2G My 2g was smited and caught fire. Now idles poorly.

[Fallen2g]

Hey guys, newbie here. Longtime lurker. Hoping we could play some Dr. House on my 2g.
I have a 2g Eaglebishi Talipse Tsi gstx (more on this on a sec)

So, as per the title, yes, my car caught fire (in front of a church no less) but that isn't actually the problem as i fixed everything that was burnt.
Let me give you a little background so that hopefully we can do a differential diagnosis on what's actually going on with the frankentalonclipse.

My car originally was a 95 talon tsi awd std. The previous owner got in a accident which totaled the body but not the drivetrain. So he bought a 96 eclipse gst automatic chassis which he proceded to to convert to awd and swap the internals in so henceforth it became the tsi awd gst-x.

Here's the parts that came with the car (no such thing as stock dsm nowadays):
Evo 8 ecu
HKS knockoff bov (without the adjuster screw on top, had to block it off)
Ebay front mounter intercooler
Ebay turbo (don't know the size of it, prev owner told me it was chinese and a size bigger than stock)
Innovate motorsports digital wideband meter
Innovate Motorsports Wideband in the stock 02 location
rinky dink boostgauge
Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator
Injen intake, the recirculating type, k&n filter

Now the reason why it caught fire is because I had put in a battery that was too tall for the engine bay and the positive terminal touched the underside of the bonnet on a place where it wasnt painted. This happened while I was on my way home and just in front of the last church on the way home. So probably I was smited by a deity for driving an abominable frankenstein. Which resulted in me missing work the next day, and subsequently getting fired from my job later for this reason. (the reason why i had changed the battery was also another series of unfortunate events)

Now, what was damaged was the battery, the fusebox, the engine wiring harness and the ss clutch line. A little bit of the plastic battery undertray. I managed to put the heavenly fire out with a large sized McDonalds coke.

I replaced the whole fusebox harness with another 2g one (had to add a few plugs from the old harness that were missing but for $50 I can't complain). No issues here, came with fuses too.

I replaced the engine harness with a 97 harness. Praised be, it came with the clips for everything that plugs into the mani (one i used to have didnt) I had to cut the CAS cable wiring and plug in the old one because my CAS is on the drivers side and not on the passenger side. I also noticed the car didn't come with a starter solenoid, neither did the new harness. I saw that the plug had a wire connecting one to the other, since I didn't have a new one. I did the same as well since it worked just fine before.

I also noticed that on the 97 there is 2 solenoids for the fuel pump and the mpi(forgot what it's called) instead of being a once piece for the 96. Left it as is.

Slapped on the factory ecu (car came with a lot of bonus parts) and turned it on. Now the car idles really lean (22.4+ which is the max the AFM reads) until the point of stalling. I accelerate it and it stutters until it reaches a certain rpm and then it regains itself. Sometimes it has the tendendy to "fix" itself after it's been turned on. It happens when the car is cold AND and normal operating temperature. If the car fixes itself and I turn it off, it does it again.

I naturally checked the IAC. Cleaned the passages. No avail. Cracked it open to clean it and lube it. No avail. I dont have a multimeter, so i made a tester light out of a led i ripped out of an old PC case. And there is atleast current coming from the 12v pins to the IAC. I left the IAC out but plugged (hue!) and put the car on the ON position to see if it started. It didn't move, but just to make sure i added a little piece of tape to the cylinder to see if it did, and it didn't.

Called previous owner. He told me to not plug it in, because it doesnt work. He had it unplugged, with the FIAV blocked and the idle was adjusted using the BISS.

With the car on I adjusted the screw downwards so that it would run richer. It still didnt fix my problem. Also swapped back in the EVO 8 ecu back in. Same problem. It persists until it doesn't. What am I missing? It was running just fine before.

FPR is at 43.5psi with vacuum hose off. Car doesn't have a boost control solenoid or mbc. The wastegate vacuum hose is plugged to the intercooler cold side piping. Not sure if that helps.

Sorry for the wall of text. I can take pics and vids if need be. I'm at my wits end, less than $100 in the bank and unemployed, eating white rice with fried eggs erryday. I ain't no mechanic, thanks in advance.

 

[doubleclutch]

I can't believe I actually read all that.

