drawing a blank....

[jj9320tsi]

this car was someone else's project car before i inhereted it, my problem is really bothering me... The car starts, hard but it starts. motor was rebuilt prior to purchase. It's a 92.5 Auto, compression is perfect, cams and engine are timed correctly, fuel pressure is perfect. Here's the interesting part, all thru idle a/f gauge reads at the last 2 bars on the lean side of the gauge and blows a super rich cloud out the exhaust... the car hesitates off idle but then pulls perfectly but even under full load the gauge barely hits one bar into stoich. Any help would be very appreciated. Thanks everyone

 

[mitsocruiser]

Have you checked the coil are the plugs and wires it sounds to me your not making enough spark just my 2 cents could be wrong im a 420 A kind of guy

 

[Wizeman76]

I think your turbo is blown. The burnt oil and water is clogging up the O2 sensor giving poor readings. I had the same problem on a turbo'd N/T, turned out the turbo was blown. I turned the car back to N/T and now it runs awesome.

 

[GST racer]

Id agree with ^^ but wouldnt a blown turbo cause a lot of smoke to come out of the exhaust in boost? The o2 sensor might be bad, or the wiring between the o2 sensor, the ecu, and the a/f gauge might be messed up. Check all that wiring out, especially if some shop mechanic just replaced the motor, and didnt pay much attention to wiring of gauges and such.

as for the hard start, maybe because you are in illinois, with cold weather? just a thought, my car has hard starts in the cold.

 

[jj9320tsi]

I've been in the automotive technician field for quite some time now and i haven't had this much of a headache since the 88 Mitsu Starion I owned....the coils are within specs on both primary and secondary sides, the plugs and wires are new, the turbo being shot might be a spot to start maybe when this b.s. 15 degree weather goes away. The gauges were installed by me so i know they they're wired correctly, as for the mentioning of excessive smoke coming out under boost.....
The car doesn't smoke when idling until it warms up then it'll start but very faintly after it hits boost is where it really gets to smoking kinda like a broke stove. So if it isn't the turbo any other hints or suggestions? Thanks guys

 

[GST racer]

I've been in the automotive technician field for quite some time now and i haven't had this much of a headache since the 88 Mitsu Starion I owned....the coils are within specs on both primary and secondary sides, the plugs and wires are new, the turbo being shot might be a spot to start maybe when this b.s. 15 degree weather goes away. The gauges were installed by me so i know they they're wired correctly, as for the mentioning of excessive smoke coming out under boost.....
The car doesn't smoke when idling until it warms up then it'll start but very faintly after it hits boost is where it really gets to smoking kinda like a broke stove. So if it isn't the turbo any other hints or suggestions? Thanks guys

ohhhhhhhh ok in your first post you said at idle it blows a super rich cloud of smoke out of the exhaust.

if it only smokes a little at idle and at boost smokes a LOT, it could be a blown turbo or bad valve seals/guides.

 

[jj9320tsi]

my mistake on the original idle statement, the valve guides and seals were replaced already by me to be on the safe side back in june when i bought the car. I guess that leaves me only one particular culprit.... as soon as it gets at least 35 degrees warmer than now(12 degrees) that turbo is getting tossed in the junk bin with the other parts that came with the car