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Oh if you can play with timing but not fuel, definitely increase timing. 2-4 degrees will give you a giant jump in power, requiring more fuel, which you already have. So definitely increase timing.
Ha, yes blowing things up with band aids is the concern here. I am at the point where I don't want to foul plugs with too much fuel, but really don't want to maximize this set up due to it being a piggy back. I will try adjusting my timing wheel slightly to see if that evens out my AFR reading. I appreciate the comments Curly. I know MT.net hates piggy back systems, so this must be tiring to see repeatedly.
My friend ran pig rich on his older, adjustable, doodoo box fir a long while. He was changing plugs every other week. (Cause he wouldn't listen to me and was afraid to twiddle the pots in the box). No harm otherwise done it seemed.
We are talkig like, 10:1 any time he was in boost kind of rich, btw. You 12 and occational 10 aren't too bad. Heck, my NA6 would run 12.4:1 tapering down to 11.9, WOT when it was stock.
Thanks for the input. I just turning my timing wheel up a tiny bit per Curly's instruction, I will see what kind of impact that has this afternoon when I can put some miles on it.
Update on my alignment and adjusting timing. I went and bumped the timing a couple of degrees to see how that would work. It did indeed help, car ran great, but I still would drop into low 10's and maybe touch 9 AFR at peak RPM. So there is a bit more adjustability to be had. However it seemed to hold the 11.5-12 AFR for most of the rev range, then drop near peak boost/rpm.
The fun story was on the way to my alignment, the car was smoking bad. I pulled over and it looked like my brake fluid reservoir cap came slightly loose? So I figured it was burning off on the mani as there was some fluid splashed around. The smoke got worse so I limped it the last miles to the alignment shop as I couldn't find the culprit. 1.5 miles from the shop my oil gauge pegged 0 and I shut it all down and pulled over. A nice man drove me to town for high quality gas station oil. The wheels, underside of car, engine bay, frame rails, everything was soaked and dripping oil. Apparently my car decided it didn't like oil anymore.
I filled it up and drove to the shop 1.5 miles away to try and get it on a lift. Lo and behold, my new oil return line decided to back itself off, it was barely on there. This is the new line I just installed and tightened down. Mind you this drove perfect on Saturday with no leaks. I am not sure if I should put some sealant or something in there to hold it tight going forward. Also, my oil dip stick is not bolted on, apparently when I bent the water pipe near the firewall I lost the ability to bolt it in and it was flopping all over, since its just an O ring down there, that might be spilling oil as well.
All in all I got very lucky, car ran and drove perfect all the way home, and got a nice bath. Or as the alignment shop said, "you got that free undercoating" . Alignment specs are as follows:
Front Camber -3.5L -3.4R
Front Caster 5.4L 5.4R
0 toe
Rear Camber -2.6L -2.7R
Rear Toe .03L .04R.
All in all very pleased. 10/10 would do again, just not dump my oil on the hwy.
Sounds perfect, I wouldn't adjust timing further, sounds like the rev range you're in most often (midrange) is good, and it's just near redline that's rich? If you can't adjust fuel, that's just as perfect as you're going to get it.
Is this a -AN drain line? Should be finger tight then a 1/8-1/4 turn. I've never had one back off. As for the oil bath, use ~50 cans of brake clean, especially around the dip stick tube, or you'll never know if it's truly leaking, or anything else for that matter.
Alignment looks about perfect. If you want a more stable rear end, shoot for ~.1 toe per side, if you want a super darty unpredictable missile, shoot for 0 rear toe. So you're closer to unpredictable missile, so keep that in mind. If you feel like the car wants to step out too easily, try for a small rear toe adjustment as long as the alignments aren't $200.
Curly, yes, it was a -AN line that drains the turbo to the pan. I was quite shocked it was loose as I believe you mentioned the correct tightness to shoot for earlier in my thread. I gave the car a soap/water bath last night in my driveway, I will have to get under it again with some harsher cleaner to scrub it better.
I will have to test out the alignment on the track to see how it feels. There is going to be a lot of toying and adjustment this season as I have more camber, the ability to go lower, an adjustable wing, and a splitter I will be running. I will keep in mind your comment about toe in case I do see some twitchiness. I appreciate the comments.
Quick update. I took the car out and it was colder, 40 degrees or so. I did hear a little pinging at high load/rpm, so I adjusted the timing back down from where I had it. I think going forward I will reduce the boost slightly to sit at 5psi so I have a safety factor built in for future track use. After the timing was reduced, I took it for a spin and it worked great. No leaks, ran perfect. I did some hard highway pulls on the way home and when I pulled off the interstate I had a flashing CEL and pulled a P0300 code, the Misfire.
We have some not so pleasant weather coming up so the car is most likely going to be garaged a few days, I wonder if due to running rich I fouled my new plugs. From my reading so far it sounds like plugs, wires, coil pack are typical places to start. I was going to pull the plugs to start and see how they look. The car never had issues running, stumbling, starting, etc. I will research more, but I think a good start is check the plugs, perhaps toss on new wires.
