Forum Replies Created
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Eric deserves his own professional camera crew. What he’s able to acheive by filming himself is top notch with exception to confined spaces. He does great with lighting and makes sure for the most part we have a good look at what he’s seeing too. How about getting one of those fiber optic cameras so we can see all those hard to see places? That would be neat.
Don’t just take it out and clean it for the heck of it. Diagnose and make sure it’s causing a problem. It’s an Idle Air Control valve right? Keyword being idle. You can test readings with the car sitting there. You don’t have to go driving around which is a much harder thing to do for a DIY’er. Test the readings. Make sure it’s the IAC’s fault. In a lot of Mazda and Ford’s the fluctuating idle will actually come from a bad O2 sensor or MAF not the IAC. Sometimes there is an air adjustment screw and if you’ve taken it to a mechanic recently they love to fiddle with that thing and it just makes the problem worse. Plenty of things it could be so why take things apart before doing more diagnostic work. Parts could always do with a good cleaning so your IAC will probably thank you for the love either way.
A different custom intro? The vanishing point intro is nice but technically it’s not yours. The engine sound is nice too but again you might make people believe that was an engine you worked on. I recognized that video and engine sound the first time I watched it. Vanishing point isn’t something everyone has seen though. Would rather see an intro that is all you. I love the ETCG1 intro music. Beautiful organs.
I think the BBB sponsorship is neat but you haven’t gone into why they are quality alternators. It’s easy to say something is quality without explaining what makes it quality vs lesser quality parts of the same type. I don’t know what constitutes a quality alternator so that would be nice to find out. I loved the Airtex tour video. Because of you and your video I’m much more likely to buy from them than any other brand. It’s obvious they put a lot of time into R&D, continually improving their designs and I respected that a lot. Would be nice to see something like that for the BBB stuff too.
One of the things I love about EricTheCarGuy (YouTube) is every Friday I know there is a video. I’ll grab a cup of coffee and chill out to see what’s new. As long as I’m wasting time watching youtube videos why not waste it with my buddy Eric showing me what is cool from a mechanics perspective. I find that perspective enjoyable. I regularly check for new vids throughout the week because there’s really no set schedule. You try to hit it on Sunday/Monday but that doesn’t always happen. You said in today’s FATR that they’ve become successful for reasons you aren’t sure of. It’s because the title has Friday in it so you’re compelled to post them on Fridays and that affords you and the viewers (me) a set schedule to enjoy the videos. I guess that’s why TV programs are on a schedule and don’t just come on at any time unannounced.
Unlike television we don’t have to try to scramble to make it in front of a TV at a set time. We have all day or days to watch it at our leisure and still afford to stay current with relevant discussions in the forums. It’s a much more enjoyable viewing experience than being forced to sit through commercial after commercial on tv as well. I think if you gave a name to a repair video like Mechanic Monday and did the same as the FATR that those videos would be just as much if not more popular than the FATR’s. To me you are 10x better than anything on TV. I don’t watch TV. Only reason I still have cable is because some of my family members like to be manipulated by psychological warfare tools A.K.A. The News. I watch the heck out of you though.
You are extremely enjoyable to watch and learn from. It’s works, the whole entire thing so works for me. You’re the best thing I could possibly watch on a widescreen… ok maybe 2nd best. ;P There’s always room for improvement but just wanted to sit down and map out what it is that makes your show so good to watch. I don’t consider it a channel anymore. It’s an instructional car repair show and there’s really nothing like it. RealFixesRealFast and BriansMobile are pretty good and there are others out there too. You’re easily #1 in my book. Keep doing what you’re doing and hopefully you’ll make some tweaks to make it even better in the future.
RealFixesRealFast has an excellent video for tracking down shorts with using basic equipment. If the diagnostics system isn’t working correctly then it could be your diagnostic box (I don’t know your system) or DLC connectors are the culprits. Trace back the wires from your DLC connectors and inspect the wiring. It’s probably going to be a rubbed-through wire somewhere in the engine bay simply because that’s where the most vibrations occur. You’ve got to get your hands on them and visually inspect them.
Might not be a bad idea to check the health of your diagnostic system by disconnecting an O2 sensor or MAF and then rechecking for codes. That’s a quick way to tell if it’s your diagnostic system at fault or sensors.
Another probable scenario is that the sensor(s) are dead. You have a 16 year old car and chances are good if the sensors have never been replaced there could be multiple dead sensors.
Are you blowing fuses like the MAIN fuse?
Check your battery terminals for a loose connection or corrosion? Vacuum leak maybe but it would happen all the time. It’s more likely a failing part like a dying fuel pump or battery. Since you got a check engine light have you tried to pull codes? Any AutoZone will help pull codes for free. I don’t know what kind of diagnostic system you have (pre OBD-II) but at least worth a shot to see if there are any relevant codes.
I’ve heard of people running dual ECU’s before. You can run the harness and sensors from the 4.0 to a 4.0 ECU and let the 3.0 ECU handle all the interior stuff. It would require a lot of custom wiring and maybe some electrical mods for the gauges (resistors are your friend) but it’s possible. If it’s for a customer I certainly wouldn’t do that unless they know the implications of running a dual ECU.
Eric, you changed garages and now there is a lot of road noise and echo effect. Doesn’t have that same personal feel the old place did. The acoustics need work. I’m sure you are well aware of that. The noise distracts us from concetrating on you and even you have an issue sometimes concentrating on what you are saying by pausing to comment on the sounds of trucks going by. It’s all fairly distracting.
I love the format though. Everything about how you put the videos together works extremely well. The website is great. The admin is capable but the design needs a little more work especially the header graphics. Y U NO KEEP ASPECT RATIO, font stretchy bad. Can we get a background tile. The black bg color is a deep abyss of nothing. From the center column bg texture I know you can do better than solid black. 😉
Things I like: Too many good things to list. The RSS feed icons look great. WYSIWYG editor implimentation works perfectly. Might be nice if we could embed YouTube videos from an icon. Since Eric uses YouTube it would be nice if he could embed his own videos at least (preg_match) to respond to questions in which he already has a video that answers it. Love the search function. It works brilliantly for OBD-I or OBD-II. If I got you a list of EEC-IV codes would you add them in? The homepage looks and works great but most people spend their time in the forums so some more forum features would be nice (I saw the plans on the last FATR). Eric and Admin are working hard to make this place special and deserve a lot of credit for so many things they are doing right. Although you might only hear about what you could improve on I hope both of you recognize that you already do so many things right that are worth mentioning but the list would be too long. Keep up the great work.
I know nothing about Mitsubishi’s but if your car has a throttle position sensor maybe look into those readings as well as the MAF and O2 sensor readings.
Yeah that might be funny on your fav local forum to make comments like that jason but here things should be a bit more serious. There are people that need real help. I applaud techs for coming on and asking for help on hard to fix issues. Yeah they are getting paid for it and we aren’t but it’s all about helping people keep their vehicles on the road no matter what form that help comes in.
Jokes are all fine and good but at least contribute a suggestion before making a joke otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
No vacuum? Try the vacuum pump (if the car has one).
Being a designer myself I could tell someone put some time into them. Sorry. I think they look good just not with the colored backgrounds like the yellow and red backgrounds. Keep the backgrounds white and just move the needle. If you kept the project file shouldn’t be too hard to clean up. I like the tach, really like it, just not how the colored background dilutes it to the point of being less and less recognizable as you go up in rank (that’s an assumption based on your red tach).