Wompa164

iTrader: (4)

OK, I've reached my wits end and I'm begging for everyones help.

Here's the story: I went to start my car on Friday morning and got the dreaded 'low coolant' buzzer. I've never had problems before - no smoking, great water temperatures (always <=85*c), etc.

I picked up some distilled water and cracked the filler neck. The filler neck was visibly empty, but it didn't take much to fill it. My overflow was bone dry as well, so I filled that up. I took the car for a test drive, watching my PFC water temp and water temp gauge like a hawk. My temperatures were perfectly normal, but I was still incredibly worried. I looked for leaks under the car or in the engine bay, but I couldn't manage to find anything.

I was out later that night driving my car with some buddies, continuing to watch my water temperature gauges like crazy. I pulled over to check under the hood, and once every 2-5 seconds, I noticed a sizzling sound followed by a tiny puff of smoke. It looked like it was coming near the secondary turbo, very close to the engine/manifold. After poking my flashlight around, I saw what appeared to be a small ring of fizzling water coming from the joint inbetween the secondary turbo and the banjo bolt for the coolant hardlines.

I started searching on the forum to begin researching the probable leak locations, but then I started hearing some very bad news - if the leak is coming from where I think it is, you have to remove the complete turbo assembley to replace the faulty hardline/copper crush washer.

I checked the 'usual suspects' (the two turbo coolant hoses) with ease (no emissions equipment) and found nothing wrong. I also have no coolant lines running to my throttle body (thermowax and double throttle removed) and found nothing wrong. I pulled my UIM to see if there was anything I was missing, but I couldn't find anything. Reassembling everything, I accidently cracked my passenger headlight cover by leaning on it (ugh) and I'm worried I didn't reassemble everything correctly (I suffer from obsession and anxiety).

I couldn't find anything visibly leaking. I jacked up the car and crawled under and noticed the rear part of the subframe was visibly spotted with coolant (green blots), so I looked upward and found that directly above was the secondary turbo coolant hardline/banjo bolt. I noticed that water was collecting on the hardline, running down, and dripping onto part of the hot exhaust manifold below. I guess that explains why I didn't notice any leaks, but only heard the sizzling and saw the steam rising up - the coolant has been dripping and burning up right away. The only other place that I could imagine the leak coming from is possibly the coolant outlet on the rear rotor housing that connects to the throttle body (which I'm assuming has just been capped off because that's been eliminated), and might be dripping/spraying onto my suspect area.

So now I have no idea what to do. This is really frusturating because the turbos are only one year old (they're the 'new' BNR Stage 3s), and the real kicker is that they were purchased from and installed directly by Bryan at BNR Supercars when the previous owner had the new engine/turbos done by Bryan. I'm currently in college and I live 200 miles away from my mechanic, and there are absolutely no other FD owners in the area, nor are there any local shops I can trust to fix my problem.

I have 2 options and plenty of questions:

- Enlist a friends help to tow the car back to Dallas (expensive and time consuming) and have my shop repair the car, whatever needs to be done.

- Top off my cooling system and drive the car back to Dallas, watching my PFC commander and water temperature gauge the entire time and praying.

Questions:

- If it's a worn-out copper crush washer or a pinhole leak in the coolant hardlines, would driving 3 hours back to Dallas be too risky if I filled up beforehand? Am I risking enlarging the leak/hole along the way and running dry and frying my coolant seal?

- If I was to begin to run dry, would I notice it immediately in my coolant temperatures and allow me to pull over and fill up again?

Regarding my UIM removal/reinstall paranoia:

- As I was unhooking the TPS, I believe I accidently adjusted the front nut (preload?) by about a quarter turn. When you unhook the TPS / mess with the UIM / anything else, do you need to readjust/recheck it or anything like that? When I had my Haltech with my old FC, I remember having to recalibrate the TPS. I have no idea how to properly check/adjust or calibrate the TPS or anything like that (I know nothing about it period) - is there anything I need to check or do? More to say, how would I know if it was improperly adjusted?

- Does anyone have a general rule of thumb on how tight I should tightening the t-bolt clamps for my silicon couplers on my intercooler hoses? It's the first time I've ever delt with those, so I have no idea how to judge it.

Thanks to anyone that's actually read this thread. I'm really desperate for answers here, and I'm reaching out for everyones help.

Thanks a million!