Ep. 26 Better Gas Mileage and Instant Starts? Here’s How
🎙️ XJ Talk Show Episode 26 – Idle Air Control (IAC) Cleaning + Performance Distributor FireWire Kit Results! In this classic episode, Tony dives deep into hands-on maintenance on his Jeep Cherokee XJ. After dealing with progressively harder cold starts and rough running, he removes the throttle body, thoroughly cleans the Idle Air Control motor (stepper motor), and gives the entire throttle body a deep clean. Plus, special call-in from Weldman who shares impressive real-world results after installing the Performance Distributor FireWire 4.0 kit: – Much better throttle response – Significant fuel economy gains (from ~160 miles per tank to 236 miles on the same commute!) – Discussion on spark plug gaps, K&N filter + air box mods, speedometer correction with larger tires, transfer case gear swap, and more. Topics covered: • Cleaning the IAC and throttle body (step-by-step tips) • Performance Distributor FireWire kit review & MPG results • Speedo error with bigger tires & how to fix it cheaply • Air intake mods – do they actually help on a 4.0? • Spark plugs, gaps, and tuning • General XJ maintenance advice for aging Cherokees If you’re troubleshooting hard starts, poor idle, or looking for ways to improve your 4.0L Jeep’s performance and fuel economy, this episode is packed with practical knowledge from the XJ community. Timestamps: 00:00 Episode Introduction 01:05 Idle Air Controller Overview 01:31 Listeners Call Intro and Welcome 03:08 Discussing Gas Mileage and Call Setup 04:18 Audio Connection Test with Weldman 05:17 Signal Interference and Continuing Discussion 05:38 Improved Throttle Response with Kit 06:05 App Speedometer Accuracy Issues 07:31 Speedometer Error and Perception 08:01 Speed Limit Frustration on Road 08:47 Adjusting Transfer Case Gear for Speedometer 09:33 Gear Change Procedure Details 09:56 Testing Gear Change and Speedometer Effects 10:38 Fixing Speedometer for Accurate Readings 11:18 Using Apps and Phone Laws While Driving 12:59 Performance Kit Fuel Economy Results 14:50 Building a Mud Dragster 15:10 Mileage Figures and Speedometer Discrepancy 16:47 Clarifying Mileage Gains from Kit 17:34 Installing K&N Air Filter 18:57 Carburetor Airflow Excess and Impact 19:33 Tailpipe Emissions and Fuel Flow 19:53 Fuel Economy Strategies and Spark Plugs 20:47 Choosing Spark Plug Gap 21:06 Crank Position Sensor Troubleshooting 21:58 Spark Plug Gap Issues and Audio Noise 23:44 Confirming Audio Noise Source 24:24 Acknowledging Noise Source 24:35 Airflow Restriction and Four-Point-O Evaluation 26:29 Airflow Increase and Fuel Economy Considerations 28:04 Commute Mileage and Sensor Types 29:02 Sensor Relocation and Fuel Efficiency 30:01 O2 Sensor Switching Behavior 31:42 Need Comprehensive Modifications 32:57 Show Wrap-up and Farewell 35:47 Thank You and Audience Engagement 37:11 MPG Theme and No Measurable Change 38:53 Idle Air Control Cleaning Procedure 42:56 IAC Cleaning Success and Issues 44:46 Starting Issues Post-Cleaning and Mileage Notes 46:56 Throttle Body Removal and Maintenance Advice 48:21 Responsibility and Caution for DIY Work 50:09 Documenting Disassembly with Photos 51:05 Encouraging Audience Participation 52:32 Seeking Greater Involvement 53:37 Contact Information and Social Media Links 55:27 Final Thanks and Closing 📌 Leave your questions and experiences in the comments! 👉 Join the community: https://xjtalk.com 📧 Feedback & questions: motoroy@xjtalk.com 📞 Call the feedback line: (530) 675-4102 Follow us: • Facebook: facebook.com/xjtalk • X/Twitter: twitter.com/xjtalk #JeepCherokee #XJ #JeepXJ #4.0L #IdleAirControl #JeepMaintenance #PerformanceDistributor #XJTalk #JeepLife #Offroad Visit our website: https://jeeptalkshow.com/ Watch/Listen on Spotify https://jeeptalkshow.com/spotify Join our Discord Server: https://jeeptalkshow.com/discord Subscribe to our newsletter: https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter Help Support the show via Patreon: https://jeeptalkshow.com/patreon
Episode Transcript
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Greetings and salutations!
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I’m Tony, motoroy on XJTalk.com and this is the show about Jeep Cherokees.
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Jeep Cherokee XJTalk.com Show!
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I think this is episode 26. You know, I need to look this stuff up. Uh… yes. I am correct, sir! Episode 26.
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We’re going to talk about your idle air controller and you.
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Exciting stuff. We’re talking about it because I just recently messed with mine and had some interesting results.
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The results were good and then they weren’t as good. Still good, just not as good.
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Anyway, we’ll get to that and hopefully your calls in just a moment.
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XJTalk.com.
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It’s where you go when you’re not off road.
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Well first off, what I’d like to do is recognize the three people that we have in our chat room that’s listening to the live show, watching the static banner on Ustream.
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It’s Dalton 4×4,
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VW4Y, and Weldman.
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Welcome guys. Thanks for joining and thanks for being here on time.
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I try to do the same.
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By the way, Weldman, I’ve been wanting to know what is the result of your gas mileage from using the performance distributor FireWire 4.0 kit.
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Weldman didn’t ask him, so I don’t know if he’s going to be in the position to answer quickly or not, but I’ll give him a second to do that. Basically, we had a giveaway and
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we gave Weldman 1 and he installed his performance distributor 4.0 FireWire kit
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and he was seeing an improvement on his gas mileage. At least it looked like it was.
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He should have had at least one tank of gas run through it by now.
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I’m just kind of curious if the mileage in your,
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how many miles you got per tank went up, increased. Anything noticeable?
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Weldman says, “Yes, I did.”
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He says, “Or am.”
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Yeah, I know. You haven’t taken it off, which is a good sign. I’m just curious if you saw, what were you getting, like 140 miles to a tank?
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Sure, man. Give it a call.
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Which one, well, I don’t know. You surprised me. You can do the one, Skype or the phone number.
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Calling would be better.
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We may have to mess with it. I haven’t
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used the phone hookup here for a while, so I may have to adjust levels and stuff, so you just have to
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bear with me.
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Yeah, we’re going to talk to Weldman. He’s going to call in and talk to us about his performance FireWire results.
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Then I’m going to talk to you about
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cleaning of my idle air control.
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I don’t really want to call it a sensor because I understand its function properly.
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It’s a little stepper motor that
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moves a piston in and out this little area
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that, oh, here we go, Skype. I was looking at the phone.
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All right, so
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press this little button
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and you can say something.
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I don’t know if you can hear me. Can you hear me okay?
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Yes. Oh, excellent. Yep, I can hear you. There’s a lot of buzz on your signal, though. Yeah, I got to turn the
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volume down on the,
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hold on, I’m just going to
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close this window. Okay. All right,
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we’re good. Okay, well, still got a buzz going on there, but
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maybe we can work through it. So anyway, what have you found out with the kit?
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Well, what I noticed right off the bat was
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right off the throttle acceleration.
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So better throttle response. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It was like, as soon as you hit the gas, the truck responds just like that.
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Which is funny because I actually downloaded on the way home from work today, uh, uh, app for my, my phone, my, my droid
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that’s, uh, called,
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uh, that’s U L Y S S E speed
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speedometer.
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And it’s got, uh,
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a bunch of different apps that are all in one and it shows, uh, mileage traveled.
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How much you traveled today.
