We went to a new track for the first time so we thought it would be a good idea to drive up and not go in the gates on a trailer for appearances so we unloaded the car about 10 miles before we got to the track and drove it the rest of the way. We trailer the car only to save the rear Hoosiers BTW. Minor problem arose however. We forgot to turn off the traction control when starting out and, sure enough, the light came on after we got underway and the car pretty much came to a halt like it's always done when we don't turn off traction control. We hit the button and continued the rest of the way to the track without incident. However, when we got ready to make a pass we hit the button to turn off traction control and put the car in the burnout box to heat the tires. It would not spin the tires in the burnout box. It was as if the traction control was still activated. OK then, maybe we didn't really need to do a burnout. Launched the car wide open from the line and the car barely moved. It did not spin the tires whatsoever. It had no power whatsoever. It went about 3 car lengths and then started accelerating but nowhere near what it's capable of. Time was off over a second and down 10 MPH in the 1/8th on that pass. Traction control had to still be activated, right? Anyone heard of not being able to turn off traction control? I'm hoping this is what's going on and it'll be a simple fix. We tried a few more times with similar results but didn't make a full pass once we saw the car would not move from the hit of the throttle. It's at the performance shop right now but I'm not sure the problem is something a performance shop normally sees or is able to deal with. Any ideas sure would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

Codes????????????


Mr. Sam

 

if you have a DIC punch it from a deadstop and see if the DIC says anything on it. i can't remember what it says but it will tell you if the traction control is engaged right on the DIC When i forget to turn mine off it does put something on the screen i think "Active handling" gets displayed.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know. The shop is pretty much on the way home from the track so we just dropped it off there saving a 7 hour round trip for me. Just wondering if anyone has had their traction control button fail to turn off the traction control before. It acts just like if the traction control is kicking in with what it's doing. We did not try to roll into the throttle slowly at the track from the launch as after it malfunctioned we just loaded up and left.

 

When you press the button and change MODES, you should get a corresponding beep and a message in the DIC that says what traction mode that you are in. Are you getting that response. If not, the button could have gotten disconnected from the connector inside the console.



IF,,, there is something wrong with the TCS and you still want to race the car, Just pull the EBTCM fuses out MAXI FUSE 52 & 53 and Mini fuse #5.

There no way that the EBTCM can operate the brakes without those fuses.

If you put some small street tires on the rear, do a burnout and see if you see TRACTION CONTROL ACTIVE and or Active Control Active when it in NORMAL MODE. That means it actually controlling the brakes and PCM to prevent rear wheel slip!

The EBTCM goes into normal mode at each ignition cycle.

 

Thanks for that info Bill. I called Mayhem and they're going to pull the fuses you suggested tomorrow and put the car on the dyno and see what happens. I spoke with a friend of mine that is a 20 year Master Tech at the local GM dealership to get his opinion on what ill effects might arise from pulling those fuses. He said that those fuses sent power to the ABS module in the car and they should disable the ABS. What he didn't know is if the traction control would still be functional and pulling all the timing out of the car making it still have the same symptoms. Mayhem is going to pull the fuses and put the car on the dyno to make sure it's not down several hundred horsepower like it seemed like it was at the track. I don't know what other test to perform after pulling the fuses. Mayhem said that the problem was intermittent and they have been able to duplicate the problem but not every time. They wanted to have the problem arise and then pull the fuses to see if indeed pulling the fuses eliminated the problem altogether. Can't do that it seems like so we're going to have to try the dyno route and hope it solves the problem forever. It's not cool when you have thousands bet on a race and have something stupid like this crop up and you lose your money behind it.

 

Is your car an automatic ?? If so do you have a stall converter ??---I have had TC gremlins with my 98 automatic before---with a stall converter----I noticed that if the button is ON and I attempted to do a burnout If he TC became active and kept me from spinning no matter what I did with the button after that it would NOT turn off until I shut the engine OFF---
I would guess that you may have an ABS or wheel speed sensor issue which will keep the car in some sort of reduced power mode---You may not even see a code--But there can still be one stored in your ECM---Try deleting codes regardless with a scanner and see if momentarily the TC button works as normal--

 

Yes, it an RPM 4l60e Level VII with a Yank PY3600 converter. Worked ridiculously well as a combo before this traction control issue. Rolling it out about a car length before calling on the motor netted a 1.36 60' time. Nailing it from the line put about 6" of daylight under the front tires but broke traction while the tires were still in the air. This netted a 1.35 60' time but since the tires broke loose and continued to spin the 330' and 660' suffered compared to the slower 60' time when rolling it out and calling on it a half second later. We're going to clear all codes and still try to cut the traction control via the button on the console. We just do not want any chance of this happening again. Going on the dyno to verify that there's no reduced power mode involved. Heck, we need a few hundred more horsepower to run with the pack, not less horsepower. It seems like everybody and their brother has 800 or more horsepower these days so we need everything we can muster up and then some to compete.

 

Have you considered a 2-step delay box that would limit RPM's at launch to a programmed time? I use this on old school muscle cars but they do have a similar system for the LS platform----Then you can drive your car with the TC OFF all the time and with trial and error testing find the best RPM settings and best delay time settings--
As as example on my 67 Chevelle with an auto trans and 500 crank HP I use the 2 step with a 3600 RPM limiter and a 1.2 second delay----little or no spinning at launch and again very little after the 1.2 second timer when the engine goes to WOT

 

I hadn't considered that but thanks for the heads up. The fuses fixed the traction control issue as we're getting a traction control and ABS message now. Power is where it's supposed to be on the dyno. It'll try to tear the tires off the rim at the hit of the throttle when the tires are cold. It doesn't look like pulling the fuses affected anything else worthwhile so we're just going to leave them out until such time as we get the stock tire height stagger on the car once again. We're going to be running the short Hoosier drag radials on the car for the foreseeable future.