Since late november last year my car has been sitting because I flooded my engine. I just got it fixed at kd rotary a few weeks ago. I had to get a new battery and replace the spark plugs. The engine was flooded pretty bad, but after it was cleaned out and put the new sparks in, it ran like a champ. I also had my IC pipes, UIM and intake powdercoated and installed back on when it was up there. The car was running pretty ruff when I left there, but it was nearly at empty. Dave at KD told me to go fill it up half way and put dry gas in it, which I did. Probably being at the bottom of the tank it could have been alot of water, so I did what he said and since then no problems. The only thing I have noticed is that my gas mileage has gone down alot. I am at half a tank right now and only got 82 miles out of it which is like 8 miles a gallon. I do mainly city driving, but used to get an average of 150 miles on half a tank of gas. The car is idling normal around 850, 900. The car is running strong, boosting good. I am running stock twins at 12psi, power FC, Greddy FMIC, intake, hks, downpipe, high flow cat, apexi n1 dual exhaust with silencers. The car has 61,000 miles on it. Last night I figured let me check the exhaust to see if I smelled anything funny. So I pulled into my girls driveway and kept the car running. There was no odd odor coming from the exhaust, but i did notice that when I put my hand by the exhaust that it was extremely hot. Normally especially in the cold I am able to keep my hands by the exhaust pipes and just feel warm air. I could only keep my hands there for a few seconds before feeling scolding hot air. Next thing I looked at was the downpipe, it was glowing bright orange. I turned the car off after that. I came back outside 5 minutes later just to look at the downpipe and it wasn't glowing orange anymore. I drove it home and checked the downpipe again and it was glowing orange again. The other thing that I noticed that when the turbos spool up I normally would here the turbos spooling up and then the hks bov. Now what I hear is a high pitched whistling sound as the turbos are spooling up, but the same normal sound from the bov. I'm guessing the car is running to rich, but none of the settings were changed on the Power FC. Does it sound like it is a raw fuel problem since the car is running strong? Could it be bad injectors? The only thing I did not do was to pop the hood and check to see if the turbos were glowing. So if anyone has any idea what the problem could be, please help me out.

Thanks,
Eric

 

In order for the DP to glow orange you must be getting a little to much gas, how old is that cat on the car? Maybe it got clogged, and it's backing up pressure.

 

Cats a couple years old, but I know its not that cat. If it were that it would be running like a dog. I had a bad factory cat a couple years ago. I know what that feels like. Car had no *****. I just spoke to Dave at KDR and he told me to run the tank down till the red light comes on and fill it up and then do it again, so he can get an accurate reading on what I am getting on gas mileage and take it from there. The whistling he told me I hear could just be a bad gasket at the efini pipe.

 

How is ur timing???

 

I don't have personal experience with this issue but I have read here that leaking injectors may cause the downpipe or turbos to glow like that. Try searching for leaking injector or something like that.

 

Ask Dave to check out the turbo fan; a high-pitched whine in combination with a glowing downpipe (at idle) could be the result of a turbo bearing beginning to fail. the excess backpressure will retain the heat in the downpipe, while the noise you are hearing will be the bearing screaming at 150,000 rpm.

 

I'd change the fuel filter, air filters, and have the injectors replaced or sent out to be flow-matched.

 

you most likely have a leaky injector, get them checked out. I've had the exact same problem before, that is also why your motor has been flooding, cause the injector will leak while the car isn't running due to the pressure in the fuel tank.

 

I'm not sure how the timing is. I didn't get that checked out.

 

LOL, unless you somehow managed to move the reluctor ring that is bolted to the back of the main drive pulley, i wouldn't worry about the timing; plus you would have driveability concerns along with it.

 

I will ask Dave to check that for me, but I will not be able to get him to look at it till after I get it back from the paintshop, which I am dropping off on Monday. My car was broken into and the entire passenger door is scraped up from the glass being broken. Plus there are scratches on other areas of the car that have to get fixed and i just got a fresh paint job not even 2 years ago.

As for the downpipe glowing, I did check it ad idle but that was after driving it. I never started it and checked to see if the downpipe started to glow. After I drove the car and checked the downpipe at idle it was glowing a bright orange, but as it idled I could see the glowing fading away. If the downpipe starts to glow when I start the car is that a bad sign?

Is a glowing downpipe normal at all. Dave said that the downpipe will glow a redish orange, which he said is normal.

 

Well i did just have a set of unorthodox pulleys installed.

