hockeydude

my question would be why did the HG go in the first place? Isn't usually a telltale sign of going lean?

spoolinturbo

could be a defect in the gasket, or just be old. S**t happens hahaha. esp with a 20+yr old car. Boost just makes gaskets more susceptible to damage. If you get a new one...go metal.

choinga

Well, long story short - I believe I was going lean w/ that LBE. I was having some consistent detonation problems (or something that resembled that...4500RPM @ high boost...sounded like crackling wires under the mid/front of the car...could feel the slight vibration in the pedals even and if the windows were down could smell the burn). I tried new plugs (using NGK 7ES's right now), new OEM Bosch ignition coil and new wires, 93 octane gas w/ octane boost, seafoam in the gas (hadn't gotten around to doing the intake...but was going to try that if I got desperate). None of them fixed the hesistation/detonation issues.

Could certainly be related but yesterday when I was driving home I was pushing the car pretty hard and in 3rd gear at about 5500RPM I hear a loud POP!...engine dies, I pull over...car restarts but as soon as I give it gas it dies...open the hood and I'd popped the damn connecter hose between the throttle body and intercooler pipe off. So, pulled a screwdriver out got it back on and limped home. I had that same weird starter problem there as well - first couple turns...lock...third or fourth it starts up.

So, I'm not sure if that hose popping off sped things up. I'm still not 100% it's the head gasket...my oil still looks clean...dipstick is clean, clear oil...no milky stuff. I also don't see any oil in the coolant tank either. Definitely burning water or coolant though...so somethings going on...

Anyway, I think I'm going to drop it at my local shop and have the guys there spend a few days with it and figure out what's going on - prioritze it for me and get to work. It's such a great car and the engine runs well...pulls strong...just wish I could get through this stuff so I can start enjoying the car a little.

So, a crappy starter can make your drivetrain get all clackity?? It was always a little loud...but now it's noticeably louder - especially at the back part of the tranny at the rear of the car. I can get under there and hear things clacking around with the car at idle and the clutch disengaged.

Might as well go ahead and replace that - anyone have any recommendations on a starter? Is the OEM/Bosch the way to go or is there something else out there worth upgrading to?

spoolinturbo

oem starters are fine.

whens the last time you changed your fluid in your rear end??? you might have excessive metal shavings.

a starter not disengaging will make things sound....retarded. even though its not being powered, that gear is spinning at ridiculous speeds...way more than its suppose to. but thats worst case...ive only seen that a hand full of times in my life.

ya your on the right track with your shop...if i couldnt figure it out...i would do the same thing, make them do a full look over of the car. I have a porsche shop in town i would bring it to.

choinga

Thanks - the temp gauge doesn't get to red and it takes a decent while at idle to move up...when the car is moving of course, I don't see it get much further past normal.

I'm not going to change my oil and then take it in the shop so they can waste $40 of oil when they dump it all again. Right now, what I see on the dipstick is clear oil - I just changed it less than 2000 miles ago.

The shop is 12 miles away and the car now without the boost kit/MAX chips actually runs fine...a little rough but nothing near what it was when it first happened...it was almost like you described but really only in 1st and 2nd gear...could barely get enough to get moving.

I've watched some videos with pretty bad blown gaskets and you definitely see moisture coming out the pipe with the smoke - I don't get any of that. In fact now, it's a pretty light steady stream once it gets going. It's not billowing out or anything.

So, there's definitely something wrong and it appears to be related to burning coolant...

choinga

'

Gear oil is brand new - Amsoil Severe Gear. I've tried several now trying to find something that keeps it quiet back there. The Amsoil is the best so far. I just changed it (had Lucas 75w-90 in there for about a month) about a week ago. No metal shavings or anything...I definitely checked for that.

spoolinturbo

hmmm. might be bad valve seals? mine has bad valve seals and my car smokes a little bit...mine is completely stock...but its also an NA. my starion however...when it smokes it SMOKES haha. keep us updated with the shop guys! im def interested in what they have to say

HIGHBOOST

FWIW, I recently blew mine as well. As soon as it blew, there was plenty of white smoke.

When I limped her home, I started it up the next day. Ran fine at idle for about 2 minutes, or until the #4 cylinder started filling with coolant/water, then it started idling very rough, all this with no white smoke out the exhaust....I was running the LBE with the banjo bolt at the time which is a big nono, I didn't even know that jetted bolt was in there, I thought I had changed over to stock...Good luck!

choinga

Uh, the LBE on the banjo bolt is a no-no??? How else are you supposed to connect it? I've got it off now but really since the minute I put it on there I had problems (I think mostly due to the 951max chips).

That may have been my problem all along then...I've seen pics from other people's cars and even from Lindsey's site showing it connected to the stock banjo bolt:

Please fill me in!! This is how I had mine setup (pic from Lindsey's site):

blown 944

You really need to be careful here

It sounds like a bad HG and the you hydro-locked the engine slightly once. If you keep doing this it will destroy the engine ie; bent rod,cracked cylinder wall, broken rings and ring lands.

You should do a compression test to see what is happening before assuming all is fine.

Also you should have some sort of AF monitoring and not run it lean. I don't remember a mention of the lean issue in the other thread regarding stumbling

This is all my .02 but it sounds like you are risking your whole engine here to me.

harrisonrick

+1...heed this warning.

