Rock

Well after a long awaited battle, parting my first love, and building a turbo , I have began my quest for boost.

So far ive been happy as hell with the turbo, and am glad that all of the hard work with it finally paid off, however I am unsure if its running right.

Ive heard everybody who has one of these, or has ridden in one of these talk about how hard the boost hits, and how thirlling they are to drive. When I get on my car, the gauge goes to about 1 bar. I've heard that it should go to about 2 bar? Is this true? Could it be the gauge is inaccurate? When I floor the pedal, I can feel the boost hit, but once its done im just like hmmm.

Could it be that im just a stiff and have no sense of fun and the car runs right?

What do you guys think? Should I begin to check stuff?

kevincnc

Just to put your mind at rest for the night, you are not getting any boost. 1 bar is atmospheric pressure, no boost.

God help us when you do get the boost working

JET951

if you are talking about the standard 944 turbo boost gauge then you have no boost. that gauge is absolute pressure. where as most aftermarket gauges are not. so 1 bar on stock gauge really means 0 and 2 bar really means 1 bar. make sense...

WesM951

Rock,
Didn't andy say he was going to limit you lol..

The guys are right 2bar is actually 1bar because its boost over atmospheric pressure. I always freak out my friends... "dude look!!! 2BAR..woo hoo 29psi!" then they yell at me to stop before i blow the engine ahh its fun.

Peckster

When you say building a turbo, does that mean you added a turbo to an n/a?

Rock

it means that a 951 caught on fire, pulled the engine, replaced the scored block, and rebuilt the whole engine

Could it be that the guage is wrong? What things should I start to check for? Because of the situation, Andy didnt limit the boost to the car.

Rock

I can feel the attitude of the car changing upon the higher RPMS, however I dont know if its doing it as much as it should be?

special tool

Its not right. You wouldn't be asking if it was.
Are you using the cycle valve?

Rock

yeah its stock setup, still using the cycling valve. Is it also possible the wastegate is bad, it looked really rusty from the exterior, but thats not saying a lot.

WesM951

Rocky,
I wouldn't push it too hard. You may be getting more boost than you think. It could be a bad bypass valve, try the one i'm sending. I know it works.

Rock

I need one of those percise boost gauges and maybe that A-pillar gauge column, anyone know where to get?

WesM951

lotek.com sells the Apillar gauge pod and you can pickup the boost gauges anywhere.

TurboTommy

I agree with Special; it's not right. You're not making boost.
At idle the gauge should read 0,4 bar.
Maybe you're getting 3-4 psi boost at full throttle? (the gauge will read one mark above the "1"). If that's the case, your wastegate is working, but there's just something wrong with your KLR/cycling valve/Tps combo.
If you're not getting even that amount of boost, there could be a major leak, plugged exhaust, bad turbo, something installed incorrectly, broken spring in wastegate.

Chas

definitely get an aftermarket gauge, everyone with a turbo should have one.

If you aren't seeing ANY boost, i'd bet your wastegate is stuck open. To test this, wring the car out for a while, pull over and CAREFULLY feel if the wastegate dump exhaust pipe is hot...if you wastegate is stuck open, you'll have a burning hot wg dump pipe.

If the proplem is with the KLR or cycling valve, where the cycling valve is constantly passing all pressure straight to the wastegate, you'd still see anywhere from 5-8 or so psi, depending on the condition of the wastegate. I know because when I ran a straight line from IC pipe to WG, I saw 5psi all day long...it was surprisingly accurate.

So if your stock boost gauge snaps to 1 bar and no more, it really has got to be the wastegate...unless it's a major major exhaust leak, like your headers vent to atmosphere

Rock

Good info Chas and Tommy! Im going to look into that.

Like I said, the wastegate looked like a POS to begin with, but I was unsure, and have never owned a turbo before so im also unsure.

Chas, were you at that DC gtg?