Kelly Does her Thing reaction blog; What's tough

Why am I on YouTube?

This comment got a little out of control for a simple YouTube comment, so I decided to also put it up as a blog honoring all the great content she brings to us as an American who lived in Germany.

Bwhahahahaha! I recently did a video about why I was on YouTube. I called it, "Why are YOU on YouTube," to make it more engaging to video makers (probably a mistake for the low views)! Oh my, we YouTubers think about chains of reactions to what we do way too much!

Anyway, not to be a self-promoter, but to say that my truly deep reason why I make videos now is different from the beginning. I do it for the feedback from others. I feel that I have YouTube friends who watch videos even when they disagree with me. I always welcome their feedback and I learn so much...now...see my other comment about the seedier other side of YouTube if you wish...(below video)

Also, I think I can see why your channel took off so much better than mine. You put way more into it. You script it and you don't sound scripted. You just seem thoughtful and put together. Early on, I spent as much time on videos as you and I don't think I did such a good job. As I got better at filming (and forgiving myself for errors) it's way easier to put up videos now! I've take months of breaks when I didn't feel it in me to make videos. That's okay! (It's probably why I have half the ongoing views I used to, but I came back a better YouTuber who for some reason makes more money on half the views).

By the way, I've decided with going back to Germany, that I'm going to do a new YouTube channel about it. Maybe this is unwise to start a second channel, but you inspired me to try. I just feel like my last trip to Germany wasn't maximized and if I want to share how amazing it is with the world then I'll want to go and experience much more of it for myself. Your videos is literally what started this thinking process.

What's tough about the comment section?

13:24 as someone who has been making YouTube videos for a few years, I really resonated with your comment about giving toxic people more power than they deserve. Roberto Blake, a teacher of YouTubers made the comment once that he uses delete and block with prejudice. I was at a blog marketing conference in 2007 or 2008 and they said to leave the haters alone and that other commenters would deal with it and the community what straighten them out. That's fine if you can take a hands off approach, but I respond to nearly every comment (pretty much have to miss a notification to not respond). I think about it this way now. If the comments not good for me, how's it good for my audience seeing it below my video? I am the moderator of these comments and if there's something inappropriate for my community, then I should toss it out an airlock instead of giving them the time of day. I have gotten good at responding to some negative feedback which isn't so bad and I think that's different than toxic comments. I myself have disagreed with a video creator before only to get a kind and thoughtful response which turned me into a fan who explored more videos and I think we can influence normal people in a good or even great way, but forget toxic.

Been Loving Steve Lehto's videos. Here's my bloggers response. :)

Did you say, oh by the way, it's not Olive Garden...? That's one of my 2 experiences where I ended up with frozen food in a restaurant. The other was a pizza which they "rushed" because I was there a little after my friends. No thank you for rushed food! It's like some cooks may be teaching servers with an earful from their customers. I had to argue both times. Like you I kept it a lot cooler than I felt. And when my eyes showed the truth of how I really felt the servers would back off and say something noncommittal and nice.

Really? Next I'm thinking about cops being called because I walked out on my bill and my date so I wouldn't really do something stupid (the cops for unpaid for frozen food, not me hitting anyone).

Wisely, you checked your food in the center. I did not. I felt so completely gross with uncooked food in my mouth! No amount of whining and dining on their dime was going to change how I felt on a very early date into getting to know Bridgette at the time. (whining left as a whine not wine on purpose, it's more fitting for the server's inability to use customer service!)

She was like. It's fine. Don't make a scene.

Her chair pushed back a bit. Apparently I had a temporary super power of scaring people because my mouth felt like it had been smothered in hair (the texture of frozen Fetucini Al Fredo). Then she got the "are you kidding me" eyes! I responded, "I'm being completely reasonable. There's a reason fine dining establishments have you pay second. It's a way of them saying, 'I can prove to you it's worth the bill at the end.'"
She asked, "Oh is that why? I always thought it was so that if you didn't pay attention you could run up your bill and have to deal with it afterwards." Okay, now I'm putting words in her mouth. This girl could make any restaurant experience cost 3 times the cost if I went there alone. And I explained restaurants paying at the end as a way of explaining how it was designed for dates like her to run up the bill!

Did I tell a yarn? Was it fully real, or did I tell it the best I can remember it with a little artistic license? You decide.

2014 Chevy Impala Exhaust Cam Shaft Solenoid testing and fix.

What are the symptoms of this issue?

P0013 Exhaust Cam Shaft Solenoid Control
P0014 Exhaust Cam Shaft Solenoid Circuit




These codes were stored on a 2014 Chevy Impala 2.5L Echotech engine. The TSB's referenced were specific to P0011 and P0014, but they still are very educational for testing the system, especially if the wires are at fault and not the exhaust cam shaft solenoid itself.

What are the step by step testing suggestions? 

1. Check with your *scan tool that the exhaust cam shaft actuator does not change position when commanded up to 15%.

2. Checking the actuator and solenoid status will help you do wire wiggle tests. Example: when I wiggled the wire the solenoids status would go from okay to malfunctioning and back again, but when I twisted on the solenoids body without touching the wires, it was also go in and out of okay and malfunctioning.

3. Verify the PCM is attempting control of the solenoid. Back probing got me a varying voltage from 7 to 12 volts. On an oscilloscope it would be a square wave pattern. If there's any issue follow for the wire tests or if you need understanding on the system: #PIP5096C or #PIP5162: P0011 P0014
4. Replace solenoid if faulty. If replacing the solenoid, dip the actuator end in clean oil first.
5. One TSB suggested removing the old one, using a rag and air pressure to blow out the oil channel. Ensure clean oil, change if necessary, check to see if codes reset.

What fixed it?

Replaced Exhaust Cam Shaft Solenoid and verified PCM's both control over the actuator and the solenoid's status.

Possible fixes: damaged wiring, cleaning the oil passages behind the Exhaust Cam Shaft Solenoid.

*Note: a dealer level scan tool will likely be required to go this deep in testing. It'll require a scantool with bi-directional control and be fully compatible with Chevy's PCM.

By AutoBravado

An Odd Case of EVAP codes

What are the symptoms of this issue?

P0449 Vent Control Circuit/Vent Control
P0446 Evaporative Emission Control System Vent Valve/Solenoid Circuit
I forget about possibly a 3rd code which was on this 2004 s10 V6 4.3L little truck. It had to do with Vent control high and/or low input. This typically means that the PCM is no longer seeing a value out of a sensor that it expects, or it can mean that there is a wiring issue.

It's not often with EVAP systems that there is a driveability issue or performance issue. Most often, it's just a pesky system which needs diagnosing so that you can pass emissions. The goal of the EVAP system is to capture fuel vapors and prevent them from going into the atmosphere. Hydrocarbons are actually very bad for air quality and this with other systems have managed air quality to be much better than what I remember them to be when I was a child in the 80's.

While driveability concerns or engine performance aren't typical with these when the purge valve opens without vent control, it could make an engine run rough - it did when I commanded at a lowest percent of 10 percent by a bi-directional tool for the purge valve to open. This allows the vapors to be burned in the engine. Typically, the purge valve has to be commanded at 30% or higher to effect idle, not just 10%.

What are the step by step testing suggestions? 

Remember, the same EVAP codes can head in many directions. I included typical directions from other techs, but it wasn't the case here.