Stop driving it immediately. If it is that lean at idle you are likely to melt it at WOT. I don't even know where to start. I guess start by doing a boost leak test. You may be getting a large amount of unmetered air.

 

[Dstarperformance01]

+1 to that ^^^

 

[Fallen2g]

I can't believe I actually read all that.

Stop driving it immediately. If it is that lean at idle you are likely to melt it at WOT. I don't even know where to start. I guess start by doing a boost leak test. You may be getting a large amount of unmetered air.

Haha yeah sorry about that, there's probably a thousand things wrong with this car. I've NEVER driven it at WOT since i got it. And I can't not NOT drive it because it's my only car. I just leave it idling until it decides to behave. I've just been babying it shifting at 2k. When I step on the accelerator it goes back down to normal AF ratios.

as far as the boost leak goes, this aint scientific i know, but i took an empty windex sprayer and filled it with water, sprayed every vacuum hose in the car. Brake booster, every silicon joint from the intake to the turbo, all the joints from the intercooler. Every Vacuum hose connected to the intake manifold to see if something changed. Nothing happened. TB is clean, it closes shut. What I find weird is that after a while it "fixes" itself.

Is something triggering in the ecu to compensate for this?

 

[ThunderChild]

This sounds like a post maf/pre turbo air leak. Check that and pcv system to make sure nothing came unhooked or a hole in a vacuum line.

 

[Fallen2g]

This sounds like a post maf/pre turbo air leak. Check that and pcv system to make sure nothing came unhooked or a hole in a vacuum line.

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions. I was retrying the vacuum theory and misted the whole engine bay again, no change. However, I did notice that if I misted in the area of the power steering pump and the car raised it's RPM noticeably. It does this consistently 100%. is there anything in that area that would cause such a phenomena?

Also, I realized while inside the car that if I press the accelerator pedal after 2.5k rpm, the coolant temp needle went down. Kinda like a reverse tachometer. Any thoughts?

 

[doubleclutch]

How does spraying the engine bay with water help you diagnose vacuum leaks or boost leaks?

Do a boost leak test. Google how to do it. It involves pressurizing your intake system.

 

[miliman13]

I actually enjoyed reading your well written, properly spaced paragraphs.

which is refreshing and rare on this site especially from new members, so I applaud you on that.

but you need to do the proper test to determine if you actually have any leaks which you most definitely do, start there and then go forth.

 

[Fallen2g]

How does spraying the engine bay with water help you diagnose vacuum leaks or boost leaks?

Do a boost leak test. Google how to do it. It involves pressurizing your intake system.

Well because it's it's a vacuum leak, it should suck water in and the behaviour of the car would change. If it's blowing out air somewhere, it should make a funny sound, bubble, etc. It's the poor man's way of checking these things (less than $10 on my account now)

I actually enjoyed reading your well written, properly spaced paragraphs.

which is refreshing and rare on this site especially from new members, so I applaud you on that.

but you need to do the proper test to determine if you actually have any leaks which you most definitely do, start there and then go forth.

Thank you, you inspired me (if someone says go forth, it's too epic not to comply) to recheck again (and again) for any leaks which I didn't find any with my hose test, i upped the ante with a soapy water test. Found nothing.

Went around looking at all my electricals, noticed that the engine harness wasn't grounded to the chassi, it was bolted to the rusty plate that holds the radio, i bolted it on to the same plate at the bottom where it actually screws into the chassis, no change.

I decided to disconnect the yellow wire from the MtXL wideband gauge from the ecu. And voila, the car runs just fine until i connect it again and it does the same thing. Now the car runs a bit rich, 1-2points of air too rich. But it doesnt stutter, or hunt, or stall and uses quite a lot more gasoline than it normally did.

My hypothesis is (by reading the gauge manual) 1, the o2 sensor wire for the stock o2 is still connected to the ecu which could be fudging up the readings because there is no stock o2. Which could explain if i poured water over the power steering that water could have touched the stock o2 wire dangling around somewhere in the area and changed the reading to the ecu causing the car to accelerate.

2. I have the ecu on the passenger side floorboard and it's not sharing the same ground as the gauge, which the manual recommends that I do which could also affect something somewhere especially my head (the headaches are real)

Sorry for the wall of text again guys, I PROMISE I will come back and let you know what I find.