19bonestock88's 2004 Saturn "Ion Green Line" build...

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by 19bonestock88

So I’m at a loss for what to do next... what’s cheap(or free) that is effective and easy-ish that I’m missing?

Give us a current list right here. Let's see if we can think of anything when we see it neatly listed.

EDIT: A current list of your current mods, that is... so we more easily see what might be missing.

[19bonestock88]

Well, let’s see...

I have a fully ported intake tract...

Car is lowered 2” on stiffer dampers and aluminum LCAs

Grille is like 75% blocked and I have a lawn edging air dam

Made smooth wheel covers

Tires at 55psi, and are 5.3% oversized

Have a 6” trunklid extension...

I have small pieces or coroplast and endless strapping tape but I want to build belly pan and diffuser from large pieces to avoid excess cutting/taping/gluing...

I have a header and catless downpipe in other car but I wanna pair that with a catback and have it all done at once...

[California98Civic]

Your car is about 2500 lbs curb weight. Mine is 2262. I stripped enough weight to get to near 2000. But I think even with a slightly heavier car, I would experiment with removing the PS belt. I don't miss power steering. You might not either. I think losing it was worth a significant fuel economy bump. It's free and reversible if you just remove the belt.

Also, airdam (I thought you had one), wheel well skirts, the bellypan & diffuser you mentioned...

Alternator on/off switch (which really needs a deep cycle battery purchase, so maybe wait until you need a battery.

[19bonestock88]

My car has electric power steering, no belt driven pump on any Ecotec (Cavalier and L series and Vue has cam driven PS pumps)... the only accessories that run on my serpentine belt are the alternator and AC compressor...

For its 2700lb curb weight(titled at 2670) the steering effort isn’t ridiculous at low speeds with PS off and they make a larger diameter wheel for these cars (03-04 had a small wheel with ugly shaped airbag and 05-07 and 04 RL has a different wheel that is bigger in diameter)

I considered trying to shed some weight but don’t wanna give up radio and HVAC...

I also considered wiring the IAT connector to a potentiometer so that I could adjust the value the ECU sees for intake temp(either to lean the mixture or advance the timing)

[19bonestock88]

So I did some experimenting and did a PS disable... I just removed the power connector on the motor and drove off...

My reasoning was mostly for safety and a little for lowering amp draw on the alt... when I key off the behavior of the power steering is erratic(sometimes turns off immediately, sometimes takes five seconds or so and sometimes, about two times out of 100, it stays on with a stalled engine) and this erratic behavior makes cornering an exercise in caution due to not knowing for certain what steering effort I need until I corner, and if it stops assisting mid corner I jerk the car a little adjusting...

The main issue with the PS disable is, not surprisingly, the car itself... with the steering motor disconnected, I’m getting a “PWR STR” error message in my odometer display that needs cleared each time I cycle the key, or else it chimes incessantly at me every 2-5 min...

Now the connector is just two wires for the motor, do you suppose I could just jumper the connection and make the car think there’s a motor in place? If so, I could maybe remove the motor entirely and shed the couple pounds at the same time... steering effort is really heavy but still manageable at low speeds... my first vehicle ever had manual steering, so the little workarounds are coming back to me...

[19bonestock88]

So I’m trying to think through this with some logic since if I mess this up, it’s a fairly high amperage that runs through this wire and it could burn my car...

How does the PSCM (GM devotes an entire computer to just the power steering lol) tell whether or not the motor is connected? It’s just two wires...

I don’t think it measures current draw since it throws the error message as soon as I start the engine, before I move the wheel at all...

Maybe it measures resistance? Does a DC motor have any resistance to detect?

Or maybe it just detects continuity?

I need to borrow a volt meter and test the motor for resistance in case the PSCM is looking for a resistance value, and not simple continuity... if it’s either of those I can cut the steering motor connector off my parts car and either wire the leads together to complete the circuit or wire in a resistor... doing the mod like this will make it reversible should I decide to leave the motor in place and be able to go back to having power assisted steering (perhaps for tracking the car?)

And it just dawned on me, a simple nearly free mod that I’ve not yet done, wheel spats! I’m half embarrassed I’ve yet to make any... to make them like I had on the Malibu would take all of 20min, which includes removing tires to screw the panels in place...

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Wheel skirts!

[19bonestock88]

I don’t have any decent looking material to make them from... if I knew where the ones from my last project were I could go from there... the coroplast I have has diagonal flutes which make it cheaper but not as nice as the stuff you buy or get in election signs... I feel it would look like crap as a wheel skirt, and that’s not even considering that I haven’t got mounting figured out for my car... with it’s plastic body I can’t mount it like I did before...

[19bonestock88]

So I’ve decommissioned my car yesterday... wife’s car needs pulled into service so she can try and actually get her drivers license and eventually a job. Since I can only afford to insure one car at a time, my car has to be parked for a while... mods will continue though, and since the car’s down I can attempt some of the bigger ones...

[19bonestock88]

Looking at my car last night it dawned on me how I’m gonna mount wheel skirts... gonna make some “L” brackets out of steel strapping and screw them to my inner fenders, as I’m pretty sure the inner fenders on my car come out to the fender lip, making them an easy target... I plan to attach the skirts to the brackets with 1/4” nylon push rivets, just like on the Malibu I had...