Well, did some troubleshooting on my own yesterday; took the coil packs, valve covers and spark plugs out. Re-torqued all the rocker arm bolts (all were still tight, none loose) and re-gapped the plugs (2,6,5 and 7 were a hair looser, but nothing that would cause the misfiring). Plugs also looked fine, no signs of running lean, or rich, from cyl to cyl. The only anomaly I ran into was the plug wire on cyl 6 would not pull off easily, I had to take the tire off and pull the fender liner out to get access to it. I moved that plug wire to cyl 2, just so it would be easier to remove in the future if I wanted to change it.

So, being happy that nothing mechanical was wrong, I started it and let it idle till it reached temp. There's an obvious stumble at idle, so I knew it wasn't fixed yet. Stumbling at idle makes me think vacuum leak. It idled without a DTC for a good while, but then it came back (p0300). I cleared the code and decided to take it for its first drive, to see if anything obvious would present itself. Brought the Autocal with me to check any DTCs. In total I only drove about 11 miles, and no codes came on for almost half the trip, but then I noticed the SES light came on, along with the stabilitrak and traction control messages in the DIC. Pulled into a parking lot and checked the codes and this time I got 2 new codes:

p0174 - Lean bank 2; and
p0171 - Lean bank 1.

So ****, this was not what I was hoping to see. Strange thing is, the codes would clear themselves on the drive back home. I'd go about a quarter to half a mile and the codes would go away; drive about the same distance and they would come back.

Also I think the p0300 code came back once on the drive back home.

I'm starting to think there's a vac leak somewhere, which I really was not hoping for, cause it's going to be a bitch to track down. I had thought of a vacuum leak in the back of my head, but what was pleasantly surprising was that for a short leg of the trip, I had the aeroforce gauge plugged in and it was showing more vacuum than it did the last time I started it. Before it was showing -13.5inHG at idle, and last night closer to -15, and letting off the gas and coasting I would see about -18. So if I'm seeing more vacuum, how does it make sense I still have a vac leak? One area that I was worried about having to fix at some point in the future was the PCV barb on the valley cover. The way the maggie sits on the cover, it was impossible to get the barb pressed all the way back into the area that come out of the cover, so right now I'm thinking of pulling the barb, plugging the hole with silicone and moving the dirty air side of the PCV back to the rear of the driver side valve cover. I'm pissed because there's a ton of **** in the way now that I've put the truck back together.

If that doesn't work I don't know what else I could check. All the hoses are new, and listening for hissing sounds is next to impossible with a noisier valvetrain and cammed, long-tubed idle. The absolute worst case scenario is an intake manifold gasket leak, which would mean taking a lot of things back off, which I am praying is not going to be the case.

The MAF also doesn't have a screen, which I've read could be a factor.

I guess all I can do is plug the valley cover and re-route the dirty side of the PCV, to at least eliminate one possibility and to give me some peace of mind knowing the barb won't come loose anytime in the future. Further than this I'll go over the vac lines again, see if anything obvious jumps out at me.

The wideband O2 was also showing around 14.4, which I still believe to be inaccurate due to placement after the cat, but it's better to me than seeing 17.2 like I was yesterday.

Some pics:

Plugs 1,3,5,7 from left to right:



Same plugs, 1 at the bottom, 7 at the top:



Here's what I mean about it being MUCH easier to get at the plugs through the wheel well. Also in this pic is the #6 plug wire that wouldn't come off:



Shadow in this pic hides the plug tips, so I apologize for bad photography but here are plugs 2,4,6,8:

 

Do you have EFI Live or HPTuners? For some reason, I think I remember you have EFI.

You need to moniter the misfire pids, current & history. That will help you isolate a specific cylinder. On HPTuners, set it up like this.....



Once you have the cylinder identified, swap the plug, plug wire, ignition coil, and injector all to different cylinders, and write down where each item went. Datalog again, and just follow the failed part to the new location. Hope this helps.

While you're datalogging, you could also be watching your fuel trims. If you have large +% numbers, then you may have a vacuum leak if it's on one side only. If it's on both sides, the MAF scale may be way off(if your injector tables are correct).

Good luck with the fix, don't give up. I'll be following this thread for your progress.

 

I would get a MAF with a screen, descreened ones are tuning nightmares from my experience.

 

Thanks a lot! This has been very helpful. I have EFILive, and had to download an older version to be able to scan and look at datalogs.

I started it yesterday and let it run for about 10 minutes, still getting the p0300 code at idle, even after clearing it, it comes back pretty consistently. I did some datalogging with EFILive just monitoring Current and History misfire PIDs and about 4 cyls are showing high counts of History misfires, with #6 in the lead.

