Bad smell under boost?

[Enraged78]

Hey all,

I've got a 1995 Eagle Talon TSi AWD. It's one of the elusive early builds from the DSM plant with the vented rear disks, cranky ABS, and rear LSD. Anyway, I picked this car up for about $2000.00 in May. I have performed many repairs on the car in hopes of getting it cherry before I start to mod it. I've spend $1500 in parts so far including: new brakes all around, new clutch slave, new inner tie rod ends, new wheel bearings, four wheel alignment, new O2 sensor, plugs, wires, new sway bar bushings, front and rear, and lots of miscelaneous parts to quiet rattles. I only replaced the parts that needed fixing, and this was after three mitsu mechanics looked at it. It went to the track and managed a 15.5 at 4000 elevation, with 100+ degree temps. MPH was about 90-92. This was also with a dying clutch slave cylinder, which I have since replaced. The clutch does not slip anymore, and has only 30K on it. Holds perfect now. Anyway, the car has 156,000 on it. it has a new head, timing belt, tranny, and transfer case. I don't have a boost gauge on it yet, it's going on this weekend. The only mod so far is the BCS removal. Here's my question: When I hit boost, I smell a kind of 'rotten eggs' smell. This only happens under boost, but it stinks really bad with the windows down. The car does not smoke at all under idle, and lets out some gray(?) smoke when it boosts hard, but very little. I'm getting about 26MPG on the highway, and 22 in the city. I'm 100% sure that it's not the valve guide seals, and the rings also look good. The engine does not burn any oil. Is this the cat dying, or the turbo? Is it both? I'm going to do a intake leak test this weekend, that and a boost gauge should tell me a lot. I've got a 14b I want to put on the car, but I don't want it on there until I know that the engine is cherry.

Sorry for the long post, but more info is better than less. Any input that anyone has would be great.

Thanks in advance,
Matt.

 

[doug]

The cat was my first guess, but I'm certainly no expert in this area.

 

[NosLaser]

Could be that half eaten tuna melt I left under your seat last week...

Regards,

 

[Enraged78]

Yeah, who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? MMMM Rotting tuna... Aughghg.

Later,
Matt.

 

[NosLaser]

Cool to see that you were a good sport about that. I would seriously look to the cat to be your first source of a bad smell. If it's not the cat, the only other thing I can think of is perhaps something is wrapped around the exhaust, and burning, creating a smell. However, since you say it only happens under boost, it may not be the foreign object burning on the exhaust thing. Try the cat.

Regards,

 

[Enraged78]

Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it. I have removed some of the heat shields, and the insulating material as well, but not all of it. I removed the lower sheld from the downpipe to the cat, but the upper is still there. Any water in the insulation might contribute to this problem, so I'll get the rest out this weekend. One question for you, though. I'm pretty sure now that the cat's toast, as it has 160K on it, and it's getting kinda weak. I'm planning on doing a 2.5" turbo back with a 2.5" high flow cat, but I can't really afford to do that right now. I'm heading back to the track in a month, and was considering a hollow cat to hold me over for a little while (if the cat's dead, emmisions aren't an issue anyway). How much of a nasty smell will that generate? Will I see a decent performance gain with it? How about with that and a 14b?

Thanks in advance,
Matt.

 

[doug]

I don't have a cat and the smell, while a little worse than if there were a cat present, isn't bad. And it's not a sulfurish "rotten egg" type smell.

 

[Enraged78]

Thanks a lot for the reply. Now I definately know what I'm going to do here. I will hollow out the cat, remove all of the insulation, do a leak test, and install the 14b with boost gauge. That should aleviate all of my troubles, and allow me to get into the 14's at the track with little effort.

Thanks!
Matt.