shmark

Ok I feel a little better. Not. I'm sure some of this will be cured once I take the car to Vitesse and John can work his magic, but until he gets back I have a few things I have to take care of.

I'm still chasing the exhaust leak. Replacing the sealing ring got most of it but there's still a problem, which may be because the car is running so rich. I'm not sure at this point if it's just coming out the tailpipe and back in the car, but I do get a little exhaust smell with the windows down and moving. Not much, but definitely a little. More if I sit at idle with the windows up.

I'm also getting frequent backfires out the tailpipe (rich condition) and last night definitely got one in the intake! I don't know what causes that, but the shop who "worked" on it said they were having vacuum problems. All I know is that it's not right and I get an off-throttle fluttering whistle now that I didn't hear before. It's not very loud, but definitely audible. I've checked all the visible vacuum lines and everything seems tight. I have new blue lines and use Laust's 5-port vacuum manifold so tracing them is easy. Anyone point me to a good vacuum diagram?

They did have the intake off because they pulled the head. Damn I don't want to go in there, but I may not have a choice. I refuse to take it back to them.

I'm still not convinced the wastegate is right either. With all the pipes from the wastegate back disconnected, I didn't see anything that looked wrong and the sealing ring looked good there.

This sucks. My wife doesn't really like the car now because it isn't right and has really sucked down the cash. It's not the car's fault, and I really want it right so I can just enjoy it.

Ski

not sure which wastegate you have...here is a diagram.







with the car running so rich, I suggest you take a good look at the vacuum lines and double check the all the intercooler to/from boots. If you think the intake might be the culprit, you can take starting fluid and spray it by each intake runner and head connection, see what happens to the idle - no change, no leaks. There was a car at a so called reputable shop recently in TX, and they had the fuel pressure regulator hooked up off of the the back thermal valve off the back of the head. After we fixed that and rerouted all the lines, the car ran great.

shmark

Awesome! Thanks! I have the Lindsey dual-port wastegate, good looking part for something you rarely see.

Ski

you can adapt the diagrams for your needs; if you have the venturi delete kit/if you don't, etc. I have seen several cars get the thermal valve routing wrong, line going to the throttle body and the other to the little metal diaphram unit.

Tom M'Guinn

What was it in the shop for -- why was the head removed? Is the off-throttle whistling just the sound of new belts whining? Most do that when new. Have you visually confirmed that the timing belt in aligned properly -- i.e., that the TDC marks on the cam gear and flywheel are in sync? Backfiring into the intake can be caused by bad valve timing. Are you running a catalytic converter? If not, some backfiring in the exhaust is not uncommon. How do you know you are rich? Do you have an a/f gauge, black smoke, soot on bumper? Do you have an O2 sensor and is it working? Exhaust can get into the car through the rear hatch seal or through the dash vents -- and almost always smells rich. Push the button to recylce the cabin air. If that eliminates the exhaust smell, then you probably do have an exhaust leak that is getting in through the vents. You can largely block that by replacing the big weatherstrip seal separating the hvac blower compartment from the engine compartment, and running with the recylce air switch on. Of course, you'll want to track down the exhaust leak to really fix the probelm. If exahust gases are getting in through the rear seal, then you may not have any exhaust leak, but rather a bad hatch seal. (Happened to me.)

shmark

Hi Tom
It was in the shop because I had a blowup at Road Atlanta. The head gasket blew and vaporized every drop of coolant out the tailpipe. The shop's job was to pull the head and check for damage, pull the pan and check under there and replace the rod bearings. Turned out there was no damage and the bearings were replaced as a matter of course.

Now I have a host of problems that didn't exist prior to the shop work. Never ever had an exhaust problem until now, both the hatch seal and hvac seal are perfect.

Timing is likely off which Vitesse will help with. No cat, Fabspeed 3" exhaust from the downpipe back, new timing belt properly retensioned by me, Uego wideband O2, Lindsey wastegate, MAF, MAfterburner setup (which will be disconnected), 55# injectors, t04b/8s turbo, and more. All the upgrades are less than 5k miles old.

I'm going to run through the vacuum setup and fuel system as Bret suggested.

shmark

The other thing it's doing is no cold idle enrichment. At cold idle it wants to run very lean to the point of stalling, until it warms up. Then it idles fine. The guys at the shop just did not know what they were doing, shame since they used to be the best shop around for these cars.

shmark

Can someone tell me in this diagram which direction is correct for the boost controller? There's an inlet and an outlet, and I'm honestly not sure which should be which, but I'm suspecting mine is wrong. I also note that the boost gauge is plumbed separately from the controller. On my car the gauge is just teed off the inlet side.

It also shows the wastegate connected under the intake manifold, a valve I'm assuming. Mine is connected to the banjo bolt off the intercooler line, as if the cycling valve was still in the mix.

I'm running through every line and connection now and it just doesn't make sense.

zerMATT951

Mark, just curious - why are you removing your Mafterburner? Are you unhappy with it?