TOPIC: Starting to get ready to Groove

Hi all! (And Ron!)

(I'm not quite sure where to put this being it's my first time on the forum, and a new licensee, and also a customer of Ron's 'mail in' program for getting my throttle body done! After this I can figure out where to post when I actually start 'Groovin'!)

I purchased the Personal License awhile back and then when Ron offered the full license at a discount He allowed me to 'upgrade to it', Thanks Ron!

He had grooved my 1988 Ford Aerostar van's throttle body/combo intake manifold for me! (A nasty business!), I did not look forward to doing it myself! It's one of those types of jobs that Ron has a section in one of the manuals where he teaches you when to say 'No' to doing the groove I believe! So thanks again to Ron for doing mine anyway!!! I had a mechanics shop put it in the van along with some other repairs since the van had been sitting for four years! I needed to go on a trip and I thought that would be a good time to get it installed.

New the van should have gotten 20 mpg highway in 1988. It's now 24 years old and 100,000++ miles on it! maybe even 200,000 miles. Even then it's in good shape. It's always passes smog in Calif with no problems, although I've always loaded the deck for it, using 'Guaranteed To Pass'! Miracle lubricants in the oil, etc before getting it smogged or similar each time!

On this trip I got an average of 25 mpg to a low of 23.5 about. That's not bad though! It was about a 1,300 mile round trip.

A little digression here...!

I called the shop just before I picked it up to ask if there was anything that I should know about the repairs or the state of the car...? Well... The mechanic that I talked too said that the mechanic who did the work said that after putting the throttle body on the car that it had a 'high idle'... He told the mechanic not to worry about it ands that the customer would deal with it... I don't know if the mechanic tried to 'fix that' or not since they were doing me a favor to put in a 'customers part' which their usual policy was not to do, of course they charged me full boat for it, about $300! I told the mechanic that I was talking too that 'this was too be expected' in 'this type of mod'! Ha ha!

What I noticed when I drove it home besides the higher idle rpm was that the temperature gauge ran cooler and when I got it home the exhaust smelled cleaner too. The radiator had been replaced but even then it still ran cooler, because I was the one that had installed that radiator when it was new and the car even then had not run as cool as it was running now. I couldn't tell if it had more power or not since it had been four years since I drove the van last, but I'll say it was no less and I would surmise as much as when it was new since I really stepped on the gas a few times and it did quit well. Leaving cars behind just on the onramps and from the green at signal lights. So overall I was quite happy.

I did buy the 'MAPster' too and installed it correctly I think(!), I checked my installation a few times! My problem was in reading some of Don's material on it, I got the idea that if the MAPster was not powered on the red and black lead that the car might not start... I may have gotten that from one of the cars manuals too...? Anyway it started up and ran fine with out any power to the MAPster with the red and black wires hanging free. I then hooked them up to 12v and ground then and proceeded on though. After finding out that the 'pot' (variable resistor) was inside under the little rubber cap on the MAPster Unit, I tried to adjust the Vref but did not notice any rpm or idle change in the car. After awhile I didn't see that I could change it anymore at all up or down. BUT I didn't have the best connections between my meter and it's probes, an old Radio Shack little analog meter! But in any case after I got it hooked up and soldered in place, after that it almost seemed that the car began to almost dump raw gas out of the tail pipe!!! My nose is very bad but even to me it smelled gassy in the car or very exhaust stinky. The end of the tail pipe was absolutely black and there were drops of some clear liquid sitting in the end of the tailpipe! So fearing that the gas mileage would be so bad as to not have enough gas money for the trip up and back I removed the MAPster and put it back 'to stock'! Things then smelled right again, maybe a little dirtier exhaust, hard to tell though!

I went on the trip and on the first half up, I got about 25 mpg going 55 - 60 mph.I filled up again and got up there with about half a tank. On previous trips I did not let it get down lower than a quarter tank because I didn't want to get caught between gas stations and run out and lots of times there were no stations for miles. I would end up, filling up, five or six times! This time I got up there on a tank and a Half of gasoline! Also I had never seen the gas gauge go down as slowly! I filled up just before I left. The problem in Oregon is that you can't fill up your own tank, an attendant has to pump your gas! I'm in the habit of filling my tank up to the very top of the fill neck so I absolutely know that it's full! Therefore I can check how much gas I use very accurately. This attendant humored me some what, so I'm pretty sure that I got within a quarter gallon or so of being "Full", as I count 'fullness'!

On the way back it was mostly 70 - 75, mph and sometimes 80, once or twice 85 for a very short while all the way back! I got about 23.5 mpg on that leg of the trip. Not bad.

I had put a 1/2 Ohm 10 Watt resistor in line with the O2 sensor that was around the catalytic converter, when I had gotten up there, it only has one O2 sensor. But that seemed to make it somewhat gassy too I thought. I had gone to Radio Shack and parallel two 1 Ohm 5 or 10 watt resistors because somewhere in the GadgetManGroove material I think that I read that's something else you could do. I took it off before I started back though? There are some other things that I can do not involving the groove like a spark plug mod (Aaron Murakami's 'spark plug mod', which is a high voltage diode between the high voltage output on the coil and the coil's ground, in 'Spark Plug Secrets) and others. I'm disappointed the other two mods didn't work but more investigations will have to be done now that I'm back.

Now I said all of that to say this...!

I'm getting ready to groove a friends 2006 or so Ford Focus who's throttle body apparently is made of a composite material with a special coating in the throat of the throttle body so that under normal use it won't get gunked up and affect the movement of the throttle plate... I Assume! Anyway on a forum it was mentioned that you need a special cleaner to clean it because regular carb cleaner would strip out that special coating! Well the groove is going to remove that coating where the groove is and over time the groove could loose efficiency due to any 'gunk buildup' in the groove because it won't have that coating... I'm thinking really or practically that this will not really be a problem but of course I really do not know long term but my feeling is to dismiss it as a problem. However I'll epoxy the outside of the groove area first because someone here pointed out in the forum that they had broken through the body on a mod on a Ford Focus, so I would rather Epoxy and cut, instead of cut, epoxy and cut again!

Any one have some insights on doing a Ford Focus of about a 2006 model year? Thanks.

The next car will be a Ford Explore of that vintage or earlier. After that maybe a Toyota Jeep, some assorted cars and an old Willie's truck and maybe a Willies Jeep, now that should be unique!

Please forgive me! I went into this in very great detail because I figure that more info is more valuable then less!

I'm a 60 year old 'Retired' development Engineer for a major university in Santa Barbara Calif. I started out in the USAF then became a commercial oil field diver, then an electronics technician then a personal computer technician (PC's) and I just "Retired" from UCSB about a year ago but will need to go back to work or find a source of income shortly (Thank You Mr. president!).

Thanks!

Hey there Joseph! Glad to see you finally made it. You (and everyone else here!) will be glad you did!

Now, what would be good is if you could take some of the vehicle story and put it under the Auto section, Ford. Just put the year, make, model and engine size as the topic. That way, if anyone else has the same thing and comes looking, they can find the real data.

Now, if you put the MAPster in and it seemed to be using more fuel, then (to be blunt) you didn't install it right. To be accurate, you should be using a digital meter. They're about $5 at Harbor Freight, and less if you catch them on sale. (I buy them two or three at a time so I know I'll have one!)

Anyway, we'll go into the install when you get that other post up. That way we can have the diagnostics where other people can find them...

Welcome to Gadgetman Land!

Ron