 

Is it possible for the mapping just to be messed up and that is causing the car to run richer than normal?

 

Well, after driving, especially when driving hard, the pipe will glow. if it is glowing at idle before driving, it is running way too rich. Naturally, these engines run rich at idle, but not enough to glow the pipe. the mapping that dave and i used always had the car running about 11.4 A/F at boost levels, and on the dyno, we could always watch the pipe glow (at times, the pipe looked almost translucent...very cool to see). I feel your pain on the paint. Some *** thought it would be cool to key the entire passenger side of my BRAND NEW paintjob, cost me about 6k for the refinishing, so i'm trying to save up to have it repaired, but in the meantime, i keep spending all my money on toys!

 

Well, tonight or tomorrow I will start her up and watch the downpipe to see if it glows at idle during startup. I'll pop the hood also to see if the turbos are glowing. Sorry to hear about your paint. It really sucks when you have ******** out there that screwup your car, especially after all the time that you take to take care of it. Have fun spending the money on toys. Thats what I would be doing if I could.

 

Are there any internal modifications to your motor? a ported motor has to idle higher and richer than factory. just an afterthought

 

No mods to the actual motor.

My water temp is normal, oil temp normal, oil pressure normal. I have a fuel pressure gauge and a/f ratio gauge but they are not installed yet so no readings on those. The closest mod I have to the engine would be the anit det mod, which I know has nothing to do with this, just saying. No odor from the exhaust, but on the initial startup there is an odd smell from the exhaust. I don't know how to describe the smell, but it actually burns in your nose if you try and breathe it. After it idles down, the odor goes away. When i shut the car off there is a popping sound from the exhaust everytime now.

 

sounds a bit rich. see if dave can take a little fuel out at idle

 

I will do that. First I will check tonight to see if the downpipe glows at startup. If it doesn't glow at startup, what do you think that means. Do you think it is possible that the mapping got screwed up for the air fuel ratio on its own. Computers get messed up, so I was just thinking if that was possible.

 

I started the car last night and let it run for about five minutes before I checked the downpipe. Well the downpipe was not glowing at all during startup. I checked the downpipe after I took it for a drive, about 25 minutes, and it was glowing. When I was driving the car last night another problem started. I started to hear a rattling sound, kind of like bike chains coming from the engine. I pulled over and popped the hood, but I could not tell where it was coming from. I got to where i was going and turned off the car. When I drove it home last night it still made the rattling sound and it got louder as i got on the accelerator. I was watching the rpm's and saw that the needle was jumping all over the place. I would be at 3,000 rpms and then it would jump up to 5,000 rpms and then back down. I looked at the pfc monitor to see if the rpm's were jumping on there, and they were. I just started the car right now and the rattling chain sound was there right away. I pulled it out of my garage and popped the hood. I gave it some gas while my brother watched underneath the hood to see if he could see where it was coming from. The belts are not squeaking at all. The only thing we saw was that when I gave it gas, the traingular piece that is attached to the airpump would stop spinning. I don't know if that is supposed to do that. I have no idea what is going on with the car now. It feels like when these cars run great they are no problem, but when you have one problem it feels like it leads to one problem after the next.

 

i would get it to the shop; a problem such as this cannot be diagnosed with symptoms unfortunitly. does not sound very good; could be misfiring and detonating. i wouldn't drive it if i was you. the "triangle" piece on the airpump is the electromatic clutch, and yes, it is supposed to disengage above idle. your tach output comes from the power-fc, and it gets it's input from the coils. I don't know what else to tell you, could be the flywheel hitting something, could be internal, but i don't like seeing rpms fluxuate erratically.

 

I don't want to even drive it because of the problem. I hope it is not detonating. I did just have the unorthodox pulley set installed up at kdr. I asked Dave if it is safe to swap the ecentric pully without pulling the engine to install it and he told me he has done plenty of them. I trust dave with my car, otherwise I wouldn't be going there. I'm just wondering if with the way my luck has been lately, that something slipped down when Dave pulled the old ecentric pulley out.

 

Detonation only occurs at heavy load where the combustion pressures are great enough to cause the fuel to self-ignite. So it is not detonation.

Dave

 

Well that is somewhat of a relief. Now I just need to get it up to Dave at KD to look at.

 

Sorry, but that's just not true at all. The turbine is before the downpipe, so any pressure and heat buildup would be in the snails and exhaust manifold.

Also, they spin fast, but not that fast.

Checking that would be a waste of money IMO.