Help, Lost boost at track day
 

At the end of my third run today I lost boost. All hoses are tight, and car still runs. I can here the turbo spooling, it just doesn't make any boost. I think the problem is that the diaphragm in the wastegate actuator is finally shot. I have four sessions tomorrow that I would like to complete.

Is this temporarily fixable? Can I manually adjust the actuator rod to close the wastegate partially? This should result in some boost or will this just burn something up?

Is it ok to run it the way it is? It should just act like a slower version of a stock car since I'll be feeding it hot air instead of high pressure hot air.

its done. if you just slightly open the flapper, it has the chance to burn up being permanently half open.

if your actuator was shot, your wastegate wouldn't open and you'd see major boost.



check your actuator rod arm and make sure it didn't pop off and double check all your couplers.

If rod is still attached and couplers ok, any other suggestions? I am at the hotel right now with no tools.

Is it still ok to drive it? I'm in birmingham, AL and at least need to get to Huntsville, AL It drives fine the way it is

Side Note: Track was awsome. passed a bunch of porsches. Some poor guy blew up his car trying to stay in front of me.

I'll check my vacuum hoses going to the wastegate actuator. Maybe its a old cracked hose or something.

Check all your charge pipe couplers for cuts.

If you had a cracked hose to the WG can you would have no signal to the can and it wouldn't open. You'd have lots of boost not no boost.

You have a BOV failure or a blown IC pipe. Check them again, and then again, and then again until you find the cut/loose hose you missed. If the WG fails open, the turbo won't make any noise at all. If the WG fails closed, you'll make too much boost.

Thanks guys, It turned out to be a hose that felt connected on one side, but it was clearly out of the coupler on the back side. I was in a real panic. Should be easy fix. Coupler doesn't appear to be damaged. I'll be ready to wreak havoc once again.

Barber is a tough track, but its a lot of fun. Not many straights which makes it perfect for my car. Talk about feeling out of place when I pulled up and the tech area is full of gt2's gt3's, a ferrari, ford gt, multiple lotus cars, new zr1, bunch of z06's. However, there were two other miatas. My car is absolutely amazing on the track. I was worried my car would be one of the low performers. feels good when you pass a car that cost 10 to 15 times what mine does. I'm not even running r-comps, just kumho ast's. However, with as hot as it was the tires started giving up after 3 laps.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the update. Thanks again for the help.

Barber is a cool track. I would love to get my Miata on it. I've only been around it on a sport bike. Glad you got your car fixed. Now go beat up on some more of those expensive cars :D

Today was a good day. I really got the line down and braking the car for the turns. I passed a bunch of cars and two 911's at one time in the museum turns. I can't describe how good it feels to have someone looking at you in their wing mirror because you are eating their ass end for lunch. Finally forced them to wave me by, then the car in front of him waved me by at the same time. Biggest lesson I learned is how and when to brake. Don't brake while turning!!! I spun going into turn 1 because I started to turn while braking. If I had just stayed straight for another second, let of the brake and turned, I would have been fine. These DE events are technically not racing, but that's almost a line of bs. Everyone is learning, running hard, and not wanting to be passed. It's amazing how much harder you'll go when you find yourself closing the gap on the car in front of you. I did have another pipe come loose from the coupler, but thanks to everyone here it was an easy find and fix this time around. There's a good hot lap video on the barber Porsche driving school website if anyone wants to see the track. I used it to help study the line.