Fuel Cut???

[TSI4Life]

Hello.

So here's the long story of my problem. I bought a 97 Eagle Talon from a kid who knew absolutely nothing about the car at all. (his first car) It had a blown head gasket when I got it so i replaced the Headgasket, a few sensors i broke, water pump, timing belt and pulleys, balance shaft belt, fuel filter, and basically a full tune up. So I have finally got it running and it hits fuel cut ALL THE TIME. I have to baby it all the time. It came with a manual boost controller so I just eliminated it and put it back to stock to see if this would fix the problem... NOPE. The kid told me that he was hitting 20lbs of boost before it blew up!?!? Idk if that was true or not but the turbo does have some shaft play. My real concern is that my car is hitting fuel cut when its only boosting at 8 psi. It wants to reach 10+lbs but it cant it cuts out. If i ride it real long in low gear and baby it up in the rpm's then it will get to 10lbs but anything over that it just cuts out . Another question I came across was when I was re-checking the vaccum lines the skematic showed a vaccum line connecting directly to the turbine housing... However, when I look at the turbo, there is no fitting to be found. BUT! When you look at the turbocharger u can see a small hole that was welded and the side of the housing lookes like it had been grinded with a grinder. My question is... where the heck do I start? Is there a fluke in my fuel system I should be looking for? Such as (check fuel pressure?)Or is my turbo just shot from being abused because I know that these stock turbo's (which im assuming that it is) have an internal wastegaste which means if their damaged the turbo needs to be replaced. This car is pretty much stock except for a full 3in exhaust from the turbo back, thicker spark plug wires, and an after market boost guage. I also forgot to mention that the car is an automatic. Thats it. Any help from anybody is greatly appreciated... Thank you.

 

[Jason G]

Without a doubt, you have a significant boost leak somewhere.

 

[GsxAZman]

Yes as stated above you definately have a boost leak. Make a cheapo boost leak tester and track down your problem. If thats not it than there are other things that can be checked such as condition of plugs. There are several different ways to get boost reference such as j pipe or turbo housing so maybe he hooked up his stock boost solenoid or an aftermarket mbc into a different location and just plugged that location. Nothing out of the ordinary for a dsmer to do.

 

[TSI4Life]

I figured it out thanks to reading FAQ forum about fuel cut and what not. It turns out that my spark plugs were gapped incorrectly. They were at 46 and needed to be at 26. Thanks for the help guys! Ohhh and the boost controller work now!!! YAY!