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it’s got a compass. It’s got a GPS location to know how close you are to, um,
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like the different call, whatever.
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Um, it’s got a, uh, zero to 60, uh, time,
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a zero to a hundred time and a quarter mile time. Um,
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and what I found out today was, is that, uh, my quarter mile doing,
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you know, X amount of miles per hour.
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I, I found it quite interesting as in, um, how long it takes you to travel
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a quarter mile.
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Um,
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I haven’t looked into, uh,
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I want to look into, uh, finding an application for my phone that will actually,
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uh, help me figure out gas mileage because I also figured out today, my, my speedo is off about, uh,
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oh, four to six miles per hour. The slower I go to seems, it seems like it, the closer it gets to exactly what, what the mile per hour is, is actually supposed to be. Um, the higher I get, like if I’m doing 40 miles per hour,
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uh, I’m actually doing 47.
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So it seems like the higher I get on the, on the needle,
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the more off the speedometer is. So, um, that’s typical of, uh, different sized tires than what is stock because the, the little gear in the transfer case is set for, you know, certain diameter tires.
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Yeah. I asked the question last week, um, regarding that, um,
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with, uh,
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you know, how much difference it makes. I mean, does it, it, does it show that you’re going slower, but you’re going faster or does it show that you’re going slow or faster, but you’re actually going slower. And what I had understood, um, I can’t remember the person I, that, that responded to me. It wasn’t you.
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That’s all that’s going, Tony, read, read, read the read what I’m writing. Um,
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but, uh,
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the way I took it was that it showed that you were going, you’re actually moving slower than what your speedo is saying. So if I’m doing 40,
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um, I’m actually the only dude doing 35. And the problem I was having is I’m doing, you know, the speed limits 40 miles an hour,
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uh, for the most part of my drive to work. And I’m like bumper to bumper with a guy in front of me. And I’m like, Jesus, man, that speed limits 40 miles an hour. Let’s go. Um,
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but my speedo is showing like 35 miles an hour.
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Well, if I understand it correctly and I get it confused as well as getting left and right confused. So, um, the, the tire, yeah, the tire is bigger around. So for it to make one complete revolution, you’re actually traveling, you travel, you’re traveling further with a larger tire. Right. So if you don’t change the gear in the transfer case, which I highly recommend that you do, it’s only like 25 bucks and it’s a five minute thing, one, one bolt. And the little bracket comes off there and you pull the thing out of the transfer case, you pop off the gear, pop on the new gear and it has to set the gear has a shaft on it.
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You pop it, it just pops into place. You put it back in, you put that bracket on and you have to, you have to turn it, uh, it, you get it to engage. But actually, if you just pay attention to how you take it out is the same way you put it back in.
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You know, you drive it, you drive it five feet and then you can, or 50 feet and you can see that you’re actually getting a reading. Then you, the gear is meshing properly.
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Right. Then you can get back underneath there and, and, you know, tighten it up. Uh, you can do it by this by a finger tight to start with the test it. But anyway,
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I mean, literally five or 10 minutes and 25 bucks and your speedometer will read correctly for your size tire.
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Well, I’ll tell you this program I downloaded for my phone, uh, my droid.
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Um, it actually shows your mile per hour
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via GPS.
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And what I found really interesting is, and that’s where I,
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okay. The interesting part was finding out that at my lower speeds, I was actually,
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it was actually closer to what the mile per hour
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was that I was traveling and that higher speeds,
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it was further off.
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Um, and it’s pretty close. I mean, it’s like, you know, if I’m doing 45,
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um,
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the GPS is actually saying I’m doing about 48 to 50 miles per hour. So like I said, the higher I get
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the, the more off it seems to, to, to, to get, right. Well, that’s very typical. And you know, you, you don’t have to change the gear and it can just stay off if you like it. I never did care for it way back when I first did my first four wheel drive. I didn’t care for it because
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I was a lot more concerned about, um, you know, uh, police and being pulled over for speeding. But, um,
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to me, it’s just a no brainer. It’s very easy to fix on the, on the Cherokee and I would do it immediately. But if you want to go by the app, you have to remember to open the app. You got to remember to run the app,
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et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. I, I docked my phone every time I get into it because it’s actually illegal in Wisconsin to, to, um, talk on your, your cell phone while you’re driving now. Those
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Yeah. It’s actually a smart move because you get so many people that are yakking on their phone. They don’t use their
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blinkers, which really annoys the schnizzle out of me. Using your blinkers gives away your strategy. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Um,
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but, uh,
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with, uh,
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you know, yak it on your phone or, you know, texting or, you know, I had, I had a girl in front of me yesterday that, uh, the light turned green, all the traffic in front of her, which is about six cars took off and she’s still sitting in the same spot, like, you know, 40 feet from the light
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and she’s got her foot on a break and she’s, you know, I can, I can see she’s got both arms up and she’s, you know, typing away, responding to some texts she got, you know, and then build a horn. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Air horn. Yeah.
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You know, it’s funny. I should, I should actually record the sound of my horn on my, on my Jeep because, uh,
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it’s, uh, I think most of them come with, uh, dual horns. You know, there’s, actually two horns in there. They’re tuned. Um, mine actually sounds like a freight train. I mean, it’s not like, you know, abundantly loud, but, uh,
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it, uh, just, just the noise it makes it, it sounds like a, a freight train. Yeah. It’s weird. But anyway, let’s get back to the, the gas mileage thing here. Yeah. How many, how many mile could visit because it doesn’t matter as far as if you’re reading accurately or not, you were getting a hundred and I think 140 miles, uh, and, and granted the miles were not measured accurately, but this is just a benchmark at this point. So nothing, nothing’s changed as far as your, your gearing goes. So, so it was 140 before. What is it now?
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Um, I was getting, I’d run it down to just like you, you said more to the pulse you made. I run it down to about, uh, about an eighth of a tank. I’ve never run it empty. Um, and I filled, uh, this Friday before, cause I took my son to work. I filled the Friday before,
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um, I put the kid on and I put the kid on, on Monday.
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And at the end of the week, um, just running those, those five days. Now there’s two additional days involved there. Um, by Friday, uh, when I ended up filling again, I had, uh, 200 and 236 miles
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that tank. So I’m really interested in actually eager to see what I’m going to have left on Friday of this week,
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um, with the kid on it.
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Uh,
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and I, I, I, I did the post with the air filter and, you know, I can’t remember who it was, but they had mentioned that, uh, well, how are you going to tell what, what actually made the difference? I think, I think it’s pretty clear. Cause if, if just opening, just opening the air box, if just opening the air box would make that big a difference. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. It runs a lot smoother.
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And like I said, the, the lower end throttle response,
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I built a, I haven’t posted it yet. I should post pictures. Um, I built a four wheel drive mud dragster and this is true four wheel drive, not a two wheel wonder, you know, one front, one rear. This was all four lit up. I could smoke the tires on dry pavement with the same. Um, and it was a Ford. Thank you very much. Big Jim, if you’re on here.
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Um,
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and I ran a stock distributor for about the first, uh, eight races. And then my brother said,
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you know, cause I was complaining about the, the, the throttle response right off the bat, you know, because I, when you stage waiting for the light,
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um,
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I would notice that there was a hesitation.
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As soon as I hit the throttle, it’d be like, oh, it’s kind of fall a little bit. Like, you know, I call it falling on your face.
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Um, it would fall a little bit. And then all of a sudden hit and off it went.
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Um, I was running a 400 big block, um,
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with, uh, 700 and something CFM carburetor.
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Uh, and he’s like, why don’t you try this? And he gave me
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to just put in it because he’s a Mustang collector,
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a vintage classic Mustangs.
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Um, he, he gave me a, uh,
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what the
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hell’s the name of that, um, distributor.
