Little boost and Major loss in engine power(little to no power to even stay running)

[Rollinon18z]

Ok guy's I know I am a newbie but I need some serious help here! OK drove my car to the cities from my place last couple days. About an hr drive. Finally a warm day today. Noticed I had a coolant leak in which I fixed and she is building pressure but not blowing that hot of heat. Its warm but not hot. Well drove back today and boosting has been acting funny. It boosts up to 5psi then acts very finicky and lurches the car back and fourth badly until I let off. Well today I was driving it and it kept losing power little by little, until finally it lost all power and had absolutely none and wouldn't even go forward. I let it cool down because it seemed very hot even though temp gauge read at half. Coolant temp on dms link was 220 and internal was around 170 or so. After cooling down I had power again just no boost over 5psi. I was able to drive around for awhile like that just no boost but it had power. I got home plugged in the tuner again to make sure it wasn't overheating and shit it started running real rough and I smelled fuel pretty gross coming out the tail pipe. I did not see white smoke or anything of the sort. It is tuned for 80% E85 and 20% 91. Now I noticed I accidentally didn't use non Oxygenated 91 the last 2 fill up could this be an issue? I just don't get what is going on with this thing. Anyone have any ideas on where I should even begin with this thing? BTW it is a 6bolt 1G motor

 

[Breezio69]

Boost leak.. sounds as bad as mine was, went from 13psi to 7 with the exact symptoms. That for the power part.

The cooling bugs can be loose fittings, collapsing hoses, clogged radiator or passages. Kinda tough to tell

Edit, mine smelled really rich when I had a boost leak as well because its thinking its pushing more air than it really is.... you have to think about the way the air enters... its metered before the turbo, then you lose it all after the turbo before the motor. So the car is dumping fuel for x amount of metered air, its only getting y amount of actual air though.



This crack was lurking on the back side of one of my couplers... couldnt see it or feel it installed

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[Rollinon18z]

Thank you for that pal I will try that for sure and check all of the boost couplers and pressure test. I took out this little plastic piece right behind the cold air intake to fit the cone filter I flipped the piece upside down so it would work better. It is a small flat piece screwed to the filter attatched to the MASS AIR FLOW METER. I didn't think that would make that much of a problem. But loos of complete engine power can be because of boost leak? Thanks for your insight I will check that right away.

 

[Breezio69]

Yeah, my car would do ok when it was out of boost. But even a transition from 1psi back down to vacuum would cause a lunge. And when I would get to around 5-7 psi the car would just fall flat on its face... best way I could describe it is like the car was "breathing through a straw". I could just feel the power curve go flat, and the turbo sounded about twice as loud as normal. My girlfriend even noticed the sound and she never notices anything haha

 

[Rollinon18z]

OK well I hope that is vaccume leak but as for complete power loss before even boosting? any ideas? I can drive for a bit shut it down and it is normal. Then like I said yesterday I drove it home let it idle and it all of a sudden died got it started but then not even enough power to drive it into the garage. I had to push it into the garage... Thanks for your help thus far.
Plus everything is almost new on the car, the engine, turbo etc. I changed out the plugs yesterday to bpr8es's I hope these are what people are running

 

[Rollinon18z]

UPDATE: Figured out what the problem is! The spark plugs are working themselves loose. can't believe it was such an easy fix. They are still somewhat working themselves loose but I am always checking them now. I keep buying new NGK BPR7ES and just keep tourqing them down.(It's by hand which is I am guessing my problem) So hopefully I can get them to stay in place this time . Thanks everyone for your advice!