P0446 Can be the vent being commanded open, but being stopped up or failing to open.
1. Be sure to check for the vent solenoid for opening and closing when commanded by a scan tool. This confirms that the truck's PCM has control over the solenoid. I usually use a large hose which fits over the vent solenoid while I breath into it. You should easily be able to breath out into it until it's commanded and successfully turns on.
2. Check the canister for flow restriction. (I skipped testing the canister for flow restrictions as I already saw the PCM had no control of the vent solenoid) In this case, the vent worked fine directly controlled with power and ground, but there was no ground and no control from the PCM.
In this case the Vent and Fuel Tank Pressure (FTP) sensor both were missing ground. To see this, the gas tank had to be removed. The FTP was showing in live data at 13.5 mm/Hg whether it was plugged in or not.
3. When unplugged sensors read the same this is a hint wiring is bad. Inspect the wiring harness up the frame. Found damage and repaired. If not so obvious use a wire sounding tool to test your way up the harness to find the break. Generally, Chevy wiring harnesses are too thick for my sounding tool to accurately hunt for the real breaks in the wire. With many wires in the harness it blocks the "sound" and your tool indicates the wire is broken where it is not. Maybe PowerProbe's wire sounding which came from the Power Probe 3, while expensive isn't the best for the job. Otherwise known as the ECT2000.
It is possible the PCM is not providing ground as both of these circuits are directly grounded by the PCM. The vent solenoid is ground side switched.

What fixed it?

Wires were repaired.

Rumble - monetizing my videos outside of YouTube??

To put this article in context, I was watching one of my friends videos over on YouTube His channel is called Ferintosh Farms Photography. Lanny Ross's video with Remi's question is available if you take this embedded video with a button on the bottom right during playback to actually watch it on YouTube, or you can simply stay here, watch the video, and get great detail for how my dealings with Rumble have begun. Rumble is my copyright manager for my content on YouTube and it's a way of dealing with monetization when currently my channel doesn't have the 1k required subs. Recently they up'd the 10k views to 4k hours of watch time a year. Gratefully, I've been blessed with some viral content and the watch-time is not a problem, but the subs are.


Hi Remi. I'm only a few weeks into having videos on Rumble and getting paid, or having $1.20 towards my first $50 feels a lot like starting over on YouTube. At least YouTube's minimum of $100 is beat by 50% by Rumble for when they'll pay out. Remember, I would be getting nothing right now. So this money is in despite of YouTube and their new requirements. I was excited at first at half that money in my Rumble account, but in the next week or so when there was no new money, I was starting to get depressed about it all.

Suddenly today it jumped up 50 cents to the money I told you. The reason? Rumble's stats on YouTube are slower. That was two weeks of catch up. Now realize, I've only had about 1k new views since Rumble has copyrighted some of my stuff and YouTube is slow to recognize the copyright, and then they may be (intentionally as it feels) slow on putting ads up because maybe they don't want it easy to work around their rules.

So far, and analytics are tough because I've had 100k views according to rumble in March, when really, the stats are confused as Rumble got the rights to an older and more successful video. See, when someone successfully claims your content they can see the analytics from YouTube on it and copyright owners have the right to just watch a channel and see if they grow and then tell the ads to turn on if they wish. I believe some of them are thinking, it's not worth telling YouTube to turn on the ads as it'll detract from their content being seen more if it's small change. If your channel and their content takes off, they'll most likely turn the ads on and YouTube may be a lot more quick to cash in and help Rumble with the video as well. Now if my guesses are right about only having 1 to 2 k new views since Rumble's copyright's, then this is similar pay to YouTube, 50kish views being worth about $35 in my experience says that 1-2 k views for $1.20 is either poorer pay, or about the same with all the issues of communication and speed between Rumble and YouTube to actually get those ads running again. Now IF, a big if, Rumble had all my content. Too much work for too little gain, plus Rumble and YouTube worked out having the ads on, then I'd really know for sure what it's worth to me for Rumble to have my content copyrighted for me. Plus, holding back half my income through YouTube is probably worth it. Sure, it just paid small bills, but I don't want to risk it all in rumble yet 1, and 2, unpopular videos are just as much work to copyright with Rumble as popular ones. (Even very sparingly viewed videos or at least the videos not in my top 15 are possibly worth 1/3 to 1/2 my YouTube income.)

I'm holding back a video I expect to go viral until I have 1k subs so I can manually go through and turn ads back on for everything. At that point, I'll really see what Rumble is worth. I think how it'll work is when YouTube sees the copyright and I make sure ads are on, the Rumble income will go up. Rumble or YouTube is slow to both recognize the copyright and turn ads on...if they weren't my mil value could be higher than a dollar, but it may be only 50 cents....gain, tough to understand the analytics with years of views being mixed in for the last month. Forgive my long response to your questions, but now I think it will be an article instead. Sorry Lanny, I don't want to be in your spam box, but I'll have to link this article to your video and ask you do the same back. It'll grow us both and give us more traction with search engines.

If you're interested in Rumble, be sure to use my referral Rumble link as Rumble will throw me 5% on top of whatever you make. You get 100% this way and I'd get another 5% out of Rumble's take after that. Good luck and happy video making!

by AutoBravado now on YouTube as DE Nichols!

Toyota Corolla Radiator R&R and critical details people forget

Remember, you can't just pour the coolant in and expect to be good to go. You also need to bleed the air out of the system. I didn't show that in this video, but I promise it's the same as when I recently got in and out of my Nissan Frontier's coolant system. I show the technique of bleeding the air bubbles out of the coolant during my changing of the belts. I had needed to change the belts for a while, but when I spotted a light coolant leak out of the thermostat housing, that's when I finally got around to taking care of it all at once!

Link to belts and coolant bleeding

I'll also show what transmission fluids belong in these cars. Be sure to watch until the end to catch it! While I was at it, I also changed the valve cover gasket. I really didn't show much on how to do it, but it's an incredibly easy job, on this car, you only need the gasket, with no sealant, and you should tighten it on to about 20 ft/lbs. Forgive me for not looking that up, but most valve cover gaskets are like 22 ft/lbs. Be sure to follow a nice x pattern starting from the center and working your way out. If you need to see the diagram for the bolts, these often come with the gasket, and if they don't, it's often available as a printout from your local store who sales you the gasket. I'm sure I'll show it on my Chevy Prizm in the future.

From 1998-2002 it was the 8th generation of Toyota Corolla's, and this video will also work for Chevy Prizm owners as these are the only years they were "Chevy's" instead before the Chevy side was discontinued. Prior to this it was the Geo Prizm. My brother has one. Great car. It's one of the reasons I bought a little newer one.

I allude to a few other jobs in this video. I didn't record a transmission fluid change, I just implied it, but you do need to add transmission fluid when you change a radiator, unless of course the transmission was a bit over full. I dropped the transmission pan, changed the filter, without recording, but these other jobs, I recorded and I'll leave the link to them below.

Spark plug balance theory:

Which, I actually called, "BalancingSpark with Spark Plug Gap and an extra secret! Shhh!"

VVT-i Explained (awesome video link)

The transmission fluid, which you should add to these vehicles is Dexron IV or Dexron VI. I've studied some about the differences, and I think that if they had Dextron VI back in the day, they would have never used Dexron IV. Dextron VI seems superior and is backwards compatible. It's deservedly a bit more expensive.

