[mechcd]

Thanks for the encouragement!

I really want to work on them both a little more, but it's a tough balance to keep them all running, working full time, and trying to stay sane.

It seems like alternator amp draw makes a much larger impact than I thought on both cars. The lights and hvac blower just soak up the power and I can watch the mpg go down after I turn them on. Luckily the Grand Prix has the digital climate control option, so it actually has a PWM controller for the blower instead of a big stupid resistor. I might add some fixed resistors to the blower switch on the 'Vic use a cheap variable PWM or buck controller behind the scenes to bypass the inefficient fan resistor. I kind of prefer the preset 1-5 settings and wouldn't have to hack up the dash to mount a potentiometer for the controller.

Putting LED bulbs on the rear of the Grand Prix reduced the rear lighting load from around 25 W to under 8 W. It's an even larger reduction at stop lights with the brakes or turn signals on. The voltage and brightness no longer sag in tune with the turn signals and brake lights at intersections either. I had always thought that something like 25 W wouldn't even make the 140 amp alt blink an eye, but it doesn't seem to be the case. A lot of the street performance guys run higher amp alternators for some reason and it seems like smaller might actually be better as long as you have enough juice to run the ignition.

Now if I could just keep my coroplast wheel spats from falling off.......

I have some experience with making fiberglass stuff for multiple cast parts or thermoforming molds, but not one-off stuff. It shouldn't be too hard to make custom panels and what not, but I don't know where to start or what to make. I no longer have access to a thermoforming table, which would be far easier. Just carve up some foam or wood, slap it on the vac table, heat the plastic sheet (cut up 2L pop bottles work well!) and turn on the vacuum.

BabyDiesel: I think the stock ECM engages the Boost Bypass Valve at cruise so the supercharger doesn't build any pressure. I tired just taking the belt off and it made the car a lot less responsive and required a lot more throttle to get on the highway and maintain speed. Some sort of balance seems to be the best. Whatever GM came up with actually works LOL