Ok, here we go. I got my car back from Haines Mazda Specialists and it drove great, I got boost from my primary turbo too! I drove it around a little bit that night, came home drove it into my driveway and it all of a suddon died. I tried to start it back up and it wouldn't, so I rolled it down my street and jumped it........well, it drove ok so I thought maybe my starter went out. Ok whatever right? Wrong! I drove it the next day and it started doing this jerky crap on me. It was very jerky like it was loosing boost or something was messed up. I heard a couple pops, so I took it home and parked it in my driveway. I looked nothing I could find out was wrong, and now I hear a growling coming from the turbo/precat area. Could there be a hole in my precat or something? or maybe something came loose. I need help cause this is very mysterious! Now it's getting no boost that I can feel and it revs to only 6000 RPM's and it sounds like I can hear turbo spool, but I get no BOV sound (I have a vented BOV). What in the heck could be the problem? I also found this above my air pump, the connector is all messed up with no connection and it was on the metal and it made a spark. Could that be a problem? Here's the picture of the airpump connector:

 

Well, chances are your wires are going to affect your airpump in one way or another. I however don't know what they do..

If the airpump is not, or has not been working... You may have fried your Cat converter, and this may be contributing to yout bucking car/boost issues.

 

come on! Someone please help me on this, I really need help on what the problem is. Don't worry about the car not starting, I think that's my starter, but think of the other problems.......especially the boost problems!

 

well could a hole in the precat or clogged precat cause this problem too?

 

A hole in the precat would make a funny sound... But I would think you would boost like CRAZY. I dunno..

 

o and the car has no power too! I can't get it to go fast at all, can't get it into 3rd gear really. It just bogs down. And like I said, it wont REV past 6000 RPM's.....could a ECU problem exist?

 

what about a clogged precat? Wouldn't that make pretty much no boost?

 

No power could be a LOT of things... But I see the airpump not working... and the cat being clogged. Hopefully someone can chime in here and help determine whether that wire will affect the airpumps functioning.

 

Yes... Clogged precat could too!

 

I believe the precat is only reliable for around 60k miles. Id say invest in a downpipe, it will also keep some heat out of the engine bay. Infact, mazda elminiated the pre-cat in new cars and just installed a downpipe. good luck

 

I find it unlikely that your precat would just all of a sudden clog up like you are describing. Are you getting a check engine light? Try pullin the trouble codes and see if you have anything there. That should get you started.

 

One of those wires supplies 12 volts to the air pump. If it's the frayed wire, then your electrical system will short-circuit anytime it rumbs up against something grounded. You can test this by rubbing the frayed wire against anything metal (it should all be grounded in that area). If you see sparks, then that is the 12V lead. Even if it's not, you should wrap both of the wires on that connector separately with electrical tape and them wrap them together with some more tape. I suggest taking off the IC pipe to ease the operation. If the wire is too frayed to carry 12V (i.e. only a couple copper strands are unbroken), then you may need to re-splice the connector or splice on a new connector. You main cat will not clog in just a few days without the airpump.

 

Yes, obviously fix that wiring! Maybe you blew a fuse or something when it grounded out. Check your underhood fuses (near the positive battery terminal).

 

Well, Jonski, actually this frayed wire has been there for about 3 weeks. Would that cause the clog? And would the airpump cause this horrible driving situation? I checked the oiland it's pretty black. I think I need to change the oil and I already have a 3" downpipe, I just have to install it. It's sad because my can can barely make it up the hill in 2nd gear. It even has trouble in 1st. Would ECU be problem? Or is there a turbo problem here?

 

Did you check for trouble codes yet? Or blown fuses?

 

I really don't know what is going wrong. I'm pretty sure that even three months without an airpump would not clog the cat, unless it was already in bad shape. Something I forgot to mention about the testing of the hot wire is that you need to have the car running in order to test for sparks.

 

Hey Jonski! I just looked at the manual, and it shows the air pump clutch operates when both leads are grounded through the relay. Does this mean there is an internal coil in the air pump that is powered by the outer ring rotation, and this is what makes the sparks? So grounding the clutch engage wires would be allowing current to pass through a coil that is excited by the rotation of the outer pully, and this coil in turn engages the clutch? Kinda neat, huh? Doesn't put a drain on the alternator, just the usual drain on the crank!

 

well I will just install the downpipe and I want to take off all my hoses and check everything to see something. Also, I checked my oil and it was pretty black and kinda watery looking. It's got me really scared right now. I will have my dad take a look at it with me today, so we can find out if it's what I'm fearing.......another seal failure may be at hand. Let's all cross our fingers and hope that it's not!

 

I thought you had a brand new reman put in when you bought it? Also, what do you mean by 'watery'? If you have coolant in your oil, it will be a milky brown sludge, since oil and water will not mix. If its just black and thin (low viscosity), its probably just diluted with fuel.

 

then that may be what it is.....is that bad and how can that be fixed or is that normal? And yes it's a brand new rebuild with onlu 800 miles on it. So it's pretty much broken in right? I was going to take it to 1000 miles just to be really safe and now this. I think something just came loose and it'll probably be something fairly easy to fix....then again it may be something extremely complicated.........Wait, How did fuel get in there?

 

It's fairly normal for the oil to get diluted with fuel. As long as its not too much!

 

well how do I know if it's too much? Cause it didn't have a strong fuel smell, I did get a faint hint of fuel smell but obviously not enough because I didn't know that it was fuel.....lol. SO it should be ok then right? Please say yes, but be truthful..lol.

 

o and thank you to everyone for giving info here and helping me. =) and to anyone who posts in future.

 

Ok, I think you need to fix the messed up wire going to the air pump. Then look under the car, there is a hardline thats about .5" or so thick that goes to the cat, that is how the cool air gets to your cat, check to see if its hooked up, it might be whats causeing the noise. More than likely though your cat is cloged, I'd replace it and the pre cat, with that many miles and it not having the airpump working it wont hurt to replace them.

Pull the pre cat and cat to see if they are cloged, if so replace them....even if they arent I'd still replace them. Then fix the wire on the air pump. Then check all your gounds to make sure there were hooked up right when everything was installed.

Also, I'd replace the O2 sensor (since its prob the stock one) and make sure the ground wire is hooked up. The computer tuned your car in closed loop mode based on O2 sensor readings. That could be whats making your car die when you stop, also what makes it jerk around under light load.

STEPHEN