By AutoBravado

Due to factors beyond the control of DE Nichols/AutoBravado it cannot guarantee against unauthorized modifications of this information, or improper use of this information. DE Nichols/AutoBravado assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. DE Nichols/AutoBravado recommends safe practices when working with power tools, automotive lifts, lifting tools, jack stands, electrical equipment, blunt instruments, chemicals, lubricants, or any other tools or equipment seen or implied in this video. Due to factors beyond the control of DE Nichols/AutoBravado, no information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user and not DE Nichols/AutoBravado.

Understanding Oil Viscosity and Weather

I've seen this question a lot? What oil should I use?

Easy answer? Use the oil the engineer recommended.

But if you want a harder answer behind the concepts of viscosity and motor oil, then you have some studying to do.

Should I go with a 0w-20?

I don't think that's wise if the engine was designed for 30 weight once it's warmed up. You can get a tiny percent better miles per gallon ignoring the engineering that went into an engine with a thinner weight, but the catch is, this wears an engine down faster. Engine wear contributes to permanent reductions in miles per gallon. So, for example taxi's, having some of the hardest use for their miles? Thinner oil is not a good way to be saving money. Sure, if you didn't care about the next guy or gal when you're done with a car, you could go thinner because it'll save you money, but only a tiny bit, because you can pass the more used engine to the next guy - this assumes you buy new...furthermore, while under warranty, if they discovered your thinner use of oils, then you could lose your warranty. In the case of a heavily used engine like a taxi, even at the number of miles that isn't a big deal for a normal consumer, you'll have already achieved a great deal more wear.

Now, if the engine was designed for that second number to be thinner like the 20 in 5w-20 or 5w-30, then there is no issue, most likely. Some companies went to the slightly thinner oils to get better miles per gallon numbers, not because there was a matching redesign of the engine. Again, bad idea to go thinner if the engine wasn't legitimately redesigned, versus it just being an “environmental decision”.

You see, oil takes more punishment to keep metal parts off each other when it's thicker. You can't replace that protection...but some new valve trains do require it or the THICKER oil of 30, once heated up, is actually damaging those components.

Using a thicker oil is far more quickly damaging.

Unlike the subject above, I have more research to do about the viscosity that's indicated with the w, as in winter. So a 5w-20 and a 5w-30 on a cold engine actually behaves the same. I am referring to an engine that's not warmed up, not just one that's freezing cold.

The portion that I need to do more research in, is if going with a lower w or winter weight for extreme cold...is it only protecting better at startup because it can flow? Is it causing more damage as the oil heats up because vehicles that are in the middle of warming up don't have the right viscosity? Whether it's harmful after initial startup but fine after a complete warm up or not, then the gain first thing in the morning would only be balanced as a help to drivers who keep their engine warmed up for longer – if however going thinner on the w or winter side of the house, has the oil behaving well into a warm up, the it'll greatly benefit those who are frequently short tripping in their car, just like me.

- by AutoBravado

On a related subject, here's an oil additive by Lucas. It's called Lucas Pure Synthetic Oil Stabilizer:

Many of these questions that came up, came up on this video, which better illustrates the colds effect on different engine oils. So take a look at a fellow YouTuber's video called "Cold Engine Noise = OIL WEIGHT".

Success Tips for YouTube Creators, a response to the Steve Rob channel

9 Response tips and my 2 most viewed videos:

YouTube Success tip 1 by Steve Rob, don't go by videos that "teach" you how to be successful:

Great advice Steve. If I were to rewrite your foremost tip, I'd say, "Don't do it "their" way. Do it your way." Steve said there is no magical formula for what works. Hey, I have a couple ultra successful videos. They get watched and watched and watched. I call it luck and a bit of skill. I realized people wanted those videos. Usually, the videos I think people "want" (because you can't really know) are videos that are harder to do, but then my water decarbonization video. I was nervous, it was my 3rd video, and it's still going viral relative to my channels size. It's something I knew a lot about and I felt it was a good video.


YouTube Success tip 2 by DE Nichols (aka myself/AutoBravado):

Thumbs up versus thumbs down. Hey. If people bother to watch enough to give you a thumbs down then it's still success. I've noticed that when videos first come out, that's when most of the thumbs up happens. The longer a video is popular the more haters come out. Don't take it personal. The people who most appreciate you are usually the first people to watch. Focus on them.


YouTube Success tip 3:

I sometimes think some of my channel ideas that are the most successful may not be what my subscriber base wants the most. I don't really know, but I put out serious videos and then reviews on things here and there. The reviews, especial about easy chemicals, which keeps the lights on so to speak while the other often less popular videos are the guts and the glory of why I got into YouTube.


YouTube Success tip 3a:

What I mean is, reviews on easy to use chemicals? Automatically popular. Car repair videos, why I'm here, less popular, but if developed deeply enough, I could get a paid channel one day. That's where the money is at assuming you can do something that professionals of the automotive world will pay for, or even serious DIY (do it yourself) automotive enthusiasts.


YouTube Success tip 4 based on my favorite advice that Steve Rob repeats:

I find that money isn't much of a motivation, not that YouTube pays much without TONS of views, so yes, absolutely, do what you enjoy most. If you enjoy many things which can't be related together in one niche, or truly related content, you'll need to let go of them as a channel needs one focus or ultimately future subscribers will be confused as to what they should be getting. When they're confused, they don't subscribe.


YouTube Success tip 5:

I find that when people are generous and they give to you, give back. I can't count how much I've mentioned Steve Rob on my videos. I mention other subscribers too. When they influence my thinking on making a video, I think they really appreciate hearing it in a later video.

YouTube Success tip 6:

Get involved in the community of videos that you're in to make videos for. There are other YouTube creators out there with similar content. You should reach out and support each other. Be genuine about this and you'll get support from each other, that you may not find anywhere else until your channel has grown more.

Some YouTube creators make the best comments because they're quicker to communicate like you. Steve Rob mentions that he doesn't review channels that aren't involved with their audience. A YouTube creator like that may not ever notice you exist.

YouTube Success tip 7 (Directly by Steve Rob):

Focus on views and likes instead of how many subscribers you have. Some channels have many subscribers but hardly any views in comparison. Take my DE Nichols channel for example. Most of my videos have a hundred views plus or minus given enough time, but I also have videos with tens of thousands of views because I made something the people really want, that they're looking for.

YouTube Success tip 8:

Have a website. I already did. It's a lot harder to make money off of adsense on a website then it is on a YouTube channel because you can ignore ads on a website, while on YouTube they have to watch some commercials. I think I'd be a lot less successful without websites pointing at my YouTube channel (DE Nichols), but it's hard to judge seeing as how I've written websites for years.

YouTube Success tip 9:

If you aren't aware of it and you're thinking about getting started int YouTube. YouTube has raised the bar a lot. Without 4,000 hours of watch time in the last year and 1,000 subscribers, you aren't getting into the YouTube Partner Program and you aren't getting paid. Lanny Ross from Ferinitosh Farms Photography has made multiple videos about how to get going with Rumble. Rumble is a new video platform. I'm not sure how successful they are as a platform, but as a service who copyrights your content and makes YouTube turn the ads on, they are a way to get paid sooner than those requirements set forth by YouTube. I don't know yet if long-term this was a good idea yet, but I've dived in and sold them rights to a lot of my top content. Feel free to explore Lanny's videos to learn about how Rumble works, but since I sent you to him, I'd appreciate if you use my referral link if you chose to sign up. Register with Rumble and get started.

