ok. so some back story. had my tranny and clutch replaced last weekend. good grip and shifts like butter. last night i thought id get a better feel for it by doing some nice hard pulls and going through the gears. in doing so, i got the rpm (just once) at about 7k or just a bit past it. the stock boost gauge always read about half way at WOT. after i drove like a grandpa for about 15 min to let it cool down. thought id get on it one last time. only this time find out that the boost gauge will only get to the 0 mark. i hear the turbo spool no problem and bov when on wot but in normal driving the guage wont budge much. on WOT just makes it to 0, shift, bov is head and thats about it. dosent pull as hard anymore. idles fine, starts up fine, no smoke, the coolant buzzard did go off once, no over heat (according to stock gauge). i do have a very small coolant leak, over flow tank was a bit low so i topped it off. no buzzard nothing else outta the norm. please help. what should i be looking for?

it feels like its not getting enough back pressure or something to fully spool the turbo.

any ideas?

 

check the hose going to your wastegate. check your wastegate arm to verify its attached to the flapper (the little clip may have fallen off allowing the wastegate to stay open and not build boost)

 

Check all of the hoses and couplers between the turbo and the throttle body, but you should have done that already.

 

Sounds like a boost leak.

 

Waste gate being open wil still build some boost. My bet is the rear inter cooler hose (throttle body to IC) is leaking under pressure.

 

well after poking around a bit in the engine bay i couldnt find anything out of the ordinary. however, this issue seems to be intermittent. ill start her up. drive a bit boost is all there and gauge shows it. it makes it about half way up the bar. some times it wont get past 0.. there is no hesitation, idk im not really sure. i just the gauge not go as high as it should and think there is something up. on light loads like 20% throttle the gauge would still move and some times nothing until i WOT it and wont get past 0. other times its fine. no low end power loss but on the higher rpms like past 5k just doesnt pull as hard, still pretty good though. a mechanic mentioned to me that the butterflies in the tb could be getting stuck and not allowing it to fully open or close. i guess ill just have to add it to list of things to check out.