Pull the filters and use the hose clamps to clamp thick plastic bags over the pipes. Spray soapy water everywhere. Apply pressure to an available vacuum nipple (with a vacuum hose and an air spray tool). Look and listen.

Putting a rag in the exhaust apparently makes it work even better. Come to think of it, you might even be able to look for exhaust leaks while you're at it if you do this...

 

just setup exactly what you said and started applying compressed air, I’m hearing a ton of air venting from somewhere near the spark plugs but I’m not able to spray or see what’s making that noise, do you have any idea what down there can be causing that?

 

put some tubing in your ear and use it to listen for the source of the sound? tape the end of the hose to a rod if you have to.

it's probably not that far down... check your throttle body and elbow? that's the closest potential source of a major boost/vacuum leak to the spark plugs.

 

I’ll give that a try, thanks. Say my engine doesn’t have any vacuum leaks, how long should it hold pressure? Because right now it won’t hold for more than 10 seconds.

 

It depends on how well everything is plugged and the position of the rotors, but generally it'll hold for a few seconds even with a pretty big leak.
it might hold for a minute or more if everything is perfect... probably even longer if you use a real boost leak tester.

 

You were right. I got a tube and it’s coming from the right side of my throttle body.

 

Update, that initial leak was from my throttle body gasket going to my intake elbow, I took it off and re seated it and there’s still a slight leak so I’m definitely due for a gasket. Would that cause all my issues, or is there still something to blame for?

 

 

If it's not leaking anywhere else, get a new gasket and fire her back up...

 

Buy the way, you can buy OEM car parts on Monotaro.com. Much faster than going through dealers.

 

outstanding.... good call valkyrie

 

Hopefully that's all it was! Wonder why it would show up all of the sudden, though.

 

maybe that o ring between the elbow and throttle body completely gave out. ive seen them turn to actual plastic before. may be the case here

 

That o-ring would have nothing to do with the vacuum reading. You can run the car with the elbow off completely and the vacuum will not be 0

 

[QUOTE=Banzai-Racing;12568856]That o-ring would have nothing to do with the vacuum reading. You can run the car with the elbow off completely and the vacuum will not be 0[/QUOTE

He is right. My car was having the exact same symptoms at idle with the corrected elbow gasket. Say my engine was blown. I had bad blowback and that was why my vacuum readings are really low (bouncing around 50-100mmHg). Would that issue be present at all RPMS? (Shaky engine, running rich, poor revving, trouble under boost…)

 

It honestly looked to be in good shape. There was slight crimping but I didn’t see anything major, it was fairly new as well. Too bad this wasn’t related to my problem. Just more one more thing wrong with my very broken car it seems lol

 

[QUOTE=philiprivers;12568857]You can actually make pretty good power with a blown engine. I don't think that's the issue at all.
It could just as easily be an ignition issue.

 

[QUOTE=Valkyrie;12568865]Thank you for the suggestion. Off the top of your head do you know any ways to test for that?

 

Like I said, check that your plugs are firing strongly and in the right order.
Take a slow-mo video of your plugs firing, grounded to the chassis. Or use a spark tester and have someone crank the car for you.
Disable fuel injection beforehand...

Dead ignition coils aren't that uncommon with FDs.

Also might need to pull the UIM and check that the injectors aren't leaking (which involves strapping the injectors to the rail).

But to be honest, it's probably something else, like a loose battery cable or ground...

 

when I first started troubleshooting I was running the car and pulling plug wires to see if the issue was worse or the same and when I pulled my L2 it was nearly the same. So I changed my spark plugs (pitch black from carbon build up). Didn’t work. While my UIM was off for replacing my air temp sensor I put new plug wires and my L2 plug wire was broken off inside the coil. I thought this has got to be my issue! Sure enough started the car and it was still broken. I will check the coils with a multi meter and see if they are reading within spec.

 

Pull both of your trailing plugs and try this again... Pulling L2 should have made a much bigger difference.
Pulling the trailing plugs will basically make no difference if the leading plugs are working right.
The car will still start (but run very, very badly) on one rotor. But it will also run terribly if one rotor is only getting leading spark.

 

Do a compression test

 

pulled my trailing plugs and the car wouldn’t even start. Starting to look like bad coils.

 

didn’t you just say the wire was broken?…

edit: n’ermind…

 

Just completed the Ohm’s check on my leading coil and the multimeter wasn’t able to go to 20000 only 2000 and it read 12.xx