heres the deal. i installed my own turbo kit a few weeks ago and i still cant get the boosted experience. at first, i thought it was a boost leak because ever since i took it for the first test drive, all i experienced was very little power. i mean WAY less than it was before the install. i could hear the turbo spooling very loud and a quiet flutter from the blow off valve. well, to try and fix the boost leak, i bought some t clamps to replace the worm gear clamps i was previously using. still the same problem. could i possibly be loosing exhaust energy from a leaking turbo manifold or something? how can i tell if my manifold is leaking? the setup im running is an obx 304ss manifold, t3/t04e turbo,35 mm wastegate(7 psi), custom 2.5 inch intercooler piping, fmic, bov, 12:1 fmu, custom 2.5 inch downpipe, boost and air/fuel ratio guage. as you can tell, all i have is the basics to give me a little boost.


Modified by lazyeyez at 6:36 PM 1/31/2005

 

another thing i just noticed was that the turbine wasnt spinning while idling. is that normal?

 

Is the AFR gauge a wideband or narrowband? In either case, are you getting excessively lean or excessively rich conditions?

You have a boost gauge but you haven't said anything about how much boost you made. Are you reading any boost?

Does the car sound loud? If so I would look for an exhaust leak, probably between the manifold and the turbo or between the wastegate and the manifold.

From what it sounds, the turbo is working just fine, you just have 1 of the 2 following problems:

1) Really bad boost leak. If your boost gauge is reading nothing, and you can hear the turbo whine, this is likely the case. Triple check the connectors in the intercooler pipes and make sure your BOV is actually closed when no vacuum is applied to it.

2) AFR's too rich or too lean. If you are using a narrowband AFR, you really can't tell if the engine is just a little rich or very rich, and the same in the lean category. If your boost gauge is reading boost, and you aren't getting any power, this is likely the case. Pull your spark plugs. If they are white, you are waay too lean and you need to correct it before you melt a piston. If they are black, you are waay rich and you need to drop down to a 10:1 or less FPR.

Turbine not spinning at idle is normal.

 

well, the boost guage is an autometer, if that helps determine whether its a narrow or wideband, i dont know. but the boost guage does read about 8psi max. no more, even when i have it floored on low rpms in 2nd and 3rd. when the guage sticks to the reading of 8psi, i feel and hear a small put, kind of like a backfire. i was thinking it was the wastegate trying to open, since it has around a 7 to 8 lb spring. im assuming what your saying is that if i had an exhaust leak, the noise would be noticable, correct? if so, then i dont believe the exhaust is my problem.

 

a little help please?