My highest successes by views. Initially they were very liked but as time went more people showed up with their thumbs down. Take another look at tip 2 as to why I think that is.

My two viral videos relative to my current level of success:
I think they're popular because they're what people want. That said, in the Cataclean works video, I shared tons of other real repairs I did first and when all the conditions were right and the dumb PCM still thought the brand new catalytic converter was no good, it was time for a little help. Hardly a rave review, but very honest. Yes, you have to fix your car, and if it's not quite there, this can help.

Source: Port and Airflow Theory, PolyQuad cylinder chambers, Creating Swirl by DENichols

This Water Decarbonization video has been ultra successful because people are looking for a video like this all the time. It was only my third video and there were many months where it was half my traffic. Again, instead of just talking about how it works, I covered all things I've noticed that it causes problems with.


By AutoBravado - Happy New Year!

I'd be proud to have a YouTube logo mixed in with my ASE patch, lol. :) Let me explain:

Eric, for years, this has been my absolute favorite, talkative, automotive YouTube channel. ETCG1 is where Eric talks about cars instead of showing automotive repairs. Personally, I pretty much do cars, and I've started to dabble in motorcycles with my YouTube channel (DE "AutoBravado" Nichols)..., but still, this video and community is the place for the best discussions (I know, I know, you have a lovely forum, lol, but I like it here).

I'm a legitimately a certified ASE technician. I picked a couple of the harder ones to certify in even though I'm competent in easier ASE's (yikes, haven't touched transmissions though!)...anyway, I digress like I love that you do too...when I saw this, I wasn't thinking arm chair mechanic, I was also thinking about me. Without YouTube I would have become a competent professional much slower, and I certainly wouldn't have thought A8 Engine Performance, was easy. (I got brakes certified too, because even though they're often easy to fix up, knowing deep stuff that you need for an ASE could seriously save someone's bacon! (aka life)).

I certainly didn't put it on my resume, but if I was close enough to someone running the shop I worked at, I'd tell them honestly, "I know most of this thanks to YouTube."

The conversation could continue like this: sure, I study, I read professional articles, I talk to professionals, and I even study for the ASE tests because the engineers that make those tests are brilliant people. The master tech at my first shop knew one of them. Seriously smart man he'd say, though I forgot how he said it.

I recently made a video about tips on how I got my ASE certifications. It isn't popular. It seems like most people online aren't worried about getting certified when they learn on YouTube, for whatever reason that is.

But yeah, I'd be proud to have a YouTube logo mixed in with my ASE patch, lol. :)

Porting Cylinder Heads, What's Stage 1 and 2?

Dart heads has put up some information about porting, that you'd enjoy. Especially David Vizard's work. He put out a seminar about how small shops can be profitable on porting cylinder heads. He really didn't help on the business side of it, like the title suggests, but he sure helps people know what they are doing!



I made 2 videos about porting heads (see my previous two articles, each has a related video). I'm concentrating on theory right now before I dive in to it. Sure, there's no substitute for practice, but I'm still missing some tools, so I'm learning for my mind first. The first video is about David Vizard's concept of swirl. Weather you have a 4 valve or a 2 or 3 valve head, my video has something for you there, that I haven't found anywhere else, besides buying his book. He has a patent on it, so we can't sell a cylinder head with his idea on it without giving him something like 7%, I don't remember.

I'm writing in response to this question byDynamic Productions DIY Head Porting Small Block Chevy Vortec 062 Part 1 of 3 

"[I'm] thinking about doing this to the heads on my iroc i was a little unclear on this process and was wondering if you could clear it up, when u take this on are you just going for smoothing out the factory stamping and knocking out the carbon build up and taking the rough lines out of the factory casting or making all the ports bigger the whole way down through or is it a bit of both, id like to know as much information as [possible] i got 2 sets of heads but id rather not [#*&$] either one up"

To be more directly about what you asked, you're first suggestion, being minimal, is a porting that would be considered stage 1. Finish up by smoothing with 80 grit sand paper. Anymore and you're making things worse.

Stage 2 is where you open things up more rather than just some shaping and smoothing work.

I've only watched over half of TPV's video so far, but his information is dead on with what I've learned from other creditable sources.

Stage 2 requires that you know how much metal is everywhere or you could punch a hole in something else that the engine needs!

So, you'll either have to learn from someone else knowing your exact heads, or buy an ultrasound device meant to check how thick metal is, and you'd have to check everywhere, and stay away from thin spots.

More that I learned from David Vizard, that didn't get put on TPV Production's video:
Note: I originally wrote the below as notes, I may have quoted David, I may have only paraphrased, so I give credit to him and the video I embedded in the video above.
When you're porting your cylinder heads, don't let that customer walk away without getting a good exhaust.

It isn't the piston that draws in the charge, it's the exhaust.

When the piston is at bdc there is only a 1 pound drop of pressure, it's the exhaust that makes for 14 pounds of pressure. Don't worry about your intake only...this made me feel great about upgrading my exhaust before my intake by the way...so don't just worry about the intake on your porting work, the exhaust needs velocity, it needs high, more laminar flow too, or your intake work will look less stellar than it is.

Understand, these are lessons a flow bench can't teach you. The above paragraph are observations by David, and those he's learned with watching actual engine's function. Flow benches are a tool to test flow yes, but you couldn't learn that the exhaust is primarily what brings in the intake charge from a flow bench! This makes me want stage 2 cam's for my project. The increased lobe overlap would assist in bringing the exhaust's flow into the intakes flowing moments even more!

Would it increase emissions and lower idle quality? Probably. But I have an awesome catalytic converter that is already pushed leaner than most, it could use more fuel for cleaner air...may not be so good for my car's miles per gallon! LOL

By AutoBravado

Port and Air Flow in practice and in theory II

In my last article, I talked in some paragraphs about how porting will get you more flow. I also discussed how for a street ride, removing a lot from the ports is probably not the best idea as it can reduce torque at lower RPM.

That said, most of how the Eastwood video presented porting, shouldn't be taking anything away from a street ride or "streetable ride". This was also in my first article:Port and Air Flow in practice and in theory.

Streetable ride approved technique:
Reducing the machinist ridge in the combustion chamber in his example wasn't aggressive enough for me, because those create turbulent air. This is something that won't take away for a streetable ride.

Streetable ride approved technique:
The smoothing of the casting down to 80 grit sand paper? That's perfect from what I learned from David Vizard's book on this subject. The tiny imperfections and roughness may pick up carbon, but that'll happen anyway, you might as well have a desirable roughness to create small vortices, which make small roller bearings to make for faster.

Another item I disagree with on Eastwood's video on my last article, is that you should have spare valves that go in to protect the valve seat while you remove machinist ridges. That way, you can get right in there, next to the valve, and make a trench and then smooth that out.