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Uh, it’s not firewire. It’s something else. But anyway, I put that,
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yeah, yeah. The whole kit
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coil distributor. Basically what, what I got from you.
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Um, I put that thing in and I’ll tell you what, Tony, that that thing that the, the, the low end throttle response was just unbelievable. It was like three fold.
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Okay. Well, let me get you back to the Jeep.
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Now with, with, with the Jeep, you were seeing is 140 miles per tank. Correct. Yep. Okay. So yeah, it was, yeah, it was like 140 160. Yeah. Let’s, okay. Let’s say 160.
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So you were getting 160 miles to the tank and the miles were not measured correctly. Cause you found out that your speedometer is off, but it, but it doesn’t because it’s still off after the performance of firewire and you were seeing 230 and you only drove that five. You only have the, the, the kit on the five days out of the seven days that you drove it.
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I mean, you filled up and then, uh, two days later you installed the kit
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and then five days later you had 230.
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No, I’m just, I’m just making sure that it were clear everybody to understand you, you saw something you went up by, uh, what is that, um, 80, 80 miles more on the tank.
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Yeah. That’s about the 30, it’s at about 35%. Yeah. So, and you made no other changes other than the performance distributor firewire kit and opening up and opening up the air box a little bit. Well, I put a K and N
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I got a K and N filter in there now.
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So when I did, when I did the K and N I was like, yeah, what the
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you know, I might as well open up, you know, the stock,
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excuse me, the stock air box, the, the air opening is like
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two and a quarter inches wide by like, you know, three and three quarter tall.
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So I was like, Hmm, you know, went up on a loft and I was like, well, when I got laying around, so I found a four inch flange for
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PVC, it’s a, it’s like a floor drain.
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I’m like, Oh, I wonder if I could make this work. So,
[00:18:07:24 – 00:18:44:10]
you know, right. Well, so, uh, you know, more air is better, but, uh, you, you race, so, you know, it’s like over putting a too big of a carburetor on an engine. It doesn’t matter. You can’t put a nine 50 double plumper on a small block Chevy unless you, unless it is actually going to make use of that because of the higher compression, it basically, you have to have more airflow through there. And if the engine’s not capable of that, the, the carburetor is, is being underused and actually can, can be a detriment to, to, to making power. So unless you have a bigger throttle body
[00:18:44:10 – 00:18:51:18]
or something different in there, opening up that air box, isn’t going to help you unless there’s a restriction.
[00:18:51:18 – 00:18:54:08]
In other words, unless the engine wants it,
[00:18:54:08 – 00:18:56:22]
it, it, it didn’t, it’s not going to make a difference.
[00:18:56:22 – 00:19:01:01]
Right. Well, as you were saying with the, the,
[00:19:01:01 – 00:19:03:06]
the carburetor, not, um,
[00:19:03:06 – 00:19:06:20]
the carburetor, the carburetor is contributing too much.
[00:19:06:20 – 00:19:13:11]
It’s doing more than what the motor, the motor wants. Yeah. So when you throw, when you throw, uh,
[00:19:13:11 – 00:19:17:10]
um, you know, a huge carb on a small
[00:19:17:10 – 00:19:27:26]
pump, which a lot of people do. Yeah. It’s, it’s quicker. Yeah. Cause it’s really cool. It’s really neat to be able to say, Hey, I got a Holly Doug nine 50 double bumper on my 327.
[00:19:29:02 – 00:19:38:04]
It’s like, dude, that’s great. That might be a little much. Yeah. Do you put your nose out of tailpipe? You’re wasting half the fuel that’s going into that carburetor
[00:19:38:04 – 00:19:58:17]
and it’s coming out the tailpipe. That just means it’s doing good. Cause you’re going through a lot of gas. Yeah. Not, not when you can actually see the, not when you can actually watch the, the gas gauge drop, but, uh, yeah, yeah. It all goes hand in hand. So all you guys out there that, that, you know, are looking at, uh,
[00:19:58:17 – 00:20:09:10]
whether you’re looking to increase fuel economy, which is what I wanted to do. And you know, Tony obviously had the same intentions with his, um,
[00:20:09:10 – 00:20:13:19]
you know, if you’re a part-time Wheeler or whatever it is that you are,
[00:20:13:19 – 00:20:23:25]
um, just remember that it, both of those go hand in hand. So, you know, just putting a K and N filter on, yeah, you’re probably going to see a 2%, 3%
[00:20:23:25 – 00:20:26:04]
increase in fuel economy.
[00:20:26:04 – 00:20:27:17]
But, uh,
[00:20:27:17 – 00:20:29:28]
if you’re looking to get the high numbers
[00:20:29:28 – 00:20:37:10]
for fuel economy, you’re, you’re going to want to do a couple of things, you know, you want better plugs for one.
[00:20:37:10 – 00:20:47:13]
And I’ll tell you what, and I’ll switch into champions. I, you know, I was a little, little apprehensive at first going to the champions. Well, what were you using before? Cause champion is the good auto lights.
[00:20:48:27 – 00:20:49:02]
But
[00:20:49:02 – 00:20:54:08]
you, but you did use champion and you did a, what was it a 0.054?
[00:20:54:08 – 00:20:56:25]
0.5. Yeah. Oh, five four.
[00:20:56:25 – 00:21:01:17]
Yep. I kind of fell in between what you said you did
[00:21:01:17 – 00:21:06:06]
and what the maximum that the manufacturer was suggesting.
[00:21:06:06 – 00:21:10:07]
Um, cause you said you didn’t have a bunch of luck going to the old 65.
[00:21:10:07 – 00:22:24:08]
Well, of course the whole reason why I had to two kits is because there was something up with my aftermarket, uh, CPS crank position sensor. That was, was not liking the, the performance, uh, equipment that I was putting on there. And, and being the good guys that performance distributor is, they sent me a bunch of additional parts, overnighted them so that I could try to fix this. So I went through a lot of grief trying to, trying to fix this, this problem. And it was really strange because it ran fine. With all the old stuff on there. So I was taking it off and putting it back on, taking it off, put it back on. And then I just got so frustrated with it one day. I just tried putting the original factory CPS back on it and it cleared right up. But even after that, I still had a problem running a large gap on the champion spark plugs. And I think I did try something. Maybe I went with, uh, the 065 and then it didn’t run to my satisfaction. And then I dropped it down whatever it was I had in the post. I think you read it. You told me, cause I have forgotten what, what gap I was using. Yeah. Well, I think factory is, uh, old 34 or something. Oh, three, five.
[00:22:24:08 – 00:22:29:27]
Okay. Yeah. I think you, okay. That was what you used. You, you, you ended up going with a 44,
[00:22:29:27 – 00:22:37:08]
I think. Yeah, it was probably 45, but, uh, yeah, I didn’t go, I didn’t go, uh, as high as you did. I certainly didn’t do the 65,
[00:22:37:08 – 00:22:47:18]
but, uh, it ran and it seemed to run well. Now the thing I noticed no, um, mop or gallon increase in my, with my kit.
[00:22:47:18 – 00:22:51:24]
Um, I noticed, uh, it ran smoother.
[00:22:51:24 – 00:23:04:00]
and also too, I have this, I’ve had this problem since it was brand new. If one of the, the fuel level gets really and I make a left hand turn, uh, a sharp left hand turn, it would sputter
[00:23:04:00 – 00:23:11:24]
and then, you know, would pick back up. Like whenever the fuel level came back over to the pump and it was picking up, I guess the, the fuel pressure was going down.
