Problem after problem, what now?!?
 

Okay, this is what my week has been like.

I figure out I have a fuel leak and people are saying it is the fuel pulsation dampener. I go ahead and do that myself and it takes 4 days and was annoying and frustrating. So finally once I got the new FPD in, I started replacing my vac hoses for my rats nest which I believe I hooked everything up right.

I start the car and everything is working. I am happy finally after 4 days of working it's running. I bring the car around the block for a test drive and I see smoke coming from under the engine. Pull the car in and turn it off pop the hood and I see coolant coming from the upper radiator hose.

So today I go a pickup an oem hose and replace it. Start the car up and everything is running fine so far. Take the car out and do a little drive and the car seems to be running fine. Water temp on the PFC runs around 80-93C (that's where it should be right?)

I take it on the freeway to test out everything else, I do a WOT run and primary turbo working fine and then when the 2ndary turbo is supposed to kick in, the boost dies to around 6-7psi and holds there. When I let off the gas, it makes a "wiffle" or "waffle" sound. It's too dark to take a look at the car, but boost is fine in the lower end, but when the 2nd turbo comes in, boost dies a nd holds aroudn 6-7psi.

Anyone know any kind of thing I could check tomorrow or is there anything on the rats nest that I could have done wrong that would affect the boost?

What a crappy day, I'm about to bring it to a shop pretty soon and just let them fix my baby up if it's under the UIM again.

charge relief valve malfunctioning?

Everything was working perfectly before I went diving into the engine to fix the FPD so something has to either be hooked up wrong or something isn't working right. Some of the solenoids broke while I was unhooking some vac lines but we were able to superglue them back, but it could still be a possibility?

The glue could've blocked air on the inside of the solenoid or failed allowing air to leak.

You won't know until you take another look at it.

It's definitely related to your silicone vacuum hose job. I recommend getting some good used solenoids to replace the broken/glued ones, you can find them here for pretty damn cheap. Also, you'll have to double check all the vacuum hose routing, you may have mixed something up, it's easy to do.

+1

that happened to me once. it was a loose intercooler pipe.

^ That too, but I'm under the impression this is a result of what he just worked on.

Ugh, I wonder how much it would be for my rotary mechanic to just bring the car to him and have him double check everything and change some things around. How much do you think this would cost? He wanted $200 or 2hr's of labor to change the FPD so I'm thinking possibly an hour of work + parts if he needs to replace some of the solenoids?

One hour of labour to pull the UIM and replace some solenoids? My guess would be that the estimate would be in the four to five hour range. Hopefully, I am wrong. And there is no guarantee that replacing the solenoids will fix the problem if some hoses are misrouted.

Low secondary boost can be caused be loose couplers so I would try to make sure that it is not something simple like that first.

I think there are two major possibilities:
1) Misrouted or unconnected hose

2) Damaged or nonfunctioning solenoid.

I lean heavily on 1), but because you said you glue repaired some solenoid nipples I can't rule out 2).

I would spend an hour or two with possiblity #1, and start by looking for loose couplers and stuff. Then poke around looking at vacuum lines - the ones you don't have to remove the UIM for. Verify all of them against the vacuum hose diagram. Then if you haven't found the issue, it's your choice whether to bring it to the mechanic or keep going.

Don't worry, you'll get there. It's stomping the last bug or two that really tests your patience.

Dave

I had the same problem after I did my vacuum hose job, don't let the car win :)
Check the following things completely, be sure to feel that everything is connected as when I finished my hose job I found hoses that looked connected but somehow were not....

- Check both green turbo control solenoids (Diagram solenoids I and J) are connected with the proper connectors, check the FSM for the wire colors I can't remember them off the top of my head. Double check these hoses are on well, I zip tied mine since they kept blowing off.

According to the hose wiring diagram....

- Check Solenoid E
Make sure the top hose thats pulling a "U" turn is not kinking, this needs to flow well. Make sure the hose on the bottom of this solenoid is connected, I believe it connects to the underside of the solenoid and its extremely easy to miss.
- Check solenoid F
Make sure all three hoses are connected at both the solenoid and their destination
- Check solenoid H
Once again, this solenoid has 3 hoses, check and double check.

Look at the diagram and locate each check valve, make sure you have these in place and they are facing the correct direction. I would recommend replacing these anyway If you have not already. Dale Clark sells some nice Viton ones, work great and are cheap. I also recommend replacing those glued solenoids, I know alot of people do this but if you like me you don't want to ever have to come back to this part of the car :)

Good Luck!

Hmm ok, so it was a loose coupler lol. On my right intercooler pipe into my elbow, the coupler wasn't attached right. I redid it and full boost and the car is running great! Then on the way home from taking my dad to look at a car, fluttering boost again. When I get home, pop the hood and I see some wetness by that same coupler so that is my problem. Letting the car cool down and then going to fix it and take it for a run.

Thanks for all the help guys, I'll let you know and I'm glad it was as small as a coupler type mistake and not under the UIM *knock on wood*

Hm, okay well now I am just confused. I went to fix my coupler and I still have the problem and to make things worse (I hope not) when I let off after a WOT run I saw white smoking coming from the back of my car for a couple of seconds.

I attached some pictures to show you which coupler I think is loose. Sorry for blurry pic

Buy some couplers and t-bolt clamps from atpturbo, they stock all that stuff and ship fast:

http://www.atpturbo.com/Merchant2/me...egory_Code=CLA

Do you think this could be the problem? I am thinking this could be it but I don't know for sure. I'm thinking when I took the elbow off that the coupler was pushed down into the IC which stretched the coupler out?

When I had a leaky coupler the sound was not fluttering, and there was no white smoke but......Hopefully this is all thats wrong :)

Go to Home Depot and buy a coupler there, 3 dollars max. Put it on and if the problem goes away than order a nice coupler, If it does not.....well.

So my FD is retarded or something because the car is running fine and boosting great after doing nothing to it. I just don't understand this car sometimes....

Ok, I really have no idea what is going on now. Driving back from dinner, I have the same problem again with the 2ndary turbo. Could this be a bad 2ndary or what? I just don't understand why it is working on and off

Are you going to make a new post after every trip now :wink: ?

Have you checked the vacuum hose routing and replaced the superglued solenoids like I recommended back in post #5? I know it sucks, but you'll probably have to get back under the UIM.

Bullcrap lol, I don't want to do that again, but I guess I'm going to have to. All the vacum hose routing should be correct because my dad and I double checked it and then triple checked it because we did not want to go under the UIM again. To me, it has to be one of the broken solenoids because if it's happening on and off like it is, it wouldn't be a hose or else it would flutter and not get full boost all the time correct?

I just don't know which solenoid I'd have to replace or if they are the cause of the problem. The one I asked was $85 for one of the solenoids.

So confused right now, adjusted the coupler going into the IC and now I boost fully. Seems like every time I adjust the IC coupler it boosts full and works fine until a couple of rides and then goes back to fluttering. :confused:

I got all those solenoids for about 60 dollars, look in the for sale section theres plenty of people that go single and sell the set.

You're going to be running around in circles (and adding needlessly to this thread) if you don't just step up and take care of each possible cause for your boost problem. In other words, get a proper clamp, examine the IC coupler carefully to ensure that it is fully seated on both sides, tighten the clamp(s), and then see if the problem arises again. If it does, then you're going to have to dive underneath the UIM again and replace those solenoids that you glued together, along with checking and double-checking your hose routing.