I have been reading and am just extremely impressed at what a little engine paint, and some cleaning did to the look under the hood. Very nice. I think I may use your thread here as a reference when I go to put in a 3.8 into my own toy... thanks for puttin it out here.

 

Thanks! Of course, some people would disagree, but the bay looks a lot better than what it did because I decided to dress it up. Some paint and creativity can go a long way...

 

New heater hose set up. Because of the rebuild, the hoses were disturbed and the o-rings were bad. Of course you can't find any o-rings to fit and RTV and electrical tape just wouldn't hold. I've already had a bad experience with coolant leaks, so they had to be replaced. And as everyone knows, this is dealer only part and it's VERY expensive. So we got this through v6fixit.com. Only cost $65. The guy was very nice and helpful, I will definitely be buying stuff from him in the future. He has some really cool things planned.







What's cool about this set up is if the hoses ever go bad, all you have to do is buy regular hosing and replace it. It's just attached with the hose clamps with the specially made fittings. So not only is it easier, but much more affordable.

 

Oh, an update about the starting situation. Case got me a better battery. Turns out the battery that was in there was only 650 cca. And there was no date on the battery, so we don't even know how old it was. Also, my valve body gets replaced in 2 weeks. No more P1870 and hard shifts after that.

 

Cool news. Glad that someone makes a fix for the heater hoses.
Hopefully your new battery will solve the intermittent starting troubles.

 

I think the starting situation is as good as it will get for now until I get it tuned. She's doing more of a stumble now, instead of a hesitation. But Case tells me that's from the cam and IAC, which he wants to try to clean. I'm hoping the tune will help settle things out, but I have to wait awhile for that. I really have hopes to doing a dyno tune, I'm curious about what kind of numbers she's making now over stock. And my engine bay pics of the new heater hose set up is on v6fixit.com now, yay!

 

Paint the strut tower brace pink, or write in pink "Sofie on it.

 

Darling, don't you have the Throttle by Wire set up in your car? If so you dont have an IAC valve, your computer controls the IAC function at the throttle body with the main butterfly valve.

Glad you got the heater hose issue fixed. I dread the day that happens to me. One would also thing that 650 CCA sould be enough to start your car with no issues. Unless the battery is old and just not able to give it up like it used to then that makes perfect sense.

Massey

 

I thought about painting the strut brace pink. But I thought that would be too much pink in the bay. Plus I would probably have to get it powder coated because there's already a black hammered powder coat on there. I also already have 'Sofie' on my air lid box, so adding it again would be a little redundant.

Massey, I'm assuming since there's two wires coming out from the TB that that means it's throttle by wire. I'm not sure, I'm still trying to learn and pick up on things. Case mentioned something about it, maybe I just understood him wrong.

Also with the battery, there was no date whatsoever on it so there was no way of knowing how old that battery actually was. So it's all possible it was just starting to wear out or starting to develop a bad cell. With the new battery, I at least know when it was put in.

 

if you have a cable running from the peddle to the thottle body then its not tbw. throttle by wire is an electronic or electric throttle.