I was wondering if something could be wrong with a turbo even though it makes boost? My turbo spools up pretty quick but I can't feel the power come on. Really laggy and comes on slow and not hard at all. I took off the TID and it feels fine and spins freely. It's the original stock turbo w/150,000+ miles on it. Even though it boosts, could there be something wrong? It's an '89 TII, no cats, Greddy Power Extreme.

 

Grab the front of the blade and move it in and out. There should be no play whatsoever front to rear.

Are all your i/c pipes connected properly, no air leaks etc?

 

Spins freely and basically no play. Just barely but I've read that's normal. Here's a rundown of what I've done. It's been a while and my car is still subpar. Replaced the pre-cat with a dp. Thought maybe the precat was clogged. That didn't help. Then I replaced the cat with a mp. Still no difference. Replaced all the vacuum lines. Marginal improvement. Got rid of the secondary throttle plates, marginal improvement again. Not in how the turbo felt, but in overall performance. Thought it was a long shot, but maybe clogged mufflers. Got a Greddy Power Extreme and felt a little power increase. Turbo still boosted and I didn't really feel it though. Put in a Walbro to take care of fuel, so I'm not running lean. A/F guage confirms that. My Autometer boost guage will read around 8lbs but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. I'm a college student so this took a while to do. I'd say over a year or so. It's just really frustrating to do all this stuff and still have a car that doesn't even run as good as stock. I had the engine rebuilt around 50k miles ago. Compression is good and it pulls past redline way too easy. It's just I can't really feel the turbo kick in. Sorry for the length, but I'm getting desperate. Thanks for reading this. Oh yeah, my TID was replaced with a new one, so it's not that either. Intercooler pipes are connected correctly, and I'm pretty sure they aren't leaking. Oh yeah, also have an apexi bov, so that's not leaking either.