I swapped the Cam sensor, new plug wires, checked plug gap (re set to .03) and went for a hard drive. Car worked great, no pending codes. I 'think' I heard a tiny ping a few times at high load, car is running 7psi and AFRs seemed spot on. So I am not sure why I would be getting pinging. It could be 91 octane or older gas from last fall still going through. I am going to put 93 in it, turn boost to about the 6psi mark, and start running it hard to look for any other potential issues that may crop up. I will flush the crap oil out and put my Rotella back in and swap the fuel filter before the first track day as well. Car seems to be running quite well, haven't seen any overheating, boost spikes, high AFRs etc. So fingers crossed that I can button a few more things up and go racing in a month.
Update. Car has been working well, however after a drive there is a puddle of oil.
I have a catch can on the intake manifold side, typical DIY system. I added a second on the hot side following the new catch can thread. That one goes from the valve cover to the can, then back to the pipe heading to the intercooler. There is no oil in that can, no oil in the pipe itself, so the turbo isn't spitting out oil. The oil is leaking out of my vertical intercooler pipe that goes from the intercooler to the intake manifold. It is almost like its being pulled up, then dripping back down and seeping through the connections.
If my understanding is correct, the only thing that could have oil there is if the intake manifold is so full of oil its literally spilling out of the throttle body, OR the intercooler was filled with oil from the donor car and im pulling it through? I am going to try and yank some piping today to have a look, but does anyone have any suggestions on if the manifold can actually drain oil?
I'd be more apt to think a turbo seal went and is blowing oil into your IC if there is a puddle of oil under the car. Pull your coupler off the compressor housing and verify no oil showing there first is what I would do.
Edit: I can't read. I've never seen oil come out of an IM before.
Here are a few pictures of my routing as I figured I would confuse people.
The oil shown was pooled post intercooler, where the pipe goes vertical to get to the TB. Here are engine bay shots.
The other issue I just had was the P0300 code came back. I have newly gapped plugs, new wires, cam sensor. I assume what is left is new coil packs since its not telling me what cylinder is the issue?
Im doing a lot of reading on the P0300 misfire code. It seems like some people have success with plugs/wires/cam sensor. Others recommend the crank sensor or coil packs. Would replacing my timing wheel with and adjustable one have any ill effect on the crank sensor and possibly throw a code? Perhaps there is gunk build up, or it doesn't like the gap? I find it odd im getting this code a few miles after the turbo build. Could it be a failed part, sure, but I have a feeling the build has something to do with it.
Found 4 fun things this morning.
1. The new cam sensor was not tight enough. It was a hair loose and some oil was getting out. I must have gone easy on it since it seemed to fragile I didn't want to snap it on install.
2. the oil leak is still there after I cleaned it all up yesterday and reassembled it all. It literally seems to seep out of my intercooler silicone hoses then runs down the outside of the hard pipe.
3. my valve cover gasket looks a bit weepy... I didn't notice this before, so I almost wonder if I am pressurizing the VC? With a piggy back system like this, can I vent a catch can to atmosphere? Could I simply remove the PCV valve all together? I thought I was following the catch can thread suggestions.
4. my BRAND NEW turbo drain line magically leaked today. It has had no issues since I replaced it and WHALA, yesterday's drive made it leak. Leaked from the turbo connection. I replaced that line on the work bench to make sure I did it right and tight.
This is becoming more and more frustrating. The damn thing seems to have oil coming from everywhere, and im getting really tired of taking the dam hot side apart to redo lines. I have a week and a half before the first track day, I can redo the turbo drain hose later, but I really need to figure out this oil pouring out of my TB and the P0300 code. The P0300 code has me lost. New plugs gapped to .03, new wires, new cam sensor, the car runs perfectly, it will just start flashing the code at me after about 10-15 minutes of driving hard. I don't want to throw parts at a problem, but Im not sure where to go next.
Last edited by Swanpuppy; 04-20-2019 at 10:37 AM.
Reason: more info
You have succeeded in doing something very wrong. You have connected your valve cover to your pressure side of your turbo. When you go into boost you are pressurizing your entire crankcase. When you are in vacuum you're pushing oil into your intercooler. You have completely misconstrued how these systems work. Plug the vacuum leak that you created in your intercooler piping and vent that damn hot side to atmosphere.
Wooooooow, I be dumb. Thanks for pointing that out. I pulled the entire set up off the donor car and just reconnected everything were it was, I didn't even check to see if the connections made sense. This would explain why the donor car seemed to leak oil everywhere.
I will seal that up and connect the hose from the OCC to the actual intake per the catch can thread. Or I could try a filter like you suggested, I just wonder if it will drip on the track.
OH, yeah, that is very wrong. Hotside charge pipe hooked up to the valve cover.. pressurizing the crankcase and turbo can't drain among other things. Hopefully your motor seals back up when you fix that.
03-27-2019, 11:01 AM
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