DarylJ

No...that would be blue smoke, and it would be on start, and on acceleration after letting that car idle.

Choinga - Listen to Blown 944. I complete agree with him. You likely have a blown head gasket that is leaking between the cooling jacket into the cylinder. When you shut the car off, the water pressure increases and pushes coolant into the cylinder. Its only going to get worse, and if you try to start it with enough coolant in a cylinder, you will smash things up.

If you want to check this and don't have a cooling system pressure tester, and if the last time you turned the car off it was up to temperature, pulling your plugs and checking down there ought to show you coolant in one or more of the cylinders.

rberry951

What he means is make sure the banjo bolt itself is open, and not a jetted one. If someone has had Autothority chips in at some point they may have installed the jetted banjo bolt. Easy check, pull it off and look inside, if the hole is roughly the size of the ID of the bolt, it's normal, if there is a tiny hole in the middle, it is jetted. If this is the case, you've been running a LOT of boost, and this is your problem.

I know you are frustrated by this situation, but you really shouldn't blame the chips before you explore the issues more thoroughly. I see that you say you have been running high octane fuel, this is good, but what boost level are you running. And why did you continue to push the car once you heard detonation.

If there are problems with the car, an aftermarket chip may make them more aparent, as they are more specifically mapped, as stock are more generically mapped, therefore some issues with the car become more pronounced with aftermarket chips, and turning up the boost.

The 951MAX chips are running in over 700 cars at the moment, some on some fairly extremely modified cars. Your car is pretty much stock, the chip alone would not cause multiple issues. Something made it run lean and begin detonating. Either the boost was to high, or the fuel was too low. Did you install the 3.0 bar FPR? It is possible it is faulty even though it is new, not probably, but possible. Once you negate the probable, explore the possible. Also, saying the one tube popped off indicates that it may have been loose and leaking air all along, which could cause hesitation problems.

Lastly, have you spoken to Lindsey at all about your issues when they first arose?

Good luck, I hope you get it sorted out.

Regards,
Russell

rberry951

Hello again,

I did some looking around, and found this post:

https://rennlist.com/forums/6251757-post1.html

Where you state you have a pre-existing adjustable FPR. Giving a reading of ~39psi at idle without disconnecting the vacuum line. This is 'probably' okay, as if you disconnect the line it should go up to 43-45psi, again, fine. But nothing is to say that the regulator is working correctly under all conditions. We always recommend the 3.0 bar rising rate FPR as it delivers the proper pressure under various boost levels, and in our expeience there have been many faulty adjustable regulators out there.

In reading this, and other posts since you got the kit, you speak of turning the boost up on the LBE, and your factory gauge reading 2 bar. Yet you have no external boost gauge to show actual boost. For starters, the factory gauge is often inaccurate above stock boost, and shows you nothing above 15psi (roughly 2.0 bar).

When you installed the LBE, did you bypass the cycling valve? I don't see in the posts if you actually replaced the factory gate with a dual port yet, but if you did you certainly would have to bypass the cycling valve, so I'll assume you have.

One last thing in regard to your surging/hesitation, if the LR kit did not come with a KLR chip, did you look at your current KLR chip to see if it indeed stock? Our DME chips work with just about any KLR, except Autothority, with those KLR chips people have experienced surging/hesitation, which is remedied with the installation of a stock KLR chip. I can give you one of these, or LR can if you don't have stock in now.

Sounds like you've done a lot of work to the car recently, and maybe there's still more sorting to be done. Most anything you have done or will do are well known procedures to a lot of the RL community, you are wise in tapping this extrodinary knowledge base.

Regards,
Russell

choinga

Thanks Russell. Really appreciate your insight, as well as others - this forum has absolutely been invaluable to me since purchasing my 951 a few months ago. I'd be in sad shape without it, that's for sure.

At any rate, I installed the Bosch 3BAR FPR and have consistent ~43PSI at my fuel rail. I didn't know if my adjustable was the cause of any problems so I just changed it.

I do have the MAX KLR chip.

I did not bypass the cycling valve when I installed the LBE. I am also running the stock WG...I am strongly considering an update to something...not sure if going to be a Lindsey or Tial. I emailed back and forth with Dave several times trying to figure out what might have been wrong and he never once mentioned that. There's no instructions online other than the picture showing where the boost hose actually goes. That said, I ran the car with JUST the chips and no boost hose for several weeks and still had the same hesistation and detonation issues that didn't exist after I took them out a few days ago.

So, do you have a diagram of what the hose scenario should look like with the boost kit installed at the cycling valve? What goes where? I read the dual port WG install guide on Lindsey's site and noticed that the valve goes away with that install - but once again, didn't see any detail on changes there when just installing the LBE.

Please don't misunderstand me - I didn't mean to imply that the chips were at fault...only that in MY situation they likely exascerbated an existing problem.

I agree with others on hydrolock...that's initially what I thought it was...not the starter. I'll pull the plugs and peek in when I get home but I don't think there any question there is coolant getting in there and based on other symptons it certainly sounds like a head gasket.

So, I'm going to have it replaced at my local shop. Any suggestions on what else can/should be changed, updated, cleaned or whatever while the head and intake is off? I'm going to ask my shop to use one of the metal wide fire ones - sounds like those handle boost better. From there, I'll work with those guys to figure out where the problem might be and why I was having problems w/ the chips.

Thanks again Russell - really appreciate the time.