I do remember that when I drove it, I only got the p0300 code when it was idling to warm up, and never again that whole drive, so this is making me think that MAYBE the misfire sensitivity tables are too low (i.e., too sensitive) at idle, and the cam is giving false readings of misfires, because there's lots of threads out there on LS1Tech about the p0300 code after new cam swaps. Also leaning this way because the plugs are new, plug wires are new and the coils were working fine before I took it apart. If it was just one cylinder showing misfires, then I would be looking harder at that one cylinder, but since it's split about evenly between 2 cylinders on each bank are showing misfires, I'm starting to think it could just be the cam. But it could also be the MAF without a screen, or possibly injectors (although I doubt the injectors being dirty or faulty at this point).

I only looked at the misfire PIDs, but the next time I log I'll see what the fuel trims are showing. Would you recommend both short and long term, or just one in particular?


I've heard the same thing unfortunately, but I'm still not ready to give up hope on this one just yet. Might spend some time working on the VE tables after I get this misfire figured out, but the two might be connected so who knows. I probably should have gotten the truck started and running with the stock MAF first before switching to this new one.

 

Forgot to post this update, so this is what I did a couple days ago:

Monday I continued to go through some obvious variable to locate the source of my troubles. One area that I never liked right from the beginning was the barb on the valley cover as a dirty side PCV source. Now, don't get me wrong, I would prefer to pull air from the valley cover versus the valve cover, but in order to get the S/C to fit on the heads, I needed to pull the barb out of the valley cover. Then with the S/C on, it made reinserting the barb incredibly difficult and precarious, so even though it felt secure the way it was routed, I always knew it could become a weak link, and given the placement of it underneath the S/C and other various hoses, I couldn't see if it did in fact work its way loose. So yesterday I decided to take the barb out, and fill the hole on the valley cover with silicone, and re-route the PCV dirty side to the rear of the driver side valve cover, just as it was with stock.

Then I took a chisel and removed some more material from the one corner of the alternator bracket that was still coming into contact with the corner of the S/C, reason being that if the bracket which is attached to the block was contacting the front of the supercharger, and everything is vibrating much more violently now, then I worried the vibrations might loosen the S/S somewhat. The lesson here is that when you are grinding away the bracket, which I did at an earlier stage, take more material away than you think you need.

So now with the clearance between the S/C and alt bracket, I turned my attention to the point I worry about most, the seal between the S/C lower assembly and the intake spacers/heads. If this surface isn't sealing, and the leak is coming from there, it'll be a real ***** of a job taking the S/C off and then reinstalling it. I would really hate to have to do this, and really dreading the prospect of it. So in the meantime, I just went over all 10 bolts that hold the S/C to the heads, and to my surprise, most weren't still torqued, and two in particular were quite loose. So I re-torqued them twice before reinstalling the alt, and belt and catchcan just to re-assure myself. Knowing how many were loosened, I will keep this in mind and check on the bolts at a regular interval, until I'm satisfied they aren't moving anymore.

Then I moved the catchcan over to the driver side, using one of the alternator bolts. The front of the bracket where the bolt goes through has a steel sleeve in it, which protrudes outward (towards the front of the engine) about 1/16-1/8", so in order to mount the bracket for the catchcan, I picked up a 16mm washer, which was perfect to act as a spacer, giving the catchcan bracket something flat to tighten up against. I should have taken a picture, because it would explain what's needed a lot more clearly, but I forgot. I like the placement on the driver side a lot better, the can is much more accessible and not hovering above the tensioner by a hair anymore.

Couple pics:

This one sucks, but just shows how little room there is between the S/C and the valley cover. I was lying longitudinally across the engine with my head down near the A/C compressor just so I could see what I was doing. The biggest lesson here is to get a valley cover without a barb if you're going to put a top mount S/C. I had bought this valley cover when I was set on staying N/A, so clearance never would have been an issue.



And here's the re-routed catchcan and PCV:




Best part about these recent changes was that I started it and let it run for about 10 mins and didn't see any codes. The stumbling at idle is gone, but there's still a surging that is pretty consistent, about every 30-45 secs, but I'm thinking this is something in the tune just because it happens so regularly. Plus it's not so much a stumble, as much as the engine just speeds up a hair, then returns to where it was. I remember this on the stock tune, so I'm not too worried.

The real test will be driving it around and inching more and more into throttle. I really need to do a long data log and send it to Justin, so hopefully he can smooth out some areas or pinpoint some others that are blatantly problematic. Like I said before, if I'm trying to chase after a tune problem with a wrench instead of a mouse, all I'm doing is going in circles and creating more work for myself.

 

Drove it roughly 20 miles tonight roundtrip to a cruise night, and I'm noticing the p0300 random misfire code only pops up when it's idling in park. I let it warm up before driving away tonight and I got the code, then cleared it before setting off, and I never saw it again for the whole drive. I did see the p0174 and p0171 codes a couple times, so that's a pissoff. And I also noticed that sometimes when I'm decelerating or coasting to a stop light, I'll get a SES, then it will clear itself quicker than I can grab the autocal to check it. But once tonight I had it in my hand and checked and it was p0174/171 so I'm not really sure what to make of it.

