Ugh. I knew it was too good to be true.
Ok, that may be a bit dramatic. I've had a few days since the repairs to put some miles on the car, knowing that it's been sitting and I want to discover ALL the bugs that I can before it gets cold. I would much rather be stranded in 75 degree weather vs. 10 degrees.
Driving to lunch today, I felt a strong hiccup once while cruising and several more times when accelerating from a stop. The idle was perfect, and everything else felt fine. I did get a CEL about 2/3 of the way to the food spot... GREAT!!! Ugh.
Anyways, I got back to the shop and pulled the code: P1372 - Crankshaft position sensor A-B correlation. Whew, at least it's minor. N* engines are known for munching crankshaft position sensors, much like Nissan VQ35's. They're mounted low in the block and very close to the front exhaust manifold. Not exactly the most fun thing to replace, since the front engine mount is right in front of them, the exhaust manifold is above and around them, and the oil filter adapter/oil pressure sensor are down and to the left. As luck would have it, the front engine mount needs to be replaced anyways but I was ignoring it because it's a bear to replace. I suppose this gives me a reason to add one to the order, since I have to remove it anyways.
One thing can be said: GM really did build a lot of redundancy into the Northstar. It's got 2 crankshaft position sensors specifically for this reason, if one starts to fail it's smart enough to use the other as a reference in the time being. Unfortunately for GM, when you put both sensors right next to each other there's a good chance they'll both fail at relatively the same time!
Ok, that may be a bit dramatic. I've had a few days since the repairs to put some miles on the car, knowing that it's been sitting and I want to discover ALL the bugs that I can before it gets cold. I would much rather be stranded in 75 degree weather vs. 10 degrees.
Driving to lunch today, I felt a strong hiccup once while cruising and several more times when accelerating from a stop. The idle was perfect, and everything else felt fine. I did get a CEL about 2/3 of the way to the food spot... GREAT!!! Ugh.
Anyways, I got back to the shop and pulled the code: P1372 - Crankshaft position sensor A-B correlation. Whew, at least it's minor. N* engines are known for munching crankshaft position sensors, much like Nissan VQ35's. They're mounted low in the block and very close to the front exhaust manifold. Not exactly the most fun thing to replace, since the front engine mount is right in front of them, the exhaust manifold is above and around them, and the oil filter adapter/oil pressure sensor are down and to the left. As luck would have it, the front engine mount needs to be replaced anyways but I was ignoring it because it's a bear to replace. I suppose this gives me a reason to add one to the order, since I have to remove it anyways.
One thing can be said: GM really did build a lot of redundancy into the Northstar. It's got 2 crankshaft position sensors specifically for this reason, if one starts to fail it's smart enough to use the other as a reference in the time being. Unfortunately for GM, when you put both sensors right next to each other there's a good chance they'll both fail at relatively the same time!