Hello, kinda stumped here.... Went out for a drive tonight, kicked the turbo in, lost all power and blew a ton of smoke out the back! pulled over and the car was still running but the idle was very low. Tried to turn around to head home, and the car died in the middle of the road (oddly smoke poured from under the hood and out of the tailpipe) Shut the car down and pushed it to a gas station (much to the anger of other drivers). When I popped the hood I immediatly found that the intercooler pipe had popped off! After a sigh of relief, I pulled out a screwdriver and put the pipe back on. Started it back up and no smoke, but the idle is surging from 1100 to 1800 rpm's as if I were sitting there revving the motor. Drove the car back to the house and it seemed to drive fine no smoke, pulled well, but I did not push it very hard either. When I got it back to the house I checked all the hoses, everything is tight. There is no water in the oil (yet) no smoke, car sounds fine except the surging idle?! along with the idle is extremely erratic AFR numbers from 12 to off the chart. seems to be in rythm with the idle. I have an M-tune setup, AFR, ICV...etc...etc are new? any suggestions?

 

There is still a vacuum or boost leak somewhere. Make sure the MAF to turbo coupler isn't leaking, ect.

I use something like this to check for leaks:

 

I made this thing for that exact purpose with the M-Tune:



It's a 3" pipe cap, a 3" to 3" rubber pluming coupler, an air nozzle and a bunch of epoxy and RTV.

Works perfectly, just take the filter off, pop this on over the silicone boot (the part that has the metal sleeve in it) and cinch it down. Then hit it with ~8-10psi from the compressor. I usually pull off the line from the MAF tree to the AOS and plug the nipple so that you don't get the constant hiss form the oil fill cap. Then, I take a spray bottle with a very light mix of dish soap to water and spray it around all the hose junctions and look for bubbles. Works great.

 

Thanks guys, went out to try this, but my air compressor is set factory at 135psi...think thats a little much to push though her . So I decided to take the intercooler pipe off again and check. I noticed that the intercooler side of the pipe lip was a little bent, no longer a perfect circle, must have happened when it popped off? So I put it back on and tightened the heck out of it. started it back up and the surge was gone, but it idled at about 2000 rpm for 1 to 2 minutes before settling back down to normal 1100. Ran great for about 10 minutes then, being an idiot, I decided to give the clamp one more good turn for good measure.......clamp broke....hunting idle is back Sooo to the auto parts store tommorow for all new clamps and a regulator for my air compressor....think I will probably go ahead and order a new pipe as well.


BTW... is it normal to smoke like that when the intercooler pipe pops off, and if so why??

 

Black smoke could be fairly normal... it means excess fuel, which would happen if you have a large boost-leak.

 

Ok, did the pressure test, worked great! Copied Crackerships design, worked flawlessly with the M-tune, thank you! Found a split hose and a few other small leaks. Put everything together with new t- clamps (highly recommend) and.... 2000 rpm idle for a minute or two, then a test drive. Ran great, got to the stop sign at the end of the road, and the surging idle was back. Drove back home put her in the garage and the idle was right where it always was at 1100. turned her off waited a minute, started her back up and the surge was back. pop the throttle a few times and the surge is gone, in short...now it is intermittent! My wise friend Bruce Arnn, made the comment yesterday that my hardpipe incident may have pushed some oil into the tps...looks like he may be right.....brand new tps too!!

 

Glad my "tool" worked out for you TPS can definitely cause idle surging. I would recommend rebuilding the throttle body with the Arnnworx kit here, if you haven't already. It's $20, it takes about an hour, and it should prevent oil from getting into your new TPS.