[00:23:11:24 – 00:23:37:00]
Yeah. And I’ll say real quick, the, the noise that you’re hearing when Weldman is talking is, is something over on his end. So that, that noise that you’re hearing, yeah, I hear it too. And he’s aware of it and we apologize for the sand quality, but, uh, you know, don’t, it’s nothing with your equipment or my equipment. It’s something coming from, from Weldman and his information is, is to me is well worth hearing even with the buzz.
[00:23:37:00 – 00:23:42:25]
Well, I apologize for that. No, no, it’s okay. I just want to make sure people know it kind of gets louder and then quieter.
[00:23:42:25 – 00:23:49:19]
Is it, is that correct? Oh yeah. Yeah. It comes and goes. Yeah. I, I, I’m hearing the same thing. I don’t know. I don’t know what the
[00:23:49:19 – 00:23:54:17]
it is. There’s a, there’s a guy up the street here with a big CB radio with, um,
[00:23:54:17 – 00:24:01:17]
running a linear on his base station. And that guy, he’ll talk to my speakers sometimes. Yeah.
[00:24:01:17 – 00:24:04:29]
The, uh, you don’t have a fluorescent light on, do you? Nope.
[00:24:04:29 – 00:24:07:22]
All that’s running is, uh, well here, let me shut my,
[00:24:07:22 – 00:24:10:13]
my monitor off from my surveillance system.
[00:24:10:13 – 00:24:13:02]
Nope. See, it’s kind of seems like it got worse now.
[00:24:13:02 – 00:24:30:24]
Yeah. Well, that’s on, now is my PC and the monitor. Well, it’s not that big a deal. I just want to make sure that people that are, that are listening or listening to the podcast later or aware that they’re aware it’s not something with their equipment. It is coming from, from the, okay. Okay. So that’s the only reason why I was mentioning it. I wasn’t trying to pick on you. Kurt’s Kurt’s got
[00:24:30:24 – 00:24:31:19]
equipment.
[00:24:32:27 – 00:25:06:09]
I appreciate the information and you call it. So, so this is, this is a big deal now, certainly. And now I have not used the, the, any aftermarket, uh, uh, breather or anything. Cause, uh, actually an owner of one of the vendors, uh, was telling me, cause I was looking at, at changing out, uh, putting in that metal tube and a, one of those conical, uh, filters, probably a K and N. And he told me that he, he, he tried several things and that was one, and this is on a Jeep Cherokee and that was one of the things, absolutely no difference.
[00:25:06:09 – 00:25:10:24]
So, so you get better error. You might get better, uh, throttle response, but
[00:25:10:24 – 00:25:14:10]
it did not, it did not improve the, the MPG.
[00:25:14:10 – 00:25:59:10]
And now we don’t know from, from your setup because you did two things at once. Right. So it may, it may have helped, but my personal feeling is based on the information that I’ve read on, several posts and what I heard firsthand from somebody that has put one of those things on a Jeep Cherokee and tried actually two or three of them. Cause since he’s a vendor, he has access to the stuff. Yep. He says it makes no difference and it wasn’t worth me spending my $200 to get one. And that actually, that was kind of cheap. I was looking at a cheap one. Uh, those things go up to $300. Well, that’s kind of odd for a vendor to be telling you that. Well, I’m not going to tell you which vendor he was. He was being a good guy by letting me know.
[00:25:59:10 – 00:26:20:21]
And, uh, I really appreciate that. And, uh, now it very well may work fine on a different engine. It, it really goes back to the same, I think the same discussion that we were having about the, the carburetor. If the carburetor is not going to make use of the additional air fuel, then it’s a waste.
[00:26:20:21 – 00:26:55:19]
So if there’s not a restriction, uh, for the 4.0, then the additional airflow is going to be wasted. It’s not going to, it’s not going to suck anymore air in. Now you might get better throttle response and the, the air filter may be less restrictive, uh, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t know, but I’m based on, I’m just saying this because I think that you’re seeing this big jump in gas mileage because of the performance distributor, uh, firewire kit. And I’m very enthused by that because I was hoping to see a increase for mine and I didn’t.
[00:26:55:19 – 00:26:59:15]
And I’ve read, I mean, before I, before I spent my $179
[00:27:00:26 – 00:27:20:06]
on that kit, I did research on it. There was no way I wanted to spend that much money for something that wasn’t going to do, do me any good. So I read several sources that had measured results and saw increases like what you’re talking about. Right. Well, the, the, the, the, the thing is Tony is that
[00:27:20:06 – 00:27:21:16]
if, if you,
[00:27:21:16 – 00:27:22:27]
like you were saying with,
[00:27:22:27 – 00:27:24:25]
with the carburetor thing,
[00:27:24:25 – 00:27:28:18]
now you, you throw a firewire kit on a, on a, on a vehicle.
[00:27:28:18 – 00:27:30:10]
Now you have hotter spark
[00:27:30:10 – 00:27:39:20]
and you’re burning more fuel. You’re not expelling raw fuel, you know, the catalytic for those of you that don’t know, I don’t know how many people are on right now,
[00:27:39:20 – 00:27:47:05]
but the cat, what the cat does is the cat is there to burn off excess fuel before it exits tailpipe. Yep.
[00:27:47:05 – 00:27:48:01]
So,
[00:27:48:01 – 00:27:55:18]
and that’s one thing that I just thought of the whole reset the computer thing. Cause I didn’t even think of that. Um,
[00:27:55:18 – 00:28:03:22]
by, by doing that, I was hoping that I’m hoping to see, uh, even a better increase in fuel economy.
[00:28:03:22 – 00:28:09:25]
Um, cause like you, you know, I travel 44 to 46 miles, whatever it is exactly.
[00:28:09:25 – 00:28:15:11]
Um, every day back and forth to work. Um, excuse me.
[00:28:15:11 – 00:28:20:26]
Yeah. 44 is what I travel. So it sounds like we have a similar commute. Yeah.
[00:28:20:26 – 00:28:23:17]
Well, I, I take all the back roads cause I still got that
[00:28:23:17 – 00:28:24:20]
depth wobble.
[00:28:24:20 – 00:28:27:22]
Cause I can’t afford to get a decent track bar.
[00:28:27:22 – 00:28:30:07]
Um, but,
[00:28:30:07 – 00:28:31:22]
breakies, where the
[00:28:31:22 – 00:28:34:22]
was I going?
[00:28:34:22 – 00:28:34:24]
Um,
[00:28:34:24 – 00:28:36:15]
I want to help you, but I don’t know.
[00:28:36:15 – 00:28:52:15]
Okay. You, you, you increase your spark. So you’re burning more of the fuel that’s in the cylinder. Now, if you increase air flow, the computer senses that there was actually a writeup that, uh, somebody sent me a link to one of the posts on the site
[00:28:52:15 – 00:28:55:22]
that was talking about if you move a certain sensor
[00:28:55:22 – 00:28:57:21]
on the manifold, which is your,
[00:28:57:21 – 00:29:01:25]
well, normally it’s called the MAF, the mass airflow sensor.
[00:29:01:25 – 00:29:14:29]
Um, and all that does is it, it reads how much, how much air is traveling through the intake and it adjusts the fuel to accommodate for how much air you’re taking in and whatever.
[00:29:14:29 – 00:29:21:03]
Um, well, let me, let me make a quick correction. It’s actually a map, a sensor, MAP.
[00:29:21:03 – 00:29:26:18]
And that’s a, I believe that reads air pressure, not flow,
[00:29:26:18 – 00:29:29:23]
because we don’t have a mass airflow sensor on the Jeep.
[00:29:29:23 – 00:29:34:09]
That’s what I’m getting at. Um,
[00:29:34:09 – 00:29:37:03]
that’s why they’re not mounted in the air box. Right.
[00:29:37:03 – 00:29:42:12]
On the new vehicle. It’s on mine anyway. It’s on the side of the throttle, the side of the throttle body.