Here's an example picture of the areas in question for a machinist's ridge: (be sure to click on the another article of mine. It has a lot more pictures, and when you click on them there, they get bigger; head gasket)

Port and Air Flow Theory III

A couple of points of re-study for me since video I made and embedded above, as this subject can make me feel left wanting again and again...
...David Vizard says that focusing on the points of the most restriction will make a port much more efficient. While hogging out a port where the air is already the slowest is likely to make a port simply lazy.

Back cut valves, rolled valve seats? Huge. It's been a while since I was in his book instead of on YouTube where I couldn't see the charts, but he made an example of how much air had to get past valves. In the picture, most of it is air, and beside it, is a little man to scale for how much air goes through a particular race engine. Yet, of course, still, there is that little valve, which is smaller still than the man when you see the math for how much "surface area" an imaginary cylinder from the valve seat to the cuts on the valves. That little sideways space, where all the action has to take place. Can you imagine it?

What is next to that moment of greatest restriction is often a machinist ridge in the combustion chamber. Most people won't touch it. The trick is to have a set of valves you don't care for as a guide to your single cut burrs, and round out a small trench around the valve, exactly the size of my smallest burr. Then blend it. Surely, everyone's fear is you've made the combustion chamber bigger! The tiny drop in size, vs. having air and fuel tumble and bounce through this section, which forms larger droplets, is more my worry. Plus, with the increased flow, while static compression is slightly lower, dynamic compression will be higher.

Make effort on the port side of the valve, working in the bowl ... I'll continue my thoughts on this at a later time. :)

Source: DON'T POLISH when Porting and Airflow Theory III by DENichols
By AutoBravado

Port and Air Flow in practice and in theory

This the best practical video I've seen on this subject for quite some time. I'd call this a very light porting job. That's safest if you don't know how thin the metal is in different places, but a way around that is to get a metal ultrasound tool and find out where it's thin, so you can do a more aggressive job.

Personally, I'd remove more in the combustion chamber. Get rid of those machinist ridges more. Sure, it's a small compression loss, but you're probably getting the cylinder head shaved anyway, right?

It takes a lot more skill, but if all you're going to do is a slight smoothing of the port, why scribe for the gasket? Sure, you don't want to go beyond the gasket line, but my point is, matching better to the gasket is a tougher way to go, but an industry standard for a more aggressive porting job.

Could be more like a stage 2 to do that.

If you go bigger, you have to use T tools to measure the inside and make sure those ports are matched.

I bet they weren't matched at the factory! According to headbytes, the more points of measurement to have them even, they higher the stage, more so than how much material is removed. Kind of a balanced way of looking at the stages. Please understand, this is not slander, there is a lot of evidence stacked up on YouTube and many websites, which mention that headbytes of YouTube isn't in good business practices. I learned a lot from him. His engine knowledge isn't perfect, but it's among the best. I've learned a lot from this artist. Some artists don't make good businessmen. Maybe he has a lot of personal issues that have prevented him from keeping up with his promises in porting engines, but a lot of people have lost money and they aren't getting their sometimes rare and original parts back that belong on their classic rides.

Lets get back to something prettier.

More flow, smoother flow. These are common concepts. People sometimes worry about losing torque at lower RPM because making ports larger, while it can increase flow (it can lose flow as well if you do it wrong), it also lowers the air velocity in your ports, which is more needed at lower RPM. Know though, that people porting for racing aren't worried about a little loss down low when they're getting better flow bouncing off of red line and back up to it with each gear shift.

So while I'm working toward a cylinder head project of my own, I probably shouldn't open the ports up much as the automatic transmission keeps my RPM low most of the time. This would cost me power, even if on the on ramp to the freeway the higher possible RPM, which won't ever happen in the city, lets me have more power there, the car would be less driveable in every other way...at least that's how the theory goes. I so want to put this in practice! I still don't have the electric die grinder or bigger air compressor which I need.

In the video above they talked a little about how to get swirl, but this was one of the video's down falls as I don't think the technique they're talking about would actually create more swirl. To learn more about that, go from watching the practical example above to my theory video below.



Source: Port and Airflow Theory, PolyQuad cylinder chambers, Creating Swirl by DENichols

When it comes to swirl, on single valve intakes you need a different technique than you do in dual overhead cams or DOHC.

David Vizard's concept in the video above is to make one of the vales larger, support that valve with more porting. The idea is to make for more flow on one valve so that as it's great velocity air goes into the chamber, it causes a swirl. Swirl also squeezes more air into the combustion chamber. Swirls prevent fuel molecules from colliding as much. Turbulent air, like what is shown to be reduced in the first more practical example video above makes fuel droplets collide more, which makes them less atomized and less burnable.

By AutoBravado

"Cold Air Intake vs Short Ram Intake - Explained" blog reaction to Engineering Explained

Before I get into my reaction to Engineering Explained's good video and the comments below it, I've also done my own article about intake modifications
Weapon R Dragon Intake Review 
 :

Randy Knight, on Engineering Explained's video was talking about laminar or straight flowing air, vs. turbulent flow and entrance length. He has a good grasp on some of the issues facing intakes for sure!

I reply:
+Randy Knight Something to add to your considerations is the intake manifold after the throttle body. It does more to handle what you're worrying about than the intake ever does. Intake valves don't just take air in, they also lose air back into the intake manifold and that's a tough consideration for engineers that have handled these issues wrong in so many ways (It's very complex and many better and worse things have been tried). Try David Vizzard's book on porting an engine.

As I think on your comment again, I really believe that the intake manifold design is the most important for what you're thinking on and a short ram or cold air intake's only role in this is the temperature and volume of air.

The short ram's concept is to minimize the resistance to getting more air, but as it may be drawing hotter air than the cold air intake, hotter air is supposed to be less dense.

I think a short ram works for me so well, because I've done some mods going for colder air only to find ways to heat things up instead for the colder months as engine's are designed to waste fuel just to stay hotter during those times - that's a power killer. I've recorded my views on these points.

The other thing to consider is that the cold air intake has more metal to take on heat and help pre-heat the air as it comes into the engine. I combated this by adding piping from the front of the car to blow on this metal and cool it down. Depending on the cold air intake, it could take care of this on it's own.

Link to the video with the above conversation:

Cold Air Intake vs Short Ram Intake - Explained   by Engineering Explained

More after that reply:

In engineering explained's tests, he found that the short ram intake or SRI as he shortens it had more benefit between 2-3k RPM on his Integra and 4-5k RPM in 2nd gear for 3 runs averaged. He found a loss between 3-4k RPM. This may explain that my PCM is very smart on my Chevy Prizm as it usually switches gears just after 3k RPM even if I'm at WOT (Wide Open Throttle). The exception is when my family is in the car or I have a lot of tools in the car. Then it'll shift around 5,500 RPM and it'll have about the same wHP at shifting there as it would at 3k. If I do have a 3-4k power drop like Engineering explained did, it's explain why the PCM sticks with it through the losing period to get the 2nd gain rather than changing gears and having to climb back up to the power range available in higher RPM. This does assume that my PCM is infinitely wise in how it manages power as PCM or power control module implies. :) I found this written article much easier to extra data from than the videos themselves. Engineering Explained's Cold Air Intake vs Short Ram Intake - Explained.

I have zero data between 1 and 3 k RPM about patterns of power as my torque app announces peak power at an RPM rather than giving me a useable graph (it has graphing, I just don't find it helpful in my tests). It's easy to get a feel at different speeds and RPM where my power is at by simply letting off the gas at a given speed.

