Let's sift through every square inch of a 2013 Tahoe PPV

[iamdub]

I asked if it made any difference to them if I was running 93 or E85, and they said no, because the base tune doesn't include any fueling changes. This startled me at first, but I think I get it now. The trans tuning and torque management provide the biggest performance gains. They said they wouldn't even sell me any fuel tuning for a stock cam.

Oh, and of course they will delete AFM. I'm pretty excited.

Right now I'm trying to find someone to delete my cats between now and the appointment.

They can turn the downstream O2 sensors off regardless if the cats are there or not.

Mine were off for a couple of years before I deleted my cats. Now I'm trying to find a way to put cats back on.

 

[Caddylack]

I'm fearing that this amp may have a dead channel. Either that or the brand new head unit.

I've got 3 out of 4 channels working, and the 4th is just noise. As soon as you connect the wires it's just like, "ugh turn that off". I've tried switching speakers, and the speaker is fine. I've tried reversing both the input and output wires for that channel (polarity), and it made no difference.

I connected the wires from the head unit directly to a speaker, and it was completely silent. Does that mean the head unit is the problem?

I suppose I need to switch the input wires with a good channel and see what happens.

 

[iamdub]

I'm fearing that this amp may have a dead channel. Either that or the brand new head unit.

I've got 3 out of 4 channels working, and the 4th is just noise. As soon as you connect the wires it's just like, "ugh turn that off". I've tried switching speakers, and the speaker is fine. I've tried reversing both the input and output wires for that channel (polarity), and it made no difference.

I connected the wires from the head unit directly to a speaker, and it was completely silent. Does that mean the head unit is the problem?

I suppose I need to switch the input wires with a good channel and see what happens.

Which channel is it? I'd suspect the front left. That's the one the BCM(?) uses to play the chimes/tones over/through the audio.

 

[Caddylack]

Which channel is it? I'd suspect the front left. That's the one the BCM(?) uses to play the chimes/tones over/through the audio.

Oops, sorry. It was one of the rears. I was sure I had it narrowed down to the head unit, but it turned out I had a bad connection somewhere that I missed. Once I connected the head unit and amp harnesses directly with no other splices, it all worked fine. Doh.

I need to use a new connection method... Like, soldering.

For now, it's time to put the car back together and clean up.

 

[iamdub]

Oops, sorry. It was one of the rears. I was sure I had it narrowed down to the head unit, but it turned out I had a bad connection somewhere that I missed. Once I connected the head unit and amp harnesses directly with no other splices, it all worked fine. Doh.

I need to use a new connection method... Like, soldering.

For now, it's time to put the car back together and clean up.

Glad it was an easy fix!

 

[Caddylack]

Here is a question for those of you who knows audio:

During my troubleshooting process, I tried connecting the rear speaker wires from the head unit directly to speakers to try to bypass the amp. I got zero sound. When I tried the first pair I just thought, "okay, dead channel on the HU"... But, then the good channel did the same thing.

Basically, it seems like the aftermarket HU was somehow able to tell that it was connected to an amp. The speakers that were connected directly to the HU made zero noise at all with the rest of the amp wiring intact. When I route the wires back through the amp, then it plays fine.

I would have expected that each output channel from the HU would have a signal, regardless.

Thoughts?

 

[Caddylack]

Additional tidbit:

Yesterday I pulled a sub and enclosure from a Terrain. I wanted the enclosure because of the way it mounts. I can bolt it to the partition right between the front seats. It will be interesting to see what this sub can do when it's sitting right next to you.

I took the amp, because I just couldn't help myself. The Pioneer amp in the Terrain is supposedly the best junkyard amp you can find. I think it's like 380 watts, which is, I think, 100 more than the Pioneer amp I am currently using.

The amp in my Tahoe right now is from a 2006 Pontiac Torrent, and I have the sub that went with it. The Torrent uses an 8" Pioneer DVC 2 ohm sub, while the Terrain uses an 8" Pioneer DVC 2.5 ohm sub. With this in mind, I'm going to pull a switcheroo. I'm going to take the Terrain sub out of the enclosure and replace it with the Torrent sub. That way, the amp and sub match, and I am left with a matching pair of Terrain subs for future silliness.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Post some pics of the factory amps and subs. I'm curious what they look like.

 

[iamdub]

Here is a question for those of you who knows audio:

During my troubleshooting process, I tried connecting the rear speaker wires from the head unit directly to speakers to try to bypass the amp. I got zero sound. When I tried the first pair I just thought, "okay, dead channel on the HU"... But, then the good channel did the same thing.

Basically, it seems like the aftermarket HU was somehow able to tell that it was connected to an amp. The speakers that were connected directly to the HU made zero noise at all with the rest of the amp wiring intact. When I route the wires back through the amp, then it plays fine.

I would have expected that each output channel from the HU would have a signal, regardless.

Thoughts?

I can't say this applies to all the factory HU/amp setups, but some use digital signals from the HU to the amp, which then converts and amplifies it to analog power to drive the speakers. For example, the regular "non-Lux" Bose amps receive a low-level signal from the HU and amplify it, much like aftermarket amps do. The "Lux" amp found in the higher trims levels (Denali, Escalade...) is a "smart" amp that processes signals, including volume.

 

[Caddylack]

I will post some pics of the subs and amps first thing in the morning.

I am currently frustrated by some subwoofer issues. This is the Pioneer branded amp from the 2006 Pontiac Torrent. All 4 stereo channels work great, and they get louder than I would want. The bass coming from the coaxials seems nice. The problem is that no matter what sub I plug in, it doesn't really do anything. There is a very small amount of sound coming from the sub, but it sounds like a stereo speaker with a pillow on top of it.

I saw that the base stereo in the Terrain has an active noise cancelling sub. I also read that the base stereo amp in the Terrain is still technically made by Pioneer. This has me wondering what I even have here. I hope I didn't pull a noise cancelling amp by mistake.