HELP!

Changed the oil today, all went fine. While i was waiting for the old stuff to drain out i thought i would take the intercooler off and straighten a few of the bent fins on it.

Put it all back together and now the feckin thing only runs at half boost. Before all this i was running a strong 1 bar, with hardly any lag. Now its struggling to spool in, it seems VERY laggy and only peaks at 0.5 bar or so.

I thought i might have been leaking boost, so i take it off again, then refit. Everything is tight and mounted as it should be, still no joy.

I then thought i was in limp mode, so i reset the ECU, no error codes and still only pi$$ poor performance.

What the *** has gone wrong??

Thanks in advance!

 

have you taken off the vacumn pipe from the turbo accuator as this has a brass restrictor and if removed this will drop your boost as it pull the wastegate open
i had exatly the same problem when i rebuilt mine.

 

Thanks mate.
I did not touch anything over towards the actuator side, just undid the 3 bolts holding in the intercooler, loosened the hose clips connecting it to inlet manifold and turbo, and took the dump valve pipe off. Then the intercooler came out with a little persuasion. Refit the same way.
Do you think me pulling on the intercooler could have disturbed the vacuum pipe on the actuator?

Do you have a photo of it? LOL.

 

check for any leaks in the pipe from the compressor wheel and the t peice connecting to the accuator

sorry no pics

 

If it's the same thing I think it is, it's a small brass "cylinder" about 1 cm or so long and less than 1/2 cm thick with a tiny hole through the middle - anyone?

 

OK I have taken off the air intake (all standard by the way) to find this.....



The circles pipe on the left was found like that, and i dont know what it is meant to connect to. Also the pipe on the right of the picture circled had come off. Could these 2 have anything to do with my lack off boost?

Thanks again!

 

Still no boost

I tried disconnecting the dump valve and blanking the pipe off to see if that was leaking.....no joy, still the same.

I took the intecooler off again and CLOSELY inspected the IC to throttle body pipe and its fine. I also checked the turbo to intercooler pipe, and that too appeared to have no splits in it.

Those pipes in the pic...i reconnected the one on the right, and the one on the left goes to the air box, still no boost.

I have just removed the boost solenoid, conected the green wires in the foot well to start the solenoid going, then squirted copious ammounts of WD40 into it......some $hit came out. Whilst in there i also cleaned ALL pipes too and from the wastegate / boost solenoid / turbo with WD40.
Put it all back together and guess what?? Still no boost!!!!!!

This is beginning to *** me off! All i did was remove the IC to straighted out some fins. Is it possible i have damaged the intercooler doing this??

 

how much oil did you put in it m8 because if you over fill them even a little bit you will block you boost solonoid with oil (it gets sucked through), and voila no boost.

 

Cheers mate.
4.5 litres. Got half a litre left out of a 5 litre silkolene pro S.

I just took the solenoid off and cleaned it out, took it for a drive and still nothing.
If there was too much oil in, would the solenoid get cacked up that quickly...in a matter of 2 minutes?

 

check solonoid again m8 just incase 5min job also check vacum pipes and blow them through. The reason i sugest this is becauuse i had the same problem and ended up killing the solonoid. having said that it could be losing boost through a leak somewhere between the turbo and inlet manifold. the reason i sugested it was a solonoid problem is because it happened straight after an oil change.but 4.5 is right on.

 

Check underneath your intercooler that you have all (3) bolts holding the hose from the turbo. If one is loose or missing , it will let air out very easily on boost. You may have disturbed these taking the ic off.

 

Have you taken the I/C off again to check no splits in any of the pipework under it (y-piece)?

 

Thanks for the help BTW. Just cleaned the solenoid again and it was clean this time. No crap came out of it. Put it back together, parked on flat surface, and the oil is just over the min mark. Took it out and still no boost...seems to be getting worse.
Vacum pipes are clear...i just squirted WD40 through them, they were not blocked, although i do not have an airline.

 

Checked and all ok under there, cheers mate!

 

Just had it off again mate. Y piece? Is that the turbo to the underside of the intercooler? If so it seems to be OK. Does not look split. I gave it a good clean with petrol, and a thorough inspection. (Also cleaned the intercooler out with petrol, plenty of oil came out)

 

one last suggestion is to check the back of the boost gauge and the t piece at the other end it only takes one of the many vacum hoses to be off or leaking and no boost or very little. Incidentley m8 I know how infuriating it is with this sort of problem, but it is probably something very straight forward that you have overlooked (loose wire/ loose or split pipe) probably best to call it a day today and have a fresh look in the morning or get the lead lamp out.

 

Just ran the ECU diagnostics as a last thing to try today.
Joined the black connectors together resulting in constant steady flashes of the CEL, indicating no faults anywhere.

 

^ well that's not really bad news then, it has to be something simple.. Y piece is that horrid black plastic hose on the back of the I/C (dunno what Impreza you have, so I'm assuming here), they are a bit fragile..

Worth getting the car running and get a mate to rev it a bit whilst you listen under the bonnet, if its a leak in a pipe, you may hear something..

 

Tried that, could not hear anything. Its difficult to replicate boost when not driving.
I have a 96 WRX STI. The pipe connecting turbo outlet to IC is a blue sillicone jobbie which SEEMS ok (to my untrained eye LOL)

 

actuator gone weak????????

is the car running sweet but with minimal boost??

bob

 

Can you take a picture of the turbo meeting the blue y pipe please

.5 is default wastegate tension so the boost solenoid is not doing anything to up the boost as per the ecus command
prob is more than likely to be a "bumped" one

send pics and let us diagnose from afar

 

Yep. The car starts fine and idles great. Its perfect apart from performance akin to my dads escort diesel.

 

Ill go do that right now if i can get the lighting OK

Just want to say thanks and appreciate the time being put in with this thread.

 

I had an actuator go on me once in my rs turbo, couldnt hold boost so i took it off and could move the rod in and out with ease, replaced it with a new one and bingo! she was boosting her head off

bob

 

OK here we go.... (hope the quality is OK)

Turbo to IC pipe...



And again..



Tried to get 1 of the actuator



and the solenoid i cleaned out twice today



Hope you can do some diagnosis from those.
Cheers!

 

Everything looks fine there, i would consider your actuator m8.

 

Today i am going to try taking the pipe off the actuator.
Reason being if i take that off and get strong urgent boost then the fault must lie with the actuator / boost solenoid / related piping.
If i get poor boost then there must be either a boost leak from somewhere or the turbo has a problem and is not boosting properly.

Would this be a fair asumption? Still new to scoobys so i may be off the mark.

Also i pulled off the MAF when it was running yesterday and the car stalled, so i am assuming thats OK.

 

And as miraculously as the boost disappeared, it has now come back!!
A strong 0.9 / 1.0 bar on my lamco guage. Car now feels like an STi should!
WTF??

Anyway i would like to thank all who contributed in my time of frustration....much appreciated, even if we did not get to the bottom of the problem.

 

What Turbo hoses have you got it could be a weak hose that is collapsing under boost.

AL.

 

Sorry to jump in on the thread, Glad your motor is now fully blowing, just one quick question, your picture showing the boost solenoid, WOTF is the valve above with what looks like a filter on it? i know it goes between the manifold and the MAP sensor but what does it do?

Sorry if i'm being bumb, only has scoob for just over a month and still learning.
Thanks