By AutoBravado

Schrodingers Box MAF diagnosis video reaction

Schrodingers Box part 1 reaction:

Anyone else catch that he introduced himself as MAF (Mass Air Flow sensor)? Nice Freudian Slip...not a true one, but the phrase has slowly changed to mean that something you're mind is working on came out. So cool. :)

Purposeful or not.
At 4:20, Matt (Schrodingers Box) is about to talk about IAC or the idle air control valve. While this is a bypass of air around the throttle valve, realize all the air that gets to this also has to go past the MAF. So, if you have a known expectation of your idle RPM and what your MAF could be, it could be a way with a scantool only to know if there is something wrong with your MAF. Just remember, this can be misleading as idle can be wrong for other issues like running rich. IAC will respond with more air than normal and RPM will usually be raised.

Matt's spoiler alert didn't ruin anything for me about his new tool. He had hinted at 7:20 about about another non scan tool test I was all smiles. :) I have this bad habit of reading comments before the video or as it runs, so I already new an oscilloscope was coming!

17:06 By now I'm very excited. I have successfully diagnosed two bad MAF sensors prior to this video. 1 was super easy. 2.3 to 33 g/s was normal for my car at idle. 93 g/s per second at idle and random spikes around that abnormal number as I pushed on the throttle? Okay. I knew what was wrong.

The better MAF I condemned I didn't do directly. On my car the MAF and IAT are in the same component. IAT was reading very accurately as compared to my "laser" thermometer of the intake that the IAT sat in....but when it got above 43 degrees C it would race hotter. The "hotter" the air the more the PCM believed it needed less fuel. The O2 sensor caught it and increased fuel trim.

I reference being excited by 17:06 as I realized my MAF is 100 to 200 degrees F hotter than the IAT? Well, since the IAT was getting off the more it got hotter after it's accurate range. of 43 degrees C...well hey, by it being in the same part I condemned my 2nd "MAF" ;)

By the way the 2nd way I had known to condemn a MAF (I'll go ahead and be more honest now, I condemned an IAT, it was just attached to it in the same part of a MAF, Lol) was achievable by DVOM, chart of known resistance representing what temperature and a laser thermometer.

I cross referenced my results via scan data and the laser thermometer as well. There's no way to get around that laser thermometer for this technique.

21:45 It seems to me that the way the MAF was intentionally designed was to appear to be a potentiometer. I think they avoided changing how PCM's reacted from the early VANE type MAF's and how they'd have to see a potentiometer.

So, analog MAF's appear to be engineered to me to prevent re-engineering PCMs. Sure the PCM needed the equipment to produce voltage and maintain constant temperature, but the change in V sure seems like a potentiometer.

by AutoBravado

For another article by AutoBravado discussing how I fried my MAF. The articles intention was to be about water decarbonization only, but I got into some related concepts as water decarbonization done wrong would get this sensitive sensor broken.

Milky Oil Cap? Reasons you should or shouldn't worry.

In case you haven't watched the video yet, milky sludge on an oil cap is simply an indication of water condensation in an engine. At the worst, it means you've blown through a head gasket and coolant has been ruining your engine for some time. Simply check your oil on the dipstick. If it's not milky too, then you're probably just having problems with living in a cold area, or your taking too short of trips for the water to boil off in your engine.

Despite no milkiness under my oil cap, and generally driving in a warm environment, this explains why there is a general brown tinge to all the parts inside of the engine in my 1999 Chevy Prizm. I should have been increasing my oil change interval.

I think I do a lot to prevent issues, always using quality synthetic motor oil like Mobil 1 or Castrol with Syntec. When these synthetic motor oils are the extended mileage type my oil looks pretty clean up to 5k to 5.5k miles, but when I get synthetic that doesn't have the "extended" design I only get about 4.4k miles out of the motor oil. (These synthetic motor oils are rated at 15k and 7k respective to my 5.5k and 4.4k mile synthetic motor oil change intervals.) I'm basing these decisions by how dark the oil gets.

It's all those short trips. I'm building up water, and therefore acids because of living in smaller towns since 2005. The metal of my engines in a Metropolis looked much better. You know, where I was usually driving at least 23 miles to work, and I bought much more used cars and it was a colder area too.

Short trips really are hard on cars. I never fully believed it, but "proof is in the pudding"! Just don't eat it! lol

I guess at 130k miles of having even my reduced "extended" synthetic motor oil change intervals, I should have stayed under 4k miles the whole time (car has 170k miles plus now).


Check out one of my other articles about synthetic motor oil. This article gives some answers to the questions. Why synthetic? How does it help with my cars miles per gallon?

by AutoBravado

Does Techron Concentrate Plus really work?

I know we can't go back, but I wonder if the Techron would have been effective at the soft carbon that hadn't baked on back at the beginning of the first video in this series? To be honest I don't think it's something ChrisFix or I will ever test.

To catch everyone up, ChrisFix is doing multiple fuel injector cleaner tests on a engine with some carbon build up. He has a bore camera so he can show evidence, rather than just listening to the engine or having a feel for his truck that can't be proven or shown on camera.

Think about it. Techron Concentrate Plus really doesn't look effective on the hard build up. For the price the Gumout did pretty similar work with a lot less cost on his earlier video. Plus, I see Gumout on sale at AutoZone...I don't know how often, but when on sale you can get almost 4 bottles of Gumout to the Techron at full price. Sure the Techron goes on sale too, but usually by not nearly as much.

On impulse before a 2,200 mile trip I did in my truck I ran Gumout Regane and the old Techron together. From other subscribers of ChrisFix's YouTube channel, I believe I actually got the PEA that techron used to show on the MSDS. The current MSDS for Techron doesn't show PEA anymore. That seems to be the cleaner of choice that actually has scientists finding data and publishing journals on it.

The results I could really feel came in about 1/2 through the trip. I filled up on gas pretty often and didn't get my tank low so math says that since I had double concentration between the two cleaners that it probably took half the trip for the solution to get pretty diluted.

I really wish I had a bore camera to see the before and after. I will say this though. It normally takes several thousand miles for my trucks oil to get some black in it. My oil was fresh before the trip and after it was as dirty as if I had driven more like 4000 miles. It's my only indicator that cleaning happened that's visual other than the experience of the engine really opening up, getting smoother, and sounding quiter.

To be fair, ChrisFix did a much better test than I did. I could show the results. When I ran Gumout Regane in my 1999 Chevy Prizm right after the water decarbonization article I wrote, I really didn't feel any difference. Since I had bought it as a buy one get one free, I figured why not put it in the truck? My MPG did improve throughout my journey. And the biggest changes were during the time that I still had a significant concentration left of the Gumout Regane and Techron Concentrate Plus.

Now remember, I felt quite the difference that I used to hear from friends all the time back in the day when I bought this Techron bottle. That was when it still had PEA. It's what convinced me to even put it in my truck. All my friends that thought it worked before have stopped buying it, and having seen the current MSDS myself, it doesn't have PEA. It makes me wonder if PEA has gotten more expensive. Seeing as Techron Concentrate Plus is one of the most expensive products on the shelf at my local store, I think they're just trying to make money on a reputation for PEA that used to be in the product. Well, even without bore scopes, all my friends have stopped buying it.

