It has been a while. Some minor updates.
I got my first door ding last week. Some red car dings me good. The picture don't show the big dent but it's pretty bad for a door ding. I didn't want to spend too much time trying to capture the blemish as it pisses me off. almost 40k miles and then a careless d!ck comes along.
I had a over boosting bug that has been around for a while. It seems I am over boosting over spring pressure by an estimated 40%. My 7.5lb spring will boost to 12.5 lbs. The 5.5 lbs spring will boost to 8.2lbs of boost.
Things I have done:
-take off the top port of the wastegate to run pure spring pressure. Results in 40% higher boost than spring.
-changed form 7.5 lbs spring to 5.5lb spring. Results in 40% higher boost.
This at least is consistent and narrows it down to the waste gate itself. I think carbon build up in the waste gate is causing friction and in turn requiring more pressure to open the spring up (no bleeding off of compressed air) which means more compressed air to my engine.
I rigged up a tire pump so I could blow air into the waste gate to test that it worked correctly. Unfortunately, my air regulator was not able to precisely blow 5.5lbs but it did show that the WG opened at 5-10lbs psi.
It was when I took the WG apart that I noticed lots of carbon build up. I'm catless right now so I'm not surprised. I did a quick brushing and had to slap her back together as I didn't have the time or equipment to thoroughly clean them.
Lastly I had to make sure that my EBC/Boost Gauge was reading correctly. I bought a cheap mechanical boost gauge and rigged it up. I made a few pulls. Ok Ok, a few dozen pulls to check if they 2 boost reading where the same. They were so my EBC checks out ok.
Things to do to try and solve the problem. I will tear teh WC apart and clean it when I get the chance. I bought some 000 steel wool to clean the WG parts. In the hard to reach or stubborn parts, I will use my cheap $20 media blaster with walnut shell media and blast the parts clean. Once Again, Back on the lift she goes. I will do my maintenance all at the same time. Oil change, turbo filter change, check clamps to make sure they are on nice and snug, and change out my oversized t-bolt clamps on my water cooling hoses (4 clamps). I bought 1 size to big and don't like how they are so I bought 4 smaller ones to replace the replacements.
Almost 10k miles boosted and 100+ runs down the drag strip. It's been fun.
YzGyz