Cruise Control

cammerjeff

cammerjeff

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sense no one has posted in the Solstice section in a few Months, I thought I would vent here a little.

When I purchased my 2006 Mallet conversion 2 years ago the only thing that didn't work was the cruise control, so after calling Chuck Mallet & being given the contact info for the guy that wrote ECM for the LS2 conversions I contacted him, and he said that the early manual transmission cars had an issue with cruise not working, he admitted he didn't fully understand how to make it work at 1st, but after the 1st 6 or so cars (I found out that my car #024 was actually the 8th car delivered to a customer so it is a very early conversion) he agreed to look at the ECM program and for $75 he corrected the cruise control issue, and a surging idle issue I sometimes experienced. All good.

Then last fall the syncro's went bad in 1st and 3rd gears, after doing some research I found the stock Aisin AR-5 transmission is rated for up to 225 lb ft or torque, my LS2 puts out 425 ft lbs. Any surprise the trans was failing? No, so I bit the bullet and install a Tremec TR 6060 Six speed trans, rated to 700 ft lbs's & 900 hp so I should not have transmission issues again. After a prolonged an complicated installation (worst transmission swap I have ever done, and I used to run SBC's in Vega's. Got the car running and shifting great, even like the 06 CTSV shifter I installed! Looks Stock! Happy Happy Happy!

Then Friday I take it out for a cruise when the weather in SE Michigan was nice, and the F'ing cruise control does not work!!!!!!

Monday I speak to the ECM guru & he asked me if I tried the CC in other gears other than 6th? I had not, come to find out there are speed verses RPM calculations in the ECM, and seeing that 4th & 5th gears in the old trans & the new trans are nearly identical the CC should work in those gears, probably not in the new 6th gear though, and he is not willing to attempt to fix it, as he was never able to get the CC to work in any of the 6 speed conversions he worked on, when he did get it to work it would mess up other more important parameters of the tune.

Looks like I will just have to live without CC as I really do not see me using 5th gear cruising just to use it, I would be giving up over 3 MPG at highway speed, and when you only have a 12 gallon tank that makes a difference when driving out of State.

Just a Rambling vent, I feel a little better now, thanks for anyone that reads this.
 
That's too bad Jeff, kind of reminding me of 2 cars we had , 87 Pathfinder (1st year made). 4 cylinder 5 speed , dealer installed cc, locked up one day , kept acellerating, never used it again.

78 Chevy Wagon $75 winter beater, Christmas Eve Christmas Shopping for mommy far from home with all the kids .Windy , snow and freezing cold, hit the cruise on the highway, killed the coil. Walmart for tools and a hei coil ( they did sell them at that time) Oldest son took the baby to the mall to stay warm, while the middle son stayed to help me.

Cc ain't worth it to me, I like to be in control.....;)

The cc in my current 90 Silverado still works but I don't use it that much.

Doug in P.R.:cool:
 
The wonders of modern cars and the computers required to get systems to work. Any point in seeing if there is a aftermarket CC that will work with the 6 speed?
 
I probably would not go with an aftermarket CC system, as I would like to keep the car mostly stock, I only use the cruise when I travel longer than 2 hours at a time so only a few times a year, this year the only time I would probably use it is a visit to the Solstice/Sky Nationals in upstate NY. Looks like I will be able to take the car onto Watkins Glen's Track but limited to around 50 mph behind a pace car due to it being a convertible and no roll bar.

It probably best not to push it as I always found that track to be tight in the esses. But the last time I was on that track was in the mid 1990's so it has been awhile.

Doug, does PR have long enough roads to justify using CC? LOL!!!!!!
______________________________
 
Yeah , a 40 minute ride on the 52 to Ponce for Home Depot or Pet Smart and real early in the morning...........:poop::sick:o_O:censored:

Doug in P.R.:cool:
 
Just an Update, I was able to drive the car Sunday, and sure enough the Cruise Control works in 4th & 5th gears, just not the new 6th gear. Looks like I will just have to live with it as is. 4th & 5th gear ratios are almost identical to the original 5 speeds 4th & 5th gear ratios, so what the programmer told me makes sense, just frustrating. But things that happen on modern cars when you make changes.

I really don't know why you would have an "acceptable RPM to MPH" calculation for cruise control engagement? I would think that as long as the car was traveling at a Minimum MPH, say 35mph, and the clutch and or brake pedal are not depressed, who cars as long as the RPM is above say 2000rpm. I really did not think I would run into things like this on a 2006 car. But apparently cars got smarter than me earlier than I thought.
 
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