[00:29:42:12 – 00:29:46:14]
Right. Well, on, on, well you have a 98. Yes.
[00:29:46:14 – 00:29:53:18]
Okay. Mine’s a 95. Mine’s mounted on, it’s behind the throttle body in the manifold.
[00:29:53:18 – 00:29:57:16]
Um, so moving that,
[00:29:57:16 – 00:30:05:14]
you know, the guy said he saw, you know, three miles more per gallon by moving that. Well, okay. Well, that’s wonderful, but it’s not utilizing
[00:30:05:14 – 00:30:09:05]
what it’s for. Right. Uh,
[00:30:09:05 – 00:30:15:08]
so I guess, um, to kind of wrap this up, I don’t know if anybody else wants to call in or not.
[00:30:15:08 – 00:30:18:13]
Um, by
[00:30:18:13 – 00:30:22:01]
increasing the amount of airflow through the motor
[00:30:22:01 – 00:30:25:09]
and increasing the amount of spark and how much fuel,
[00:30:25:09 – 00:30:27:16]
um, the engine’s burning,
[00:30:27:16 – 00:30:31:08]
is definitely gonna, um,
[00:30:31:08 – 00:30:32:03]
be,
[00:30:35:06 – 00:30:37:04]
you know, obviously that’s better.
[00:30:37:04 – 00:30:47:14]
Uh, but if you, if you just do one or the other, by increasing the amount of spark or how much fuel the motor’s burning, but it’s still not taking in enough air.
[00:30:47:14 – 00:31:11:01]
Do you know what I’m getting at? Right. But to increase the air, you have to increase the fuel and to increase the fuel, it requires different pressure regulator. It requires a different injector. I think what the performance distributor firework hit is, geared towards is burning the air fuel mixture that’s in the cylinder better.
[00:31:11:01 – 00:31:13:23]
But the computer manages that
[00:31:13:23 – 00:31:27:23]
the computer manages how much fuel is injected. If there’s X amount of air coming in and X amount of fuel being burnt. So that’s what your, your, you know, your O2 sensors are doing. It’s, it’s sensing the, the, the,
[00:31:27:23 – 00:31:36:19]
how hot the fuel is or how hot the burn is coming out. So the, the increased temperature of more fuel burning
[00:31:36:19 – 00:31:44:15]
is going to increase the amount of fuel coming in and all, all, all, all O2 sensor is it’s a switch. It goes on and off. That’s it.
[00:31:44:15 – 00:31:53:04]
So you guys that, uh, by the cheapo, you know, code readers or whatever, and it says your O2 sensors bad, um,
[00:31:53:04 – 00:31:59:18]
it, it, with a computer, like you have Tony, you can actually see what the O2 sensor is doing. Right.
[00:31:59:18 – 00:32:03:21]
And you can see the increase or decrease in the amount of fuel
[00:32:03:21 – 00:32:07:14]
that’s being input, you know, put, put into the motor.
[00:32:07:14 – 00:32:14:09]
So that’ll increase or decrease depending on how much, how hot your burn is and how much flow
[00:32:14:09 – 00:32:15:12]
of air
[00:32:15:12 – 00:32:17:03]
you have coming into the motor.
[00:32:17:03 – 00:32:57:10]
Right. Yeah. I think I understand what you’re saying, but I think that there’s a limit in the programming on the ECM as far as how far it’ll go. And there’s certainly a limit on, on the pressure that’s, uh, being sent from the fuel pump. And I think this is why people that have, uh, that build stroke, uh, often don’t see the performance improvements that they thought they were going to get out of it because they didn’t change the, the intake. They didn’t increase the airflow. Uh, it’s the engine itself. You know, if I’m, if I’m remembering correctly, you do have to change the injector. So there’s more fuel. But if you don’t increase several aspects of it, then it, then the computer is not going to be able to do better for you.
[00:32:57:10 – 00:33:23:15]
So I don’t think that, um, I don’t think that the additional air, I don’t think the 4.0 is going to require more air than, than, I mean, certainly what you did is fine. I don’t think that that opening that up, you know, a couple of, uh, square centimeters is going to, is going to be too much air. I think that’s going to be fine, but I don’t also too, don’t think that it’s going to increase your gas mileage by 35%.
[00:33:23:15 – 00:33:37:03]
That would be too easy. And, and you know, the 4.0, one of the things that Jeep had a problem with with the 4.0 was they, they, they discontinued that engine because they were not getting the gas mileage out of it that they wanted to. That’s why they put the underpowered piece of
[00:33:37:03 – 00:33:42:28]
uh, V sixes or whatever it is they have in the TJs or I’m sorry, the JKs now. Yeah.
[00:33:42:28 – 00:33:51:04]
So I don’t, you know, if it was something as simple as opening up that, that aperture on the air box, they would have done that.
[00:33:51:04 – 00:34:06:05]
Yeah. You know, engineers like I know engineers and those are guys, pencil pushers that sit behind a desk and go, well, yeah, this looks good. According to the numbers and the computer saying the flow is right and whatever whatnot.
[00:34:06:05 – 00:34:08:29]
And being in the business that I am
[00:34:08:29 – 00:34:14:21]
engineers, if they’re sitting behind a desk and they’re not actually utilizing
[00:34:14:21 – 00:34:15:27]
the product,
[00:34:15:27 – 00:34:19:00]
you know what I mean? It’s like a hands-on thing. Right.
[00:34:19:00 – 00:34:36:18]
I don’t know. I don’t go. I don’t agree with that analogy. I think that it’s a, whenever you’re talking about, uh, millions of dollars in, uh, a product that they made almost a what 2.5 million of those things, it would be much to their advantage to figure it out to make it work.
[00:34:36:18 – 00:34:48:09]
And they didn’t, they came out with a Liberty instead. So, uh, I do think that the engineers know, knew what it was, what was going on, especially with something that had been running that long, that they had been on the road that long.
[00:34:48:09 – 00:35:14:20]
So, uh, I don’t know why, but your, your, your noise has gotten worse. So, uh, I want to, I’m gonna go ahead and wrap it up and, uh, really thank you for calling in and very interested to see how your, your gas mileage results work in the future. And, and I urge you get that gear to go in there because then it’ll be really easy for you to track your, your gas mileage because you can just use your odometer.
[00:35:14:20 – 00:35:18:24]
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I’m definitely planning on doing that. Um,
[00:35:18:24 – 00:35:31:01]
the other thing I want to do is I want to, I want to go to the four 11s. I want to get rid of those three 55s. Yeah. That should, that should help. But that’s the thing that helped me the most. I’m sure you read my post. I think I saw two, two and a half mile per gallon out of it.
[00:35:31:01 – 00:35:31:21]
Right.
[00:35:32:23 – 00:35:33:18]
Yeah, definitely.
[00:35:33:18 – 00:35:35:21]
All right. Well, thanks.
[00:35:35:21 – 00:35:43:06]
thanks for listening to me. Yack. Hey, and thanks for calling in and listening to the show and, uh, hope to, uh, catch you on the site when we get done.
[00:35:43:06 – 00:35:47:14]
All righty. Thank you again. Peace out everyone. Bye-bye.
[00:35:47:14 – 00:36:01:01]
Well, that’s great. That was even better than what I was hoping for because I was just asking, uh, uh, Kurt Weldman, uh, what he was seeing. Uh, if he was seeing an improvement, I thought he was based on some of the things he had said on the site and wow, that’s great.
[00:36:01:01 – 00:36:14:11]
from seeing 160 miles per tank to, uh, 235, uh, I can’t help but believe he’s tickled at that, uh, especially the way gas prices are.
