TeeJayHoward

10th AE. Starts sometimes. Idles sometimes. Doesn't idle other times. Loud as snark. Basically, it's a piece of crap. A hunk of junk. I'm getting very, very sick of dealing with it. (Anyone wanna buy a problem child?)

It's never had boost. I've been told it's most likely a large vacuum leak, since the compression is good and the turbo doesn't have shaft play. Well, I sprayed carb cleaner all over the engine bay looking for the leak. When I sprayed it on the fins of the top-mount intercooler, the car died and would not restart. Is there something underneath the intercooler which could leak, or should I assume that there's a crack in the intercooler itself?

jjcobm

iTrader: (18)

There is a hose under the intercooler...

vrracing

iTrader: (1)

I think everybody goes thru the vacuum leak gauntlet and the TPS trials on these cars!

Here's a thread of mine with a video that might help.

It can be frustrating. You just need to be systematic, methodical and determined.

Jim

btw, it is very odd that spraying carb cleaner on a leak would cause it to die. It should have increased in revs. Spraying flammables is really dangerous by the way.

datz

did you have to turn the e-shaft to minimize air escaping through the ports+exhaust?
10 psi, but how much flow of air through them AFM, or does that even matter?

vrracing

iTrader: (1)

We put the plug into the rubber S hose that goes from the AFM to the turbo. I think this is important because the S hoses tend to crack and leak on the bottom near the turbo.

There are writeups on how to put together the plug. As I recall it is an off the shelf PVC cap you can get at HD/Lowes. Just measure the diameter of the AFM where it plugs into the S hose and then go to HD and find a PVC plug that matches (outside diameter of the plug of course). If it is a little small you can build it up with duct tape. No really!

Here's a pict of a plug I made for my youngest's MR2 turbo.



The size was funny on the MR2 so it was a lot more complicated to do than the RX7 but the concept is the same.

I did the same thing to make the intercooler bypass pipe. It's just PVC pipe and a couple of fittings. Removing the intercooler is almost necessary since it covers so many potential leaks. I know I had to wrap the ends of the pipe with duct tape to get a good seal on that.

Air will still flow thru to the exhaust. You can address that in two ways. First you can pump a lot of air in and overwhelm any normal leakage. Or you can pick up a couple of rubber ***** that will fit in your exhaust tips to plug the exhaust. I think we were doing 20-30 psi.

One tip is to pressurize the compressor to full and then turn it off. Then open the flow of air. You'll hear the leak right away and then you can feel around for the cool breeze.

Here's a thread on our use of dry ice to look for leaks in a pressurized system. If you smoke or know someone who does that'd work too. With the 4th coming up it should be easy to get smoke bombs too.