Starving for fuel? Help Please!

[DturboSloverM]

Well here's the situation...my buddy has a 90 talon tsi awd with a galant jdm engine swapped into it. He bought it like this last august, when it was running perfectly, but he did not have enough money to put it on the road at that time. In november of last year, all of a sudden it would not start. We couldn't figure it out for the life of us, so we just let it sit in a garage until may. He finally brought it to a garage, and after hundreds of tests, they determined it was the ecu. After 2 months of looking for one and a delayed shipping experience, we finally got a hold of one and put it in. It started, and idled really nice, but when you start to rev it up slowly it just bogs out at like 1500 rpm. But if you hammer the gas and hold it down it will bog out for a second, then once it hits 3000 or so rpms it revs all the way up the redline really nice. The mechanic thinks it might be a vaccuum leak, but i have a feeling it is something fuel related. Fuel filter maybe? Injectors? He actually has a new set of big venom injectors that he bought a while ago that haven't been installed yet...so we're probably going to do that. We're really stuck here. Any suggestions, comments are welcome. Thanks.

 

[DturboSloverM]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it has a 3" intake on it with only the hookup for the bov recircultating tube. The other two lines are not connected...what are they? Help please!

 

[DturboSloverM]

Nobody at all? Thanks for the help guys...

 

[94EclipseGST]

Check for boost leaks first before spending money on any other components. Boost leak will cause those problems and fuel cut problems.

It could be that he is running too rich or too lean. Did he do any modifications at all?

 

[DturboSloverM]

He has 3" exhaust from the cat back to a magnaflow race series exhaust, 3" intake piping, dejon tool uicp with a turbo xs h34 bov, short throw shifter, and that's about it. He has a new boost controller along with an autometer boost gaugeto put on too...should we do that first?

 

[94EclipseGST]

Yeah, go ahead and put the controller and gauge on the car, then check for boost leaks. Those could be leaking too, so you might as well have them hooked up before you check.

I'm guessing boost leak, especially that he changed the intake and uic piping. Maybe the couplers are not sealing that well. Also, I have the H34, and that sucker was leaking at the base--I had to put some silicone to seal it up.

You said the car was running perfectly when he first got it...were the intake and all that already installed, or were these items he put on afterward?

 

[DturboSloverM]

All the couplers for the intercooler piping are on there nice and secure, I'm pretty sure that's not it. I can't really see the bov leaking as well, since it's on the custom flange really tight. Thing is though, it was doing this before we put the new piping on. He had just got it after it started acting up, so we put it on and it didn't change anything. All of the mods were added after he bought the car. Do you know what I'm talking about when I said those two other lines are not hooked up on the intake? There is the recirculation tube for the bov, then there were two other hoses going into the stock tube near the turbo that we did not hook up because there were no spots for them. I researched it a bit and what I came across said that they didn't matter...can you confirm this?

 

[94EclipseGST]

The two lines you are talking about are not necessary to hook back up. One goes to the charcoal canister, and is for polution control (just face it toward the ground), and the other is from the valve cover, but you should just place a filter on the end of that one, or get one of those fancy catch cans.

I still think you have a boost leak somewhere. I have dejon tool pipe with a custom flange for my H-34 and it was still leaking around the flange. You know, the H-34 only connects with a couple of screws, and is not very secure in my opinion.

 

[DturboSloverM]

Well we'll see what happens after we look at it this weekend. I'll keep you updated...thanks for helping though.