kick on around 175 or so. Still makes great heat and heats up quickly. I can't think of a reason I'd want it to run warmer than that.

-BP
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wxo
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Re: 2008 Trailblazer SS

Post by wxo »

Another thing I tackled recently is an intermittent "Service Stabilitrak" message. It has been happening since I got the truck in 2011, but the frequency has increased over the last several weeks. I can reset it by turning off the ignition, then restarting the truck. When the message is lit, the stability control system is turned off. After a lot of searching the forums, I saw a trend that indicated that the Steering Wheel Position Sensor is usually the cause of the problem. So I ordered one from Amazon and got to replacing it. It was supposed to be a 1.5 hr job. I guess it took me about that long to get to the sensor and start to replace it. It was the wrong one. It would not fit. It was evening and I needed to use my truck the next morning so I just put everything back together and took some time to evaluate my next step. Well, after driving around for a few days, I have not seen the message. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but maybe something I did fixed it. We will see.
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