These videos get me to say a lot and I hope my personal experience may be of benefit to another. It's really too bad that I can only speak from how the engine sounded. I should have taken some screen shots at least from my Torque App before and after I did see a HP/torque bump, but I was also at lower elevation later in the trip, so having thicker atmosphere may have been the cause. Maybe that would have turned up some more evidence. I did see significant changes on my OBD II data during my trip. I haven't yet gone through many, many fuel receipts that I did MPG in a thorough way, but I'll be sure to report back with more detail.

Just for reference:
I was hauling a full load in a full sized truck bed on a 2004 Nissan Frontier XE with the V6 3.3 option with no supercharger. Also, when it was very cold out my engine seemed to ping some. My knock sensor went bad and it's on back order. I'm doing a knock sensor location mod once my parts from Bosch are no longer on back order so I'll be sure to report any MPG changes! Nissan put the knock sensor deep under the intakes so the proper job is a full days work, while the mod only takes 15-45 minutes. More to come. :)

Get more tips on how to improve your truck's or car's miles per gallon on my main website. Or watch my own video and reactions to a fuel additive. Lucas Upper Cylinder Lubricant:

by AutoBravado

Fuel Injectors and a audience inspired article from Scotty Kilmer's videos

Scotty Kilmer said he has a tool to see fuel trim per fuel injector. That's incredible and I think my ECU has maxed out adjustment if they still can't run even. Or the ECU is just not sensitive enough to get the fuel injector's timing any closer to being right.

I'm on my 3rd change of fuel injectors. This only covers a fraction of the times I had to pull the system a part because fuel leaks kept developing above the fuel injectors. With how my fuel injectors sit on my engine this gives an amazing opportunity for them to sit in fuel. I don't think they're designed to do that because they failed right and left until I got better at setting them up without leaks. Part of the posts that my fuel rail secure to are plastic and damaged so I think they were the cause of most of my frustration. It's easy to get the fuel rail to tight with this setup on my 1999 Chevy Prizm - same as a Toyota Corolla.

I developed an interesting problem towards, hopefully the end, of this project that has had me under my hood for hours at a time repeatedly for days and going into weeks.

At this point, I can do the job of changing them out or a certain faulty one out in 10-30 minutes. The 30 part was added just in case of pride, but I've really gotten much faster.

When the remanufacturer wanted me to switch fuel injector 1 and 2 I found myself to be very upset. Sure, I had misfires at every startup on cylinder no. 1 and sometimes I had a P0300 as well, but this was less of a misfire to do no flow, and more likely just incorrect flow.

When I switched 1 and 2 the problem would have disappeared without my laser thermometer.

Let me explain.

Cylinders 2 and 3 fire one after another just like 1 and 4 fire one after the other. Basically, switching two injectors got rid of a misfire as each cylinder firing order set has a lean and rich injector. The O2 sensor sees the pulse on exhaust of each group of time of cylinders next to each other in firing order and everything looks on target. Virtually no fuel trim, except at idle, but I'm sure that's a separate issue.

I believed that my original set of fuel injectors were actually much more efficient because the leaking fuel injector actually caused the rest of the engine to run lean.

When they sent me a set of fuel injectors that ran perfectly even all the laser temps were the same per cylinder and fuel mileage was down from 43 to 35....or way worse if you include that over some days all but one failed on the first set, but that's a bigger more frustrating story....

So, with how long winded I am, I only could ask Scotty Kilmer one tiny bit of all this on the live event, but what I'm going to do before I install yet a 3rd set of injectors is widen the spark plug gap on the two cylinders that are getting more fuel.

You see, I learned from my ACE studying today that the spark line can indicate a problem in a cylinder. The shorter the spark line, the shorter the secondary resistance should be, however, when spark is normal, it can also be a way to detect a greater fuel to air mixtures.

More fuel equals less resistance to spark. So, I'm thinking of checking if I can change my richer cylinders 3 and 4 to .046 spark plug gap instead of .044. This would raise resistance, get a longer burning of the richer fuel, and I'd LOVE to see the car's miles per gallon results on that!

All I could fit in to ask Scotty Kilmer on the live event today on YouTube was if I should keep plugging on with my current ones, I mean, I have better MPG because the O2 is seeing stoichemetric...yet it's due to a bit of a trick ;) lol. He guessed right away what I didn't have space to say that they were remanufactured and that they'll never be perfect unless I want to buy new ones...

To check out my question from this mornings live event check here: Scotty Kilmer Live Event He does this about weekly, except that his older son had a wedding so this was the first event in a few weeks.

....this is very tempting as my system is pretty stable and I have another miles per gallon experiment to run. :) If you want to check out the conversation that lead to the making of this article go to Scotty Kilmer's video on Gasoline and Your Car

12/21 update:
I've been running the 3rd set of warrantied injectors for about a week now. I was able to put my spark plug gap back to stock 0.044 inches. The trick with increasing the spark plug gap where I had hotter cylinders due to more fuel did help. I almost got the temperatures even. The engine wasn't actually running even of course, but it was a lot better. So that's a trick that can help you get through a leaking injector...though in my case that fuel injector was less leaking and more just over spraying...I think ;).

10/11/2015
A year later, and now I'm making videos. See some knowledge I talk about here presented in video format!

by AutoBravado

Decarbonziing Your Engine with Water with Ericthecarguy

I was like a child again after I did this to my 1999 Chevy Prizm with all the jumping up and down I did as I told my neighbor, and then my wife, and then the internet. I had just taken care of my fuel injectors - at least one was very leaky, but that cylinder was still 5-7 degrees hotter than the other cylinders. For a bit I was thinking and growling, did I spend too little? I actually diagnosed that the fuel injector was bad, right? Of course I did!

I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about different engine clean up chemicals while I considered removing my engine's cylinder head. I read a lot of MSDS on those cleaners and found which ones did more cleaning by their ingredients. (Note: Ericthecarguy's review on Gumout Regane? Had more PEA or what actually does the cleaning, about 2-3 times as much as The Scotty Kilmer review on Gumout Multi-System fuel cleaner...though that also protects you from Ethanol. It turns out that some cleaners have quite approximate values for the cleaner with a range of percentage.)

I digress. I tried a spray water bottle. Knowing how I fried my MAF not waiting to run it for long enough after cleaning it with MAF cleaner, I didn't want to spray the water in pre-maf.

I also didn't want a CEL over my MAF not being involved. So I finally opted to use a tube that takes blow by gases to my intake right before the throttle. (For more about MAF go to Schrodingers Box MAF diagnosis reaction blog)

For 10-15 minutes I sprayed water in there (engine was already warmed up to a normal operating temperature), when the engine started to struggle a little, I kept the RPM up a bit until it cleared.

When I was done, the temperature on all the cylinders were the same! No more super carbon on one from the leaky injector!

Sure it wasn't a dyno, but I used my Torque App - which calculates everything accurately if you have give it the right values (weight of the car plus me for example). I went from 109 to 114 wheel horse power!

The engine was so SMOOTH. I checked my oil after this, it was due, for my car at 5,500 miles, but I had to change it 500 miles early because of all the crap I knocked out of the engine. So I recommend doing this before an oil change because of the filth and because there was probably some water in the oil after this.

My water bottle was filled just above the 21 oz. fill line and afterward I couldn't even tell how much water I had used because it looked like it was in about the same spot.

