Its seems the line "let minute=minute+0" is not a viable method for converting "09" to just "9" Its causing the "value too great for base" error and is the reason it didn't say the minute for you. I'll have to come up with another method to do that and I'll post an update here shortly once I do that.

As for the message "/dev/empeg_state: Device or resource busy" I think that is something Mark Lord's setvol program is saying, which could be a big problem. I don't get that message in my custom init. The setvol program is trying to read what the volume was set at when you last turned off the empeg so that it can use that volume level. If its not able to read it I'm not sure what level its setting your volume to. In DC car mode it might keep the volume at 0% and you won't be able to hear it, or possibly it might set it to 100% and blast your head off. Can you run setvol from the command line with no problems?

And as for it being 2 hours behind that is because the player software has its own timezone setting that this program can't read. The only way around this that I see is to set your timezone as "Universal" or "UTC" in the empeg player app and then set your clock accordinly.