It's not that I refuse to learn lol. It's a long story but here goes. I ordered a bunch of new stuff for this car in 2008/09 while on deployment. Had it all put on by a local mechanic, assuming that he, or someone around here would know this stuff. When it got installed, noone knew how to use the stuff, and the people who did, were too busy to really sit down and teach me this stuff. (i don't blame them whatsoever-they're super busy people) The other two people I had in mind to teach me 1, had no clue how the stuff worked and 2. had no experience because they don't use this equipment. My fault for assuming lol. I didn't do my leader's recon before ordering.
So now I have this half assembled car sitting in the storage unit (I don't have a garage) 3 miles away, and I don't know how to finish assembling it, and even if I did, I've no clue how to use it. I just got married a little while ago, and have no real time for a steep learning curve lol. Meanwhile every friend I know is constantly pressuring me to get the car back on the road because they want me to go crusing/racing on the local strip with them. I don't have the time to post a "how do I..." question on here, and wait 6 days in between each question and hope for a response that I can use, then go back up to the storage unit, try it, and then see what happens, only to have to drive back down here, and repost another question. This project would take 10 years at that rate, and this car sat in the storage unit since 2009 collecting dust, because noone knows how to work on it, or tune it, or, if they do know how to tune it, they don't have the time to donate to teach me.
I had, literally, wires coming out of everywhere, hooked up too all sorts of shit I had never seen before, all the while battling massive amounts of fuel in the oil, and then having people trying to tell me it's normal with a turbo buick, and that 1. "there's always a fuel smell in oil" when I know it's not true because I used to run an oil change facility lol. I used to handle used oil contantly, and 2, telling me that "it'll burn off in time"... No it won't. The car never had this problem before-why does it have it now? So now I don't want to drive it anywhere because it has a "tick" like never before. So now is this massive tick an improperly adjusted valve train? Or is it oil washed down with fuel, putting 50 times the wear on the engine that's supposed to be there, opening up the clearances and ruining my brand new engine? So now I'm stranded by myself to tackle these three problems that may or may not be related with 1. zero experience and 2, zero time and resources. Hence the whole slew of posts from me in the last 3 months.
My only option was to yank each option that I have no experience in one by one, to try and see what is what. I have to go back to ground zero and start from the beginning, slowly adding each component back (MYSELF, because you can never trust a mechanic to cover the small details) and start my lessons all over again. There were wires barely crimped into their spade connectors, there were full lengths of wires just sittin' behind my dash doing absolutely nothing, not connected to shit, gauges were cocked at a 90 degree angle because they wouldn't fit in the gauge pods, gauge pods were installed incorrectly, random bolts were missing from all around the car, the fuel pressure gauge was on the fritz, exhaust pipes leaning up againt the control arms and springs, ghostly vacuum leaks that may or may not have been there etc. etc.
This stuff doesn't sound too hard, but when you work full time, just get married, and don't have immediate access to your car for the prolonged projects, what do you do? I work out of a cramped storage shed, and a single portable tool box, that's 3 miles away from my house lol. Every day I go back there and turn a wrench here and there, create another problem, drive back home, post the problem on the board, wait 4 days for the correct answer, drive back the next day, turn another wrench, or solder another wire, then come back, post another question, and it continues from there lol. I have absolutely zero experience with electrical, and computers. So when someone says "just hook the grey wire up to the so and so port" I shoot over to the storage place and find out theres 3 grey wires lol. So now what? Or just load these new drivers into your laptop and the powerlogger should run, but then I load them and it says "you cannot open this file", so now I drive all the way back and post that question, wait 3 days... I have no clue how to operate laptops. I pulled triggers and turned wrenches since I was a teenager lol. It's all I know. The only electronics I have a grasp on, is advanced antenna theory and radio wave propagation from being a commo sergeant on my team- AM, FM, USB/LSB, HF, VHF, UHF, SATCOM, & microwave signals. Period lol. When someone says "driver", I ask quarter inch or 3/8ths? But give me a radio, ANY radio, and I'll make commo with it.
All I want is my car back together, without wires all over the place, and the ecm back into its little cubby where it belongs, not stuck on my floor hemorraging wires because noone knows where all the wires go lol. So I ripped all that stuff out and used the Casper's translator wiring harness and now it's a little better lol. Have yet to figure out how to put it all back in the ecm kick panel with the powerlogger sticking out of the bottom and this cable from the top. I'll get it though.
I've no clue how to operate the lap top and powerlogger yet. I'll learn, but for now, I need this car basically stock so that I can at least work on it & get it running, and not soo rich. It runs now but I'm still battling knock that I still can't determine if it's false or not because it may be my jacked up exhaust that someone put on wrong, my super noisy valve train, or real KR. So I still can't drive it for extended periods. It's coming along though! It's almost drivable. Just waiting on a boost gauge from Mr. Clark and I should be up and running! I just can't hammer it till I find out what's up. Don't worry, I'll get that powerlogger yet!
I'm no amatuer, I just have to get more tech savvy 