After the test drive, I rechecked the cylinder temperatures (or as close as I could get to them on my metal intake*) and all the cylinders were still the same temperature.

My car didn't complain about any knock that I know of, but that cylinder was hot enough that it may have been getting ignition a little early so my timing was retarded, or possibly I just stopped that cylinder from putting out extra power over the other cylinders.

Final consequence: I could hear my engine wasn't quite even in spark. I rechecked the gap on my iridium spark plugs and steamy water had changed their gap. This may not always happen, it only threw one spark plug gap off.

I've made my own video now too!



Check out my latest article about fuel injector cleaners and another YouTube channel that's really putting it to the test! Does Techron Concentrate Plus really work? Or another upgrade entirely that really smoothed out my engine: grounding wire upgrades.

*my metal intake has air in between each tube so I didn't feel the need to take off my exhaust shield and check engine temperatures there

by AutoBravado

Beating the P0420/P0430 Catalytic Converter below efficiency

If you have trouble understanding this article, better understand the role of Upstream O2 Senors first.

Try cleaning first, but find the cause to prevent it again!

If the catalytic converter is dirty I can see how cleaning it would work. Try a gallon of lacquer thinner in a 10 to 12 gallon tank. P0420 comes with just 5% below correct efficiency threshold. If it was broken, it definitely would not work. (Melted or broken up.) Also, remember, if your catalytic converter went bad, be sure to look for any leaking fuel injectors, check timing and spark, as these problems make catalytic converters go bad. (To test fuel injectors requires some advanced equipment.)

My point about trying to clean a catalytic converter, is that it just has some carbon build up on it keeping combustion gasses from getting the catalyzing metals, then cleaning it off will work. If enough of these metals are eroded away off of the ceramic honey comb, no amount of cleaning will make it work. If the catalytic converter doesn't have to be cut out of the car, then it may be practical to unbolt it and leave it in a thick concentration of dawn detergent over night, rinse it off, reinstall it and it may work again. This is a more aggressive and more effective way, but if your car is really old, my guess is that it just needs replacing.

Back to the analysis, has it really gone bad?

On a live data scan you can see the stoichiometric up and down from lean to rich on traditional O2 sensors. Seeing that on bank 1 sensor 1 or bank 2 sensor 1 - O2 sensors that are prior to the catalytic converter you're fine. If you see that same, or nearly the same wave form on sensor 2 for bank 1 or 2, then you should have a bad catalytic converter (saying this to cover V6/V8 cars with two engine banks, just apply the information to to a 4 cylinder or inline 4, (L4) engine without the bank 2 information. The sensor 2's on bank 1 or 2 are after the catalytic converter. Bank 1 catalytic converter below efficiency is a P0420, and a P0430 is a the same problem on bank 2.

I had an exhaust leak prior to my cat (a nickname for catalytic converters). When I replaced my cat I was lucky that I did indeed need it.The new cat almost stopped the wave form on the sensors behind the cat. You see, as outside air burps into your exhaust via the venturi effect (move gases down a pipe at high speeds will pull outside air in through a hole) it'll cool the exhaust gasses, and make your catalytic converter cooler for a moment, and burn less of the unburnt combustion gasses. A human can see the difference but the car figures exhaust leaks as a bad cat.The rear O2 sensors should be pretty steady. They can stay steady rich or lean and you've beat the P0420 and/or P0430.

They can go from lean to rich at times. My car's cat lives super lean, by my O2 sensors estimation. If I'm accelerating for a while onto the freeway or the exhaust isn't warmed up yet, then that sensor will go rich. Some rear O2 sensors will see rich all of the time. That's how usual catalytic converters/rear O2 sensor relationships are.

by AutoBravado

Related content:
Catalytic Converter and Horse Power, Why More HP?

Catalytic Converter and Horse Power. Why more HP? Part 2

Back to reduced back pressure
(Click here for Catalytic Converter and Horse Power part 1)

For a while, I thought less back pressure was the key to my additional power. I think there are a couple more factor's. My 1999 Chevrolet Prizm, same as the 1999-2002 Toyota Corolla, or 8th generation Corolla, has an ECU that may just be determined to not be a polluter. A bigger Catalytic converter decreased my emissions tremendously, still 400 cell by the way, I didn't go for high flow (often only 100 to 200 cells and in many cars that guarantees P0420, catalytic efficiency is too low for emissions requirements). If the car can run richer at WOT (wide open throttle) then maybe it'll just go ahead and burn richer if it still will keep the environment clean. So, that's my second theory for why so much extra HP. Note: this car is more famous for having a too sensitive ECU for that second O2 sensor, so I would not recommend a high flow catalytic converter. If all my theories in this article are true, you may not get more power. And if you do, it'll probably only be at high RPM's and if you're like most of us with an automatic, you'll only see start to see that power above legal speed on the freeway. Reducing back pressure reduces low to mid range torque, which my engine is doing most of the time.

My 1999 Chevrolet Prizm actually has the 2000 engine upgrade the the VVT-I, and an upgraded wiring harness and ECU to match. WHP on these cars tends to be about 109 (versus factory reported 125 at the flywheel). That's what I'm getting now. Since the catalytic converter I've completed replaced the shocks and struts in the back. Since I'm not using a dyno, lost acceleration on the road will lower my HP numbers. The "real" HP that everyone wants from a dyno, may be more accurate, but it can't account for a bad suspension (or as much). In fact, I think a dyno compensates for a bad suspension.

Back to catalytic converters and a 3rd factor for the "extra" or restored HP?

My old catalytic converter didn't appear to have any function. Watching on a live scanner the front and rear O2 sensors reported nearly identical electric values. Sometimes I could spot that the rear O2 sensor would say what the first one said on a slightly delayed basis. I could easily see sunshine through the converter so it wasn't terribly clogged or melted, but I think the wholes were corroded enough to look smaller. (See my new Upstream O2 sensor article about diagnostics and understanding.)

Both the stock catalytic converter and the new one I bought reported 400 cells, and since I had a bigger one that my have accounted for the additional appearance of space.

My next exhaust upgrade will be a 4-2-1 tuned exhaust. A 4-1 will help more in the higher RPM's while a 4-2-1 will get more power in the lower to mid RPM range, which is good seeing as how most of the HP numbers reported happened when the car was between 3,000 and 4,400 RPM's. The car likes to shift too soon around 3,300 even at WOT so until about 80 MPH at WOT, you won't get the 5,500 RPM's needed to see the 109 HP.

Weapon Dragon R short ram intake had me up to 41 miles per gallon. This had me back down to 28-31, which is still better than stock. With a lot of practice on how I drove using the Torque App, I got back to 41 miles per gallon, and even when I spend time doing these HP tests, I don't manage to get lower than 41 miles per gallon most of the time. Occasionally, I get 38 miles per gallon during a performance test. That's simply incredible. Used to be that if I sped up quickly a lot less in a gas tank I'd be losing 3-6 miles per gallon, and that's over the whole life the of the gas tank. I still got 41 miles per gallon over the whole gas tank during these tests, just sometimes I got 38 during the test.

by AutoBravado

Try my other catalytic converter by Eastern article.
Try my video on YouTube. My video shows the catalytic converter in action so you can get a practical example of live sensor data.

Note: The