Hi everyone,

I have a 1998 accord w/ a Drag gen 4 turbo kit installed.

After having a new clutch installed and breaking it in nicely for 500 miles, the car's been running STRONG!

Got an oil change yesterday, all went well - drove around a bit, car pulled hard...

Today, went to work, got on the gas, car bogs once hitting boost. Took the long way to work to try some more, same problem EVERY time hitting boost. Boost gauge reads boost, A/F ratio = Rich. Check under the hood - oops, paper Tial wastegate gasket gave out - carbon everywhere showing this.

I think - OK no biggie. Search h-t - everyone says run no gasket.

Lunch time - remove wastegate, scrape off old gasket, put a small bead of copper silicone around the flange, bolt wastegate back up. Leave it until end of day.

Get in car, warm up, 1st gear pulls nice. Slow down (still in parking lot). Get into street, 2nd gear, hit gas, bogs like a ****. Try again, same result.

Go home, wait for car to cool down, remove wg again, scrape all silicone off, bolt back up, SAME PROBLEM. I'm pissed.

Is this how the car will react with a leak at the wastegate flange? It does sound louder when this happens also. I am ordering a new gasket from atpturbo.com but I'm freaked out that something else is wrong, although I don't think so.

Please help!! Any advice is appreciated!

cliff notes: car bogs when hitting boost, wastegate leak suspected, runs PERFECT w/o boost. Scared car is fucked up. Need reassurance.

Thanks.

 

bump!

 

Well any leak in the exhaust system will cause your O2 sensor to read extra oxygen content in your exhaust- This will send a "LEAN" reading to your PCM- which in response will attempt to RICHEN the AF mixture- This is turn will cause your car to bog. This happens so fast- you may not see your AF meter go lean.
Check all your gaskets on all parts of your exhaust system, wastegate flange, downpipe, exhaust mani- basically everything before your O2 sensor.

 

thanks RAWB, I went out and tried again this afternoon, keeping a very close eye on the A/F gauge, and it did look like it dipped really quickly when the car started to bog down, but it was real fast - didn't even make the red. I have copper silicone around the wastegate now and it's still doing the same fuggin thing, guess I'll have to wait for the gasket I ordered to arrive to fully rule out a wastegate leak.

Can't find any other exhaust leaks before the O2, tho I have yet to get under the car and look at the downpipe.

BUMP c'mon someone else MUST have some more input on this...

 

are you positive all your charge piping is tightly sealed? what does your egt look like when this happens, if it is running super rich as the theory above suggests, you will be running substantially cooler as too much fuel cause a reduction environment

 

It doesnt really sound like your wastegate is the culprit. Im no tuner but it sounds like a tuning issue. How is your fuel tuned? I would check that out as well.

 

I checked the charge piping again this afternoon, and it all looks sealed up fine - the boost gauge shows boost when I should have power but it just bogs bad.

I don't have an EGR gauge (yet ANOTHER reason to get one) - gonna have to invest in one this springtime.

Fuel setup is just the FMU/inline pump setup until I can afford AEM EMS.

It just seems like such an odd coincidence that I noticed that my wastegate gasket blew out and all this started happening - the day before it was running really nice. I checked out my missing link's filter today, it looks kinda black (didn't take it out - too cold) could a clogged missing link filter cause this w/o a CEL?