[00:36:14:11 – 00:36:36:06]
We’ve had a few more people show up, uh, looks like show up and leave. Well, now I guess Dalton had to leave. Uh, that happens with Dalton. He’s good about, uh, being here when we start, but he’s got something going on, uh, later in the evening. Uh, dancing with the stars isn’t on. So it probably isn’t that anyway, uh, Wayne in New Zealand has joined us can tab 27.
[00:36:36:06 – 00:36:45:15]
Uh, and, and often I’ll say the first name of the individual and then their name on xj talk can tab 27 is, uh, his name on xj talk
[00:36:45:15 – 00:36:47:27]
and our guard, which is Reani
[00:36:47:27 – 00:36:58:15]
he’s in here and hopefully we’ll see Weldman jump back in. Well, gosh, uh, big Jim, oh, let’s say maybe I just need to update this. No big Jim looks like he came and went.
[00:36:58:15 – 00:37:03:22]
So, uh, hello and goodbye big Jim and Weldman has joined us again.
[00:37:03:22 – 00:37:10:21]
So, uh, excellent. Great that you guys, uh, were able to get in here and join the show tonight.
[00:37:10:21 – 00:37:16:06]
So anyway, uh, going back to, uh, to a theme of miles per gallon,
[00:37:16:06 – 00:37:28:28]
uh, here recently I, uh, installed, I’m sorry, uh, here recently I did something that I’d been meaning to a good long time now. Uh, I wanted to take off the idle air control,
[00:37:28:28 – 00:37:30:01]
uh, motor
[00:37:30:01 – 00:37:31:09]
and clean it.
[00:37:31:09 – 00:37:41:04]
And, uh, I had noticed that I was progressively, uh, having a harder and harder time getting the engine to start first thing in the morning.
[00:37:41:04 – 00:38:07:01]
Now, I think in the afternoon, it really wasn’t a problem, but in the morning it wouldn’t start that first go. I mean, it would start so fast. It was noticeable that it wasn’t, it was having a hard time. It progressed, this progressively got worse. And I believe that I tried cleaning the throttle body. I didn’t take the throttle body off. I just, um, put a paper towel in there and sprayed and cleaned. And there was a lot of gunk in there. I mean,
[00:38:07:01 – 00:38:13:00]
uh, I probably was at the 130,000, 140,000 mark whenever I did this,
[00:38:13:00 – 00:38:14:09]
but, uh,
[00:38:14:09 – 00:38:35:21]
I have already changed the throttle position sensor because I was having a little problem with the, uh, the, uh, um, transmission shifting at one point. And, uh, when I would, uh, after driving, I would put it in park and I’d run about, um, gosh, like, uh, 1200, 1300 RPM. And it was a strange.
[00:38:35:21 – 00:38:39:08]
So changing the throttle position sensor, uh, fix that.
[00:38:39:08 – 00:38:48:09]
And then I think in a quest to try to help my gas mileage after changing the O2 sensors and a few other things, uh, I changed the, uh, the map sensor
[00:38:48:09 – 00:38:50:13]
and, uh, that didn’t make any difference.
[00:38:50:13 – 00:38:52:27]
None that I could tell anyway, no measurable difference.
[00:38:52:27 – 00:39:01:13]
So, uh, one of the, the only thing on that throttle body that, uh, that was on the throttle body that I hadn’t done anything to was the idle air control, the IAC.
[00:39:01:13 – 00:39:07:27]
And I thought, uh, I’d read someplace about cleaning it and, uh, I thought that I would try that.
[00:39:07:27 – 00:39:34:07]
Um, I’d also read doing the sea foam thing, which was a lot like the, the same thing that I did with, uh, my old, um, um, three 50 and three 27 and transmission fluid, automatic transmission fluid, just pour that through the carburetor and you get this, this white smoke out, but it would hit the automatic transmission fluid had a tendency to, to clean things out of the engine, any, uh, deposits. And I’m sure it didn’t, uh, clean it
[00:39:34:07 – 00:39:41:21]
as well as, you know, taking the thing apart and cleaning it up, but it, it, it made it run better. And if nothing else, it was a
[00:39:41:21 – 00:39:49:14]
of a lot of fun. Cause it was like the old time mosquito sprayers, uh, that used to come down the road that, that us as kids would ride through. Boy, we didn’t know what the hell
[00:39:49:14 – 00:39:52:22]
we were doing. I think that stuff was DDT. Anyway,
[00:39:52:22 – 00:40:12:17]
big, huge white billowing cloud. It was just a blast to do that. I’d often thought that, uh, setting up a, uh, a spare, uh, windshield wiper reservoir and a feed of the automatic transmission fluid and the reservoir that would feed straight into the, the, uh, the,
[00:40:12:17 – 00:40:16:12]
yeah, what is it? The bot, the, the opening, I can’t remember what it’s called.
[00:40:16:12 – 00:40:20:03]
The, uh, the opening of the, uh, carburetor
[00:40:20:03 – 00:40:30:23]
and have a kind of a James Bond thing, you know, press a button, it starts pumping automatic transmission fluid into the carburetor and you get all this billowing smoke. Anyway, I never did. And of course I never got arrested. So it all worked out for the best.
[00:40:30:23 – 00:40:41:18]
So anyway, I see filmed it and, uh, to my amazement, the, the starting, the, uh, hard starting problem went away and after about two days it came back
[00:40:41:18 – 00:40:48:07]
and it progressively got worse. I think I see filmed it again. It went away and then over two days it came back.
[00:40:48:07 – 00:40:58:04]
So the, the interesting thing was, as it got worse, not only would it have a hard time starting in the morning, then it started having a hard time starting in the evening.
[00:40:58:04 – 00:41:14:08]
And then it, instead of, you know, if I had to go down to Lowe’s or someplace and run in and get something to come back out, it used to start right back up. Now, now it’s, it doesn’t want to start first time just after a short trip and a short time, uh, just being in the store and coming back out.
[00:41:14:08 – 00:41:20:17]
So I’ve just gotten used to it taking about two to three times to start. It runs a little rough,
[00:41:20:17 – 00:41:30:04]
uh, for the, about, uh, between two and five seconds. It lines right out and it’s snappy. There’s good, good throttle response. Everything runs great.
[00:41:30:04 – 00:41:41:15]
So, uh, cleaning the IAC was on my list to do because I thought that would make a difference. Maybe, maybe, you know, the sea foam was cleaning stuff up and not cleaning up as good as it need to be.
[00:41:41:15 – 00:41:45:03]
So, uh, I actually removed the
[00:41:45:03 – 00:41:46:24]
from the intake
[00:41:46:24 – 00:41:49:07]
and oh my God, the, the
[00:41:49:07 – 00:41:52:22]
that I went through trying to change that throttle position sensor.
[00:41:52:22 – 00:41:54:29]
I bet you I spent an hour
[00:41:54:29 – 00:42:16:09]
because one of the, um, one of the, uh, I forget the torques, uh, screws that they have holding that thing on messed up. And I had to cut a notch in that thing with a Dremel tool so I could get a screwdriver on it and take it off. Oh, it was, it was just horrific. Four simple bolts hold that throttle body onto the intake
[00:42:16:09 – 00:42:19:18]
and the cables for the, um,
[00:42:19:18 – 00:42:36:08]
I guess it would be the transmission kick down the, uh, actually opening and closing of the throttle body itself. They just, they just pop right off. Very simple. Take those four bolts off there. Be careful that you don’t lose the gasket or damage the gasket between the throttle body and the intake
[00:42:36:08 – 00:42:37:24]
and you just lift it off.
[00:42:37:24 – 00:42:45:00]
Unhook the electrical connections, at least on the 98 there’s three electrical connections because there’s the idle air control motor,
[00:42:45:00 – 00:42:48:03]
the TPS sensor and the map sensor.
