Richard Ginski

Please excuse the bandwidth.
I have had my 1988 944 Turbo for About 2.5 years now. I have had a lot of work done on the car (from my perspective. I feel I've spent more time fixing/modifying the car than enjoying the car. All I want for Xmas is a realiable, quick, goodlooking (already is) car. I basically have two questions. Any help is appreciated:

1) I have an AC leak that mechanics can't seem to figure out. They think they fix the problem and pump coolant back into it. It works great for a month. Then I hear a little hissing when I'm driving it. The next thing I know, I'm blowing warm air. Unfortunately, I'm not mechanically inclined, and this problem has cost me about 2,000 in repairs that have not fixed the problem. They (mechanics) claim they put a dye in the coolant so that the leak can be located.

2) My second problem I suspect is a fuel shortage problem: I have a some mods to the car: Widefire headgasket, "O" ringed, Lindsey dual port wastegate, KLR EVC, APE chips, tri-flow SS exhaust, and K&N filter. I am getting detonation (pinging) at 1.15 bar boost setting. Even occasional detonation at 1.05 bar. However, I don't think I ever reach those boost levels. According to the LCD boost display I barely reach .90. During acceleration, I feel that I'm on the verge of making some decent horsepower (car begins to pull well at around 4k but it's brief). I feel I'm not accelerating any better than prior to the wastegate and EVC.

To increase power and widen the powerband, what do you recomment that I do? Could someone tell me what I should expect with this current set-up? What would give me the most bang (figuratively) for the buck? (Please keep in mind that the car is a daily driver and an occasional day tripper.)

Also, are there any mechanics in my area (Clearwater, Florida) that REALLY (proven) know their stuff about these issues? (PS: I'm tired of mis-diagnosis: Paying for repairs that don't fix problems.)

Dan87951

Richard,
You are pinging with those mods?! Wow! Do you have a manual boost controller? As you stated your car is pinging at .9 bar which is 13.23psi of boost. First off is your car timed correctly (have a timing belt changed recently)? What kind of fuel are you running? Should be premium gasoline. Also do you have an adjustable fuel pressure regulator installed? Do you have a MAF or anything like that? Also do you have any gauges such as a Air to fuel gauge? If so what are the readings on this gauge? There is also a DME trick to richen the mixture as high as 6% I believe. The link is here:DME trick. If you need any help please email me at cool@cass.net I would be more than happy to try and help you. Also what shop did you take your car to?

Dan87951

Oh yeah to look for a good mechanic in your area try this link.

rage2

I spent about 5 years and lots of money trying different chips, air filters, wastegates, banjo bolts, power enhancers, wastegate controllers, and all sorts of other nonsense. What have I learned? The K26 stock turbo sucks. It does EXACTLY what you described. Starts to build power, around 4000rpm it starts dropping in power, by redline it's only pushing 0.5bar. Results may vary due to altitude of course, as the turbo is maxxed out. I even made my boost controller leave the wastegate shut to let the turbo overboost. I hit 17psi at around 4000rpm but it quickly drops afterwards.

Get a new turbo, and matching fuel control (chips or standalone). The results there are dramatic to say the least.

What I've learned is all the products out there designed for improving boost pressure doesn't help until you change the stock turbo. From a stock car, the banjobolt/chip, Lindsey Boost Enhancer/chip, or Manual boost control/chip will give you the same amount of power. After that mod, you're throwing money away until you replace the turbo.

Dan87951

Rage,
I think your KKK26 must have been tired. My KKK26 makes max boost at 3400rpms with the mods listed below. I shimmed my wastegate and I could spike my boost all the way to 20psi and towards redline it would tapper off to around 14psi. I normally run it at 16psi and it pulls really well ever since I shimed it. The APE chips should be mapped to his car pretty well. Richard get a SFR or Huntley Racing Mass Air Flow system they come with the fuel controller and you can tune it to your engines needs.

rage2

Quite possible. Also, I'm at 3500ft elevation so when the turbo gets maxed I won't be getting as much boost as others at sea level. With my K26, my best run at 3500ft elevation was a 13.9s down the 1/4. Works out to low 13's at sea level. That to me is slow (my friends have pretty powerful japanese turbo cars...)

Also, what gauge were u using? The dash gauge is highly inaccurate, found that out when I hooked up a real boost gauge to test my boost in the car back then.

Dan87951

I have a autometer boost gauge that I was using.

Richard Ginski

First I'd like to thank everyone to who posted a reply. It's nice to know there's people out there who's willing to help...or at least share.

There were a lot of questions...so I'd like to answer them for those who asked:

1) Unless the APE chip is doing anything, there have been no modifications in the area of fuel. In other words, no FPR or MAF.

2) I am running 93 Octane (it's mainly a street driven car).

3) I only have stock gauges (except for the LCD boost guage on the HKS electronic boost controller).

4) Regarding .90 boost. The HKS is set to 1.15 and 1.05 bar (high and low settings). But the LCD guage on the HKS appears to only reach .90 bar.

5) Regarding the timing belt, it has not been recently replaced. It's not due to be changed for another 15,000 miles. Also, the tension was recently (a couple months ago) checked.

6)I am not sure if the timing is properly set or not. I am assuming that the mechanic has checked that when he checked the belt (I know....I know).

Also, the knock sensor will shut the engine down when the pinging gets bad. (I try to avoid pinging.)

Luke

It took my KLR more than a week to start cutting feul back. I was making 20 lbs for almost two weeks (on stock chips) before i started hitting the fuel cut off.
BE CAREFUL!