I tried to datalog the whole drive home, but I ran out of room on the autocal, so I only got about 4-5 mins worth.

And another thing that I noticed today was the aux water pump for the intercooler doesn't work (i.e., doesn't pump water) so that's something else I'm going to have to **** around with tomorrow. I've had a suspicion the thing was never pumping, but I've had so many other things to draw my attention towards I've never paid a whole lot of attention to it, but this afternoon I decided to check it. Sure enough, watching the return line on the water tank with the lid off, nothing drips out of it, and the water level doesn't move, plus when I grab the pump, I don't feel anything.

So I tried troubleshooting as much as I could, but I followed magnacharger's directions to a T, so it's either a wiring problem after the relay, or the pump is faulty. I'm leaning towards wiring though.

Magnacharger has you install a fuse tap onto the HVAC-IGN fuse (10A fuse, location might be 56 or 57, I'll have to confirm), which just looks like a small piece of brass like this:



I had ordered some Add-a-circuits just in case I had some wiring projects to do, so I replaced the brass tap with this, and added a spare 10A fuse for the relay for the aux water pump:



First thing I noticed when using the add-a-circuit and testing it with the key set to Run, was I could now hear the relay opening and closing, so I knew the HVAC source would trigger the relay to open and then power could run to the pump.

The directions also call for a wire to attach to the stud on the fuse box closer to the headlight, which I am assuming is positive switched power but I'm not completely sure. For some reason the pump isn't getting current and I'm not sure why not.

I'm going to go over it tomorrow with a multimeter, and may bring power straight to the pump just to make sure it works if I can't track down the fault somewhere between the relay and the pump.

I guess the destination wouldn't be as fun if the journey wasn't a huge pain in the ***, right?

 

Glad to see that you're making some positive progress.

 

x2 it will all come together

 

So I've made a little progress with the water pump. With the help of a multimeter, I just traced backwards looking for wherever I stopped getting ~12V DC current. The stud on the fusebox was good, so the problem had to be somewhere between the relay and the connector for the water pump, because I tested the connector for the water pump, and I was getting nothing with the key on, so there was something in between that was interrupting the power.

Finally settled on what I thought was an inline fuse holder, but it turns out there's nothing in it to connect the two positive lines, so the power goes in one side, but doesn't go out. I thought this was odd they would send me a relay like this.

Pictures describe this better:

On the left here you can see the connector, the power comes from the fuse box stud and goes into this connector, but the two contacts are completely separate:





So there must be some metal contact in the plastic case that attaches to this connector, that closes the circuit so the power from the positive stud can travel to the relay, right? No, there's nothing in the plastic case/cover:



So I just cut this end off, which serves no purpose in this application:



Soldered the connection, added some split loom for safety and now have power going straight to the relay:



So now I checked again, and I'm getting ~12V to the water pump connector with both key on, and when started, just as there should have been from the beginning. Still find this very odd I would get a relay and directions and then have to sort this out on my own.

So now I can hear and feel the pump working, but I'm still not seeing any movement in the water reservoir tank, and squeezing the outlet lines just after the pump, I feel no resistance in the lines, no bubbles in the tank, and it just generally feels like there's no fluid moving out of the pump. I let the engine run for about 5-10 minutes, with the reservoir tank lid and brass bleed fitting on the HX open while watching for movement, feeling for pressure in the lines, and feeling for air coming out of the bleeder screw, and noticed nothing. Only thing I noticed was the body of the water pump was hot to the touch after running for just 5-10 mins. This seem normal? how hot do these pumps get? I know the pump isn't moving any water, so my next step is to drain the water reservoir (the only drawback of a 2-gal tank!), take the pump off and bench test it. Maybe I'll take the impeller apart and see if there's any dirt/obstruction causing it not to work. I don't have the exact specifics on it, but it might be a 8GPM pump, which isn't very strong to begin with, so with the pressure of the 2-gals of coolant in the tank, and the distance/angles the lines run, it might just be too much for it. I find this hard to believe as well, considering the only difference between my setup and the one Magnacharger puts in their booklet is that I have a bigger tank, and a couple -12 lines instead of 3/4" rubber hose. The feed line to the water pump from the reservoir also makes a loop up around the return line on the reservoir, so the water has to go uphill before it enters the pump, but still, this pump should have no problem moving some water.

Even if I get the thing working on a bench tomorrow, I'm a little apprehensive about it's ability to pump and longevity, so I may look at other options. Short term, I know the GT500 uses a Bosch pump, and so does the CTS-V. The LS9 uses a different kind of pump and it's priced over twice as much as the one for the CTS-V so I'm not sure what the difference would be. The Ford Cobra Jet uses a 55 GPM pump, so I have a few options I can pick up locally if this Bosch pump I have turns out to be insufficient. I might also get a Meziere pump but that's big $ compared to the OEM options.

 

Are any of the lines pinched? The pump should be the lowest point in the system to avoid bubbles. Are you sure you have the polarity of the pump correct?