My cold engine has problems

[imnotdilbert]

Okay, I am new at this, and this is the first forum I have posted on, so bear with me, I also dont know too much about these cars...

I have a 1992 Talon TSI AWD, it has about 130,000 miles on it. Here is my problem.
When the engine is cold, it constantly trys to stall. When I push the gas pedal, it sputters and dies. It also has no power untill it is warmed up. So far I have tested all of the sensors, and checked the grounds. There are no I/C line leaks, the timing is dead on and the ecu has had the capacitors replaced. The ISC is operating fine, and the egr path is clear. There are no appearent bad connections. I just put in all new 450cc stock injectors. I replace the manifold, and saw that the turbo has a large crack in the exhaust side. I was wondering if this could possiably be part of my problem?
I was also wondering if anyone had some instructions to test the mas. There are no steps in my shop manual.
By the way, this car is fully stock other than a manual boost controller.

 

[laserboost]

The car should still run and not die if the turbo is dead so I don't think that's the problem.

 

[highpsi93tsi]

None of these cars run good untill they're warm. How much boost? Do you have an aftermarket boostguage on it? Does it spike all over the place? When you start the car cold hold the key right before it starts untill you hear the fuel pump come on. Let it prime for a couple seconds and it shouldnt sputter.
Is the check engine light on? Could also be the intake air temp sensor in the mas.

 

[imnotdilbert]

Im going to rule out turbo problems now...
There is no check engine light on. I know it works, if I unplug the mas it turns on.
I always let the fuel pump prime from habit, because my daily driver wont start unless I do.
I still have the stock boost gauge, but the guy I bought the car from said he had the boost controller installed in a shop, and they supposedly set it to 14 pounds. There was something I noticed on the stock gauge, when the car is cold and running badly, the boost gaug jumps around at idle, and when i press the gas pedal, it flys right up around the three quarter mark before it stalls. Might this indicate a vacuum leak? I havent been able to find one yet. Another thing Im thinking about, does the boost controller get its reading from the mas? I just bought a used one off ebay for $5.00, but it wont be here for a week. I tested the IAT on it and it had a pretty far out reading.

There are some other symptoms I should mention. When the car is warm, it bucks fairly hard, as though some one taping on the gas pedal.

Anyone know of a good inexpensive aftermarket boost gauge? I dont care whether its vacuum or electronic, as long as is fairly accurate.

In the meantime, im going to keep poking around, if anyone has any ideas, im open to suggestion.

 

[Nautica985]

Have you checked the coolant tempature senser? It also sounds like you might have a boost leak. here is how you can check for boost leaks http://www.vfaq.com/mods/ICtester.html

 

[Nirvana]

id say its the Idle Speed Controller, get it checked out, its cheap to replace

 

[imnotdilbert]

Okay, so I decided to try the ic line test to make sure there were no leaks anywhere in the system. I discovered it held 0 psi. I took the line that goes from the bov to the intake manifold, and blew in it. All of the air rushes right out into the exhaust from the drivers side of the engine. It appears at lease one cylinder has no compression. As far as I know, there shouldnt be any time when both sets of valves are open. If I crank the engine, it still does it.

Any ideas?

 

[LaserDad91]

Okay, so I decided to try the ic line test to make sure there were no leaks anywhere in the system. I discovered it held 0 psi. I took the line that goes from the bov to the intake manifold, and blew in it. All of the air rushes right out into the exhaust from the drivers side of the engine. It appears at lease one cylinder has no compression. As far as I know, there shouldnt be any time when both sets of valves are open. If I crank the engine, it still does it.

Any ideas?

Sounds like your doing a good job on troubleshooting, but have you ck'd your compression? That would possibly verify, your gut feeling that maybe you have lost a cylinder. Good luck, maybe you only have a burnt valve??

 

[imnotdilbert]

Okay, I am tearing my engine down, and am going to pull the head off it tomorrow, any advice before I do??

 

[turboTSi1320]

Where your pluggs and wires good? Check them any way.. Only NGK R's will work right in these cars. No Bocsh plugs..

 

[imnotdilbert]

Yeah, I had the ngks, plus new plug wires.

 

[imnotdilbert]

Okay, so I fixed my car, there were various vacuume leaks and other misc things happenin, along with valves.

So I was test driveing it about a half hour ago, and it was running great untill it suddenly bogged down and started backfireing real bad and all of the lights dimmed and flashed, then the check engine light came on. I think I have an electrical problem now.

Frusterated and tired: Does any one have any idea where to start on this?

 

[raggenrob]

These cars have very poor grounds i would go through all ground wires and add a couple from battery to body and to motor good luck i had bad ground did similar to your car with my wife in car nothing but crying and bitching but i migivered it and got her home changed out the stock connections all is ok now seee ya !!!

 

[imnotdilbert]

It ends up my altenator ate its self. After replaceing it, car runs fine. Also went ahead and got a new battery, the old one was getting weak.

 

[Byrd]

Bringing an old thread back to life : i just started haveing that same problem. I just got new NGK 7 series gapped at .028. When i press the gas (when it's cold) i lose vacuum and my lights dim and i get this weird sound coming from the exhaust. My car runs really slow and sometimes stalls so i just wait for it to get warm. When it's all warmed up it runs fine. I recently burnt an alternater fuse but i got that replaced. Do you think my alternater is going out? i'm going to try and prime the fuel pump tomarrow maybe thatll take care of it. I just hope i didn't lose a cylinder

 

[T5Kthrasher]

Im also having a issue with my baby in this cold weather. (95 awd 5sp)

Until she is at full running temp she stumbles all over the place and i can barely get her down the road.

All was good until this cold front kicked in the last week or 2.


could it possibly be due to the fact that I have the throttle position sensor unplugged? (staying that way until I get DSM-link "before she was stammering around 3k and unplugging it fixed it")


WTF

Its finaly snowy and i have to wait for ever to use the AWD

 

[tbob2985]

in my 91 and the 95 Eclipse GS i had before this both cars didn't run as good if i didn't let them warm up in cold weather. i put aftermarket spark plugs and wires and both and just let them warm up and let my oil pressure drop down a little and they run just fine for me.

 

[rs-t eclipse]

it sounds like you egr is going out. my eclipse is running like yours in the mournings and winter time until it warms up. but i have a check engine light for it. what the egr does is puts hot exhaust gases in to the intake air so the air is warmed and not cold. to help the engine run better when its cold.