[00:42:48:03 – 00:42:52:07]
Pop those electrical connections off and take that thing over to your bench.
[00:42:52:07 – 00:42:54:03]
Bench B E N C H.
[00:42:54:03 – 00:43:16:13]
And then you can work on it there. And, uh, I was able to take the idle air controller off real easy, uh, and, uh, took it out, cleaned it. Be very careful with it because it is delicate. Don’t try to operate the, the mechanism. Just clean the thing, make it nice. And then I also cleaned inside the little, uh, aperture that it, it goes in
[00:43:16:13 – 00:43:22:08]
and, uh, gave the, uh, gave the throttle body a good going over on clean as well.
[00:43:22:08 – 00:43:23:27]
So, um,
[00:43:23:27 – 00:43:48:16]
I was just reading here what, uh, what Wayne was saying. He says, yeah, I’d done what Tony’s talking about a while back. Wayne, did you see any changes when you did it? Because, uh, what I was about to say on the throttle on the idle air controller after doing that, I thought I’d fixed the problem. I figured that’s what it was. The sea foam was cleaning it up a little bit, but wasn’t cleaning it thoroughly enough. And I certainly cleaned it thoroughly and it, uh, boy, it would start right up,
[00:43:48:16 – 00:43:54:08]
uh, started right up after I got through, uh, doing all the cleaning and putting everything back together.
[00:43:54:08 – 00:43:56:11]
I
[00:43:56:11 – 00:44:06:11]
don’t guess the, the dishwasher would hurt anything because the, the throttle body is just a hunk of metal. As long as you took the sensors off there, uh, and actually the sensors probably wouldn’t make it probably wouldn’t hurt the sensors either.
[00:44:06:11 – 00:44:12:09]
But anyway, the, um, certainly wouldn’t be heat because you know how hot it gets under the hood of a, of a Cherokee. But anyway,
[00:44:12:09 – 00:44:33:15]
uh, I put the thing back together, started right up. Uh, after a few hours, I started it up again, started right up. Um, several hours later started it right up, but I left alone all night. And then, um, the, uh, I started up the next morning. Boy, just started right up. It was a little slow to start. Like the battery was a little low or something.
[00:44:33:15 – 00:44:45:23]
Uh, that, uh, all day, the, the nine hours at work or whatever it was, the eight hours, eight and a half hours at work went out, went to start it up, started right up. I mean, it was fast and a boy just came right up.
[00:44:45:23 – 00:44:46:28]
Then the next day,
[00:44:46:28 – 00:44:48:29]
nope, didn’t start.
[00:44:48:29 – 00:44:51:15]
It started on the second go, but not on the first.
[00:44:51:15 – 00:44:58:19]
So if, and I guess we’re, I guess it’s about, uh, what is today? This is Wednesday. So I did all this stuff on Sunday.
[00:44:59:15 – 00:45:01:15]
So, you know, we’re three days into it.
[00:45:01:15 – 00:45:09:01]
So what I should see here is it progressively getting worse and it doesn’t get any, it doesn’t get so bad that it won’t start,
[00:45:09:01 – 00:45:26:29]
but, uh, it progressively gets worse and, and it may just be wishful thinking, but, uh, I seem to see on the, on the, how far I go on the odometer and how far the needle is moving over from, from fall. It, it seems to be going
[00:45:26:29 – 00:45:30:18]
slower, like it’s using less gas.
[00:45:30:18 – 00:45:41:28]
So I know that whenever I’m getting, when I go from a full to the, the, the first notch, which is what is it? A three eights, I’m sorry, seven eights,
[00:45:41:28 – 00:45:43:06]
uh, a tank
[00:45:43:06 – 00:45:53:23]
that it’s, if there’s eight marks, I can’t remember, but anyway, the first mark, uh, uh, before, or the, uh, the first mark before you get to full, I can get,
[00:45:53:23 – 00:45:56:23]
if I’m getting 80, if I’ve gone 80 miles,
[00:45:56:23 – 00:45:58:23]
right there, I’m doing pretty good,
[00:45:58:23 – 00:46:00:22]
but it seems to,
[00:46:00:22 – 00:46:06:16]
it doesn’t stay with that. It seems to increase, uh, as it goes closer to,
[00:46:06:16 – 00:46:15:28]
closer to empty. And that could just be the, the inconsistencies of the measuring. Cause, you know, it’s not, it’s not a precise thing. It just could be inconsistencies
[00:46:15:28 – 00:46:19:26]
of the, um,
[00:46:19:26 – 00:46:20:18]
whatever you call the,
[00:46:20:18 – 00:46:24:29]
the analog thing that they have in the tank that the float and
[00:46:26:00 – 00:46:31:23]
keeping up with the position of the fuel of the tank that has the fuel in it. I don’t know,
[00:46:31:23 – 00:46:56:19]
but I’ve noticed that whenever it’s doing well, I can get to that first notch, uh, after full and, be at 80 miles. And boy, I tell you what, if I could stay there where each notch was 80 miles, I think I could get a thousand miles out of a tank, but it speeds up. And I think the best I’ve ever done is around two 38 for a tank of gas. And I’ve got the 20 gallon, 20 gallon tank.
[00:46:56:19 – 00:47:10:01]
So anyway, uh, mainly I wanted to tell you, uh, that if you’re going to change one of the sensors or the idle air controller motor on your throttle body, take the throttle body off,
[00:47:10:01 – 00:47:23:21]
make sure that you put something in the intake. So, uh, you don’t drop anything in there. Cause if it goes in the intake, it’s going to go to the top of the piston and start smacking on the, the head and the, uh, the valves.
[00:47:23:21 – 00:47:34:02]
So block that. And also too, uh, before you put the, uh, before you put the throttle body back on, clean that intake. Cause you’ll actually get some carbon air there as well.
[00:47:34:02 – 00:48:07:12]
And you just want to make that thing nice and shiny and clean. And it’s probably not a bad idea to do that every so often. I don’t know, uh, if it needs to be done annually, but it shouldn’t hurt as long as you take your time, make sure that you don’t damage the gasket. You don’t want to get any, uh, air flows going through anything other than the throttle body. So you want to make sure that gasket is good. You might actually want to replace it. Um, whenever you take the, every time you take the throttle body off, those things can’t be that expensive. It was just a, a very thin piece of material.
[00:48:07:12 – 00:48:15:09]
But cleaning the throttle body might be a good idea, uh, as a, uh, a regular routine, especially with our aging, uh, Jeep Cherokees,
[00:48:15:09 – 00:48:28:27]
um, couldn’t hurt as long as you do it right. And, uh, it is very, very simple. And as, uh, and, and as always with any advice that you get, not only here, but also too from xjtalk.com,
[00:48:28:27 – 00:48:48:29]
you know, it’s your responsibility to take that advice and do what you think’s best with it. It’s your vehicle. We don’t want to tell you to do something that’s going to cause damage to your vehicle or keep you from getting back and forth to work or just having the, the joy of driving your Jeep around. So you need to temper what we tell you
[00:48:48:29 – 00:49:02:27]
with what you know your abilities are. And if you don’t feel that you have the ability to, to, to do these things, take it to a certified mechanic, let them do it for you. Um, many of them will let you watch if, even if it’s just outside the bay
[00:49:02:27 – 00:49:15:03]
and you can, uh, maybe get a, a good idea of, uh, of what you can do and, uh, try other things. And when your skill level gets to a certain degree where you feel comfortable doing it, then you can do it yourself.
[00:49:15:03 – 00:49:18:21]
But for, for those shade tree mechanics and you know who you are,
[00:49:18:21 – 00:49:31:08]
it’s a very simple thing. I should have the throttle body long ago, but I have a little, especially when I’m, when I’m working on something that takes me back and forth to work, I’m a little timid in doing things
[00:49:31:08 – 00:49:36:24]
that I haven’t done before and taking the throttle body off that intake was the first time I’ve ever done it.
[00:49:36:24 – 00:49:49:12]
Uh, I’ve done other things that have to do with other vehicles. And you know, so I do have past experience in working on vehicles. I’ve built engines, I’ve done a lot of things,
[00:49:49:12 – 00:50:05:22]
but there’s certain things I haven’t done. And I always try to, to bone up on what it is, uh, that I should expect to see and what it is that I should expect to do once I’m there. And I feel much more confident actually, uh, after I’ve actually done it.
[00:50:05:22 – 00:50:13:08]
So only do the things that you feel comfortable doing and be very careful. You might actually even want to, it seems like everybody has a smartphone these days,
[00:50:13:08 – 00:50:28:01]
you might want to pull out your smartphone and snap a few pictures before you take things apart or as you take things apart. And then you can always pull it back up on your phone and look at it. And so you’ll know where things go back.
[00:50:28:01 – 00:50:36:16]
Um, it’s, it’s, it’s very easy to do these days to snap that picture with the, uh, with the cell phone, with a smartphone.
[00:50:36:16 – 00:50:42:11]
And while you’re at it, since you’ve got those pictures, upload them to XJtalk.com and tell us what you did.
[00:50:45:16 – 00:51:09:23]
So that would work out well for both of us. And you know, I highly recommend that the taking the picture thing anytime you do drum breaks. Oh my God, drum breaks are just horrible. I’m sure you could do it enough where you don’t need to take pictures, but, uh, never make the mistake of, of taking all the parts off of your drum breaks, both sides, always leave one there. And even if you’re taking pictures, I would still recommend leaving one side put together.
[00:51:09:23 – 00:51:24:16]
Just so you can go back and actually look and move around and see the details because that’s a nightmare. I want to get some disc breaks on the, my, uh, my cross rate 0.25. But anyway, that’s, that’s another, that’s another deal, another post and another show.
[00:51:24:16 – 00:52:00:09]
So guys, um, we actually have a pretty good turnout tonight with the four viewers we have, but we did have a lot more when this show first I’m not sure if it’s, uh, the show just isn’t something that you’re interested in. Uh, maybe, uh, we’ve got people that are busy, uh, Wednesday nights at eight PM sort of time and they just don’t have time to come to the show. Uh, the show is also, uh, a podcast. So you can listen to it whenever, let it work. And that might be more convenient for you. And maybe that’s why you don’t come to the live show. It’s not important to me if you come to the live show or if you listen to the podcast,
[00:52:00:09 – 00:52:02:21]
um, the recording
[00:52:02:21 – 00:52:07:14]
is long. Is it something that you enjoy and something that you, uh,
[00:52:07:14 – 00:52:12:13]
you know, are glad that’s going on. So I really could use your feedback.
[00:52:12:13 – 00:52:25:04]
Even if it’s bad, um, I need to know what you like hearing on the show. I like knowing, I need to know if it’s just me, you just don’t like me on the show.
[00:52:25:04 – 00:52:27:13]
Uh, what is it that we can do
[00:52:27:13 – 00:52:51:13]
to make this better for you? I want to build a bigger audience. I want to get more and more involvement. So take the time to drop me an email, take the time to, uh, call the, the feedback line and ask a question or let me know what you like about the show. Let me know what you don’t like about the show. Let’s talk about it. I want to get you guys involved in this.
[00:52:51:13 – 00:52:53:25]
So you guys listening on the podcast,
[00:52:53:25 – 00:52:55:29]
take the time, go to XJ talk,
[00:52:55:29 – 00:53:02:14]
drop me a line, send me a private message, send me an email, just a motor Roy at XJ talk.com.
[00:53:02:14 – 00:53:09:28]
If you want to tell me I suck, that’s fine. If you can be more descriptive, that’s fine too. And when I say more descriptive, I don’t mean like
[00:53:09:28 – 00:53:15:23]
suck. Tell me what it is that you don’t like. If it’s something that I can improve,
[00:53:15:23 – 00:53:37:12]
I want to try to do it. So, uh, please take the time to give me some feedback. Please take the time to call in questions, uh, be a part of the show. I don’t want it to be just me. I never did. I want involvement. I can’t make fun of anybody if you’re not being involved and that’s the, that’s the fun for me.
[00:53:37:12 – 00:53:42:02]
So the feedback number that you can call 24 hours a day, seven days a week
[00:53:42:02 – 00:53:46:08]
is 530-675-4102.
[00:53:46:08 – 00:53:49:26]
530-675-4102.
[00:53:49:26 – 00:53:51:24]
Just call,
[00:53:51:24 – 00:54:01:24]
anything, message, just leave your name, where you’re calling from, and, uh, you know, your comments on the site, uh, the show, the site, any of it.
[00:54:01:24 – 00:54:05:02]
I want to know what we can do to make it better.
[00:54:05:02 – 00:54:12:26]
We’re also on Facebook. I think we got about, uh, six or 700, uh, friends on Facebook now. And I know that we’ve gotten a few,
[00:54:12:26 – 00:54:18:06]
new members from Facebook and I think several of them are, um, outside the country,
[00:54:18:06 – 00:54:25:00]
Germany, Russia, uh, Serbia, uh, where else?
[00:54:25:00 – 00:54:26:21]
Chile. And it’s, uh,
[00:54:26:21 – 00:54:28:22]
all the, all the members are, are,
[00:54:29:16 – 00:54:39:25]
I’m always interested in, uh, members on the site where no matter where they are, but it just tickles me whenever somebody has a Jeep Cherokee in another country.
[00:54:39:25 – 00:54:52:22]
And often those are, are, are Jeeps that aren’t like tires. They’re green or their steering wheel is on the wrong side. It’s like they’re there. They work for the post office, but in another country. So
[00:54:53:15 – 00:55:01:24]
it’s just really exciting to me, especially, uh, whenever they, they post pictures, there’s, there’s more things similar about us
[00:55:01:24 – 00:55:03:08]
than there are dissimilar.
[00:55:03:08 – 00:55:09:28]
So I just think it’s really cool when I see, uh, Jeeps from other country and members from other country, uh, coming into XJ talk
[00:55:09:28 – 00:55:12:26]
members of the Jeep Cherokee fraternity.
[00:55:12:26 – 00:55:22:09]
So guys look for us on Facebook, uh, facebook.com slash XJ talk. We’re also on Twitter, uh, twitter.com slash XJ talk
[00:55:22:09 – 00:55:23:25]
and, uh, you know,
[00:55:23:25 – 00:55:26:05]
get on there, interact,
[00:55:26:05 – 00:55:27:19]
be part of the community.
[00:55:27:19 – 00:55:38:24]
So guys, thanks so much for, uh, for listening. Thank you guys for downloading and listening to the podcast and we’ll catch you next week, Wednesday, 8 p.m central
[00:55:38:24 – 00:55:40:19]
guys. Have a great week.
[00:55:40:19 – 00:55:45:15]
(Music)
[00:56:09:20 – 00:56:17:00]
(Music)
[00:56:22:18 – 00:56:23:16]
I just wanted to say XJ talk is the best
[00:56:23:16 – 00:56:24:24]
sight in the
[00:56:24:24 – 00:56:27:13]
world. And if you think you know a better
[00:56:27:13 – 00:56:28:05]
sight,
[00:56:28:05 – 00:56:31:14]
you. By the way, this is big M350.
[00:56:31:14 – 00:56:36:02]
Bye. (Music) Ah, this looks delicious.
[00:56